The £2,000 car

[workshopmanualman]

Bizarre, but it seems that if you've owned your 300 series for a year, then it may now be worth £2k against a new car. Citroen are doing a deal, admittedly for their old tat that they cannot sell for love nor money, but boy Brown may introduce the scheme Nationwide. Gone down big in other countries by all accounts. It's an interesting scheme, but something in the back of my head suggests that getting shot of cars that run fine, can be fixed by the home mechanic for peanuts, achieve 30mpg and look different to the Euro norm styling is just plain wrong. Furthermore if it is an enthusiasts car, then it may well be better maintained than all of these big credit specials that people run; we all know them - the M5's, Chelsea tractor's etc with balding tyres that the owner cannot afford to change. The ones you see putting £5 in the tank every day. I like my 360 saloon, but all of a sudden it is worth far more to scrap than to run? On a good day it's probably worth £500, but more like £300. Yet I could walk into a dealers and get £2k for it? The world's gone mad.

Could some of our European members enlighten us as to how this scheme has gone down in their country?

[jtbo]

All those dealers are doing are trying to remove as much of old cars from market as possible so that people must get new ones, they have done their math and for sure there is that 2000 added to cost of new car in form or another (parts, service which is required to maintain warranty).

It is common practise in here to offer 2000 euros from used car if it has MOT and still drives when you buy new car, Skoda, Subaru, Fiat etc. have used that tactic for years.

Sure it sounds tempting and if one does not do proper research about that it is easy to go into their trap.

[whiskeyonesix]

Its just a cunning ploy to get people to buy brand new cars (on credit naturally...) so the government doesnt have to keep bailing out the Automotive Industry. You'll have to pay inflated road tax on them as well if you live in the UK...... Isnt the road tax for a RangeRover sport or similar something like 400quid a year?

Gentlemen, I'm all for helping the economy and that, but I'd rather stick with a 1000dollar volvo than a 20,000dollar debt! Bangernomics..... it works!

[volvosneverdie]

Already thrashed this one out on RR:
http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.c ... 976&page=2


doesnt make sense environmentally.
The co2 to produce a new car, from scratch is far in exess of the 'extra' an older car will produce in its final 5-10 years. in my humble opinion.
Like you say, just a scheme to keep the car economy affloat.
Youd lose more than 2 grand buying any new car on finance anyway in intrest alone, so I really dont see the point.

[Chris_C]

I remember when I was looking for my first car (8 years ago) that there was a local garage offering a grand for anything with ticket, me and parents were trying to work out canny schemes to get me a better car for not much money. Everything in that dealers seemed to be a grand more expensive than everywhere else...

Car dealers will always move on either tradein, or on sale price, but the end figure will always be the same.

In the meantime...

http://www.sniffpetrol.com/2009/04/14/g ... e-fellers/

this amuses me

[volvosneverdie]

Genuis chris.
Good spot.

[workshopmanualman]

Well spotted Chris. Does sum it up rather well. Personally the maths don't quite add up either. You buy a £10k car, get £2k knocked off for your old one. Everybody is doing it, so in actual fact the £10k car is actually really an £8k car with the price bumped up to suit? So you gain an £8k car for £8k, on finance, which then starts to depreciate, but effectively get shot of your £500 old car for nothing? I'm pretty sure if you walked into a dealers without a p.ex they'd do a similar deal anyway if you were keen enough. Citroen and Renault especially. [And no way would I buy a Renault over my 20 year old heap - I've had a few of them to my regret, and everybody I know who has had one regard them as nothing but trouble.]

Short-term scheme designed to get those that have so far resisted the credit urge to sign on the dotted line to keep the gravy train running?

[Jos360]

Here in the Netherlands, They have a new rule that apart from the discount you get from the dealer when buying an >2001 car, your old <2001 car is worth a fixed amount. That rule is for "environmental matters" because old cars are said to be more pollutive than new cars. Offcourse it's more a rule to stimulate car-sales in times of credit-crunch. It should work, apart from the fact your "bonus" is much too low.
A <1991 car is guaranteed to be worth €750 when you crush it
A >1991 - <2001 car is guaranteed to be worth €1000 when you crush it.

Bottomline is: No cars get crushed with this rule except the really cheap ones: Volvo 340, Peugeot 205, Opel Kadett. The rest is worth more than €750 or €1000 in 1 piece than crushed.

In Germany, they did the same trick but they guaranteed €2500 for an <2000 car, when buying a >Euro 4 car back. That worked well for the car-industry in Germany, but the government stopped doing it in 1 month because they were out of money.

The sad thing about all this is that semi-oldtimers like the 340 completely dissapear from the roads, and the environment is not helped at all because building and manufacturing a new car is more damaging than driving an 20-year old Volvo...

[Jos360]

Already thrashed this one out on RR:
http://retrorides.proboards.com/index.c ... 976&page=2


doesnt make sense environmentally.
The co2 to produce a new car, from scratch is far in exess of the 'extra' an older car will produce in its final 5-10 years. in my humble opinion.
Like you say, just a scheme to keep the car economy affloat.
Youd lose more than 2 grand buying any new car on finance anyway in intrest alone, so I really dont see the point.

Thats always true in car-land. If you want €2000 for your car, you get €500 discount. If you don't care about the value of your car, you get €750 for the car and €1750 discount. In the end, you pay the same.

[trabitom99]

That worked well for the car-industry in Germany, but the government stopped doing it in 1 month because they were out of money

After the first 1500 million Euros (600.000 cars) were used up, they just added 3500 million Euros more Sure, there's a lot of cruddy cars being crushed, but with those kind of sums, even if 1% of all the crushed cars are in good condition, it's still a hell of a waste of resources ...

[volvosneverdie]

I know over here, youre trade in car HAS to have an mot.
To be good enough to be crushed?
If its a car good for nothing but the crusher, they wont take it.
Which just about sums up the worthyness of these schemes really.

[Jos360]

That is also the case in the Netherlands. It has to be MOT-worthy, not have the actual MOT. Also, you have to own the car for more than 1 year.
Not sure about Germany though.

[nvdw]

Just one thing that counts: your car is worth two grand... yet only if you buy a new one back. Which is nonsense.

And seriously, your Citroën dealer would gladly take 2.000 quid off sticker price to get you to leave with one of thousand C4's or C5's currently clogging up his back lot

[workshopmanualman]

Citroen run their own scheme here as the government have not introduced one yet. But you are right; they take £2,000 off the list price before you even walk in the door. Pundits figure you could get 40% off sticker price. And yes, the offer is for the crappy base-model variants they've had sitting at Southampton docks for 5 years. Not much of a deal from them, but when it opens up to some decent cars....

There is a madness at play though. If the car can get an MOT, then the emissions are fine and it is reasonably safe. In other words a perfectly decent car, albeit old and frumpy. So it is all fine saving the planet when we have money in our pockets, but f**k it when a few banking jobs go to the wall?

[jtbo]

I have a Citroën, it is heap of crap, at this moment it is again under repairing and it is low mileage car

With my other cars there are small things wrong, nothing major I change light bulb or fuel filter and such, but with that Citroën it has not small issues, only big ones, major repairs, constantly needs parts that cost a lot. Also ventilation system is crap, windows won't stay clear and I drive alone! Also it is very cold car, set heater to sauna and it barely manages to keep +10C at seat level.

Doors won't open at winter and if they open they won't shut.

New ones seem not to be any better, still same problems and design flaws, so no wonder nobody buys them.