Selling Cars

Forever changed?

With the Unite Union making ominous predictions about the closure of a big UK car plant – and the loss of thousands more jobs – the car market continues to take a hammering beyond most people's wildest expectations.

The questions is starting look less like “when will the recovery start?” and more like – “will it ever recover at all?”

To say that new car sales have dropped off a cliff is no exaggeration. As these am-online figures show, the decline in sales has been nothing short of cataclysmic. Taking a few familiar names at random from the list and looking at how much their sales have fallen from Jan 2008 makes for grim reading:

Renault -59.27%
BMW -40.87%
Honda – 39.58%
Mitsubishi -72.84%
Peugeot -35.17
Vauxhall -28.03%

This ties in with the recent news that UK car production (that's not just registration or sales) is down almost 60% year on year. It's an amazing statistic, but one that seems inevitable given the swift rash of temporary closures and reductions in plants across the country.

Of course this means that cars are now selling for ludicrous prices. An article in the Times points out some of the most revealing deals. They even mention the dreaded D-word, stating that demand is falling at its fasted rate since the 1930s – with some dealers slashing prices by up to 50%.

Online broker Broadspeed also claims to be offering the mind-boggling deal of “three cars for the price of one”. If that doesn't signify a market in trouble, I don't know what does.

Used cars – a scarce resource?

As we always ask here at Sell Car UK, what does this mean for the used car market? The sheer scale of the crisis facing manufacturers is of course having profound knock-on effects for dealers, suppliers and used car sellers.

However, one effect in the short term will be that lower car sales means less part-exchanges. That in turn means that quality used cars become harder to find and more sought after by the dealers. It doesn't mean that used car prices will increase, of course, but it does mean that if you have a high quality vehicle you should be able to find car buyers.

In the longer term things aren't so rosy. With an average of 15.4% less paid for used cars in January compared to last year, we think that lots of used car dealers are going to be forced out of business in the coming months. Sell Car online will of course continue to offer the best, most convenient service available!