| Product: |
UK Car Prices and Importing |
| Date: |
25/09/00 (153 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Cars priced as they should be in line with other EU countries
Disadvantages: Huge used car market impact
For a long time, the UK has been called 'Treasure Island' by car manufacturers due to the vastly inflated prices they have been allowed to sell for in this country. The UK motorist has been footing the bill for large fleet buyers who are getting phenominal discounts. Granted they are buying by the thousand, but why should we have footed the bill? These fleet buyers for example car hire companies, run the car for about 9,000 miles then sell at an auction and still manage to make a profit on the sale!
Importing cars does seem a cheaper alternative but it is very hard to get manufacturers warranties unless one is purchased seperately at a higher cost. Some UK name dealers charge premiums for servicing cars purchased outside the UK to recover the lost revenue 'by the back door'. Many manufacturers heavily cost load right hand drive cars as they know it is UK only and call it a 'UK Kit Price'. This cost is hidden behind the left hand drive standard of Europe being altered for one market.
Price fixing has finally crept out the woodwork. UK new car prices are coming down as fast as Tony Blair's election hopes. But, there is always a but, we are in for a lot of trouble.
Used cars are rapidly becoming almost worthless. That 'tidy little runner' Arthur daley knocked out for £750 is now a liability. Four year old 80,000 milers are going for this price now. Check it out in the latest car buyers guides. If you have a 5-6 year old well maintained car, sell it now and buy a new showroom car if you want anything back on its resale price for trade in. The only makes holding prices these days are Mercedes, Porsche and Ferrari.
This does invoke another problem (the but). If older used cars are virtually worthless, noone wants to buy them as 1 to 3 year old cars are in the 3 to 5 year old price bracket. What happens to this huge glut of older cars? Scrapping them is more difficult. The bottom has fallen out of scrap metal market pric
es. Long gone are the times when a scrappie would collect an old car AND pay you for it! Now they will charge for collection and even charge for cars driven into their yard. Now we have a huge environmental problem developing. Old cars will be dumped or burnt for insurance claims. The countryside will be littered with old rusting burned out cars and local authorities without the resources to get rid of them.
What a wonderful future we have to look forward to!
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 14/10/00 I can't really get to grips with your worries about cheaper cars. Cars are not an investment(usually) and therefore will always go down in value
OK your used car is worth less but so are all the others and so are new ones. So the net loss is minimal as there has been a realignment of the whole market.
It just basically means more people can afford better cars. Something I've been waiting for a long time. |
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- 25/09/00 Interesting point. I did not know about the recycling by the manufacturer. Living in beds, we have seen the start of the problem already. I can count about nine dumped old cars between my home and office, some have been there for six months. Local press is always raising the issue of the dangers caused by dumped vehicles. The problem with recycling has always been getting it back into mainstream products to be resold. Mentality is an issue as well. it is far less trouble to dump a car than to find out where to dispose of it properly.
Thanks for the comments. |
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- 25/09/00 I do feel your conclusion is overly pessimistic. The servicing issue of grey imports is not so important as I found even with a new UK-bought car I got a better deal for fixed-price serving with an independent garage that have access to all the genuine manufacturer’s parts at trade prices rather than overpriced services organised with the dealers.
The ‘glut’ of cheaper second-hand cars will allow those without the means to buy new cars choose newer, safer and greener cars for a modest investment. This would lead to reducing the number of dangerously old and unreliable cars on our roads. These cars can, under European law, be returned to the manufacturer for recycling or disposal.
More and more manufacturers are now gradually being made to take responsibility for their waste like other industries, this is not just that waste created in the production of products but those that are left after the products use.
This includes packaging of products and less obviously used cars, these manufacturers now have to use some of their profits to finance the disposal of ALL the waste associated with their products.
This has to be the responsibility of the manufacturers as it is these organisations that choose the use and amounts of materials for their products and therefore the value and ease of recycling them.
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