Re: Scrappage scheme - price of newish 2nd-hand cars to fall?

Jonathan Bryce gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

7yo - so that'll be 02-plate?

How the f*ck do you manage to let a car that recent get to the state where it's a serious MOT fail...?

Unless, of course, it was something either stuffed or a Direwoolet or similar.

A W plate about two years ago.

The previous year's MOT cost me £850. With a full year's MOT, I would have got £1500. I reckoned I would break even at best, and as I'm not in the business of repairing 2nd hand cars and selling them at a profit, I left it to someone who was.

I bought the car 3 1/2 years previously for £3,000, and budgeted for trading it in 3 years later for £1,000, so my actual depreciation per month was slightly better than budget.

I was wondering that, but now Mr B has said it was a W-plate. So errm I'm still confused. I've got a V-plater out there that has never failed an MoT.

What the hold good gravy was it? Most modern cars will sail through an MoT at 10 years old.

...

"Jonathan Bryce" wrote

Ermm....

Actual depreciation per month = 3.4%. Budget depreciation per month = 3.0%.

3.4% per month is "better" than 3.0% ?

I make it

Budget depreciation - £2000/36 months = £55.56 per month Actual depreciation - £2300/42 months = £54.76 per month

Citroen Saxo

Our family car is currently an N-plater.

But it's wrong to measure depreciation linearly like that, or else if you were to keep depreciation at £55.56 a month going for a further 37 months (beyond the first 36), your cumulative depreciation would exceed the original £3000 value, by about £55. Properly calculated depreciation can't ever result in a negative value.

Tim's figures are quite correct. Your budget depreciation provided for a drop to a third of the original value over 3 years. That corresponds to about 30.7% per year or 3.01% per month[*]. If it had continued to depreciate at the same monthly rate for a further 6 months, its value would have dropped to £833[**], but you only got £700 for it.

Sorry to shatter your illusion that you done well out of it.

[*] A drop of 3% per month means that at the end of each month the car's value is 97% of what it was at the beginning of that month. So if you raise 0.97 to the power 12, you get what it's worth (as a fraction of its original value) at the end of the year, i.e. 0.97^12 = 0.694 -- a drop to 69% is a drop by 31%. [**] £3000 * (£1000/£3000)^(42/36) = £832.68.

Probably because by the time they're 9 years old, you'll have replaced everything which could possibly go wrong at 10. :-)

Actually, *can* you describe a 10 year old car as "modern"?

And is it really the case that 10 year old cars today are generally more likely to "sail" through an MOT (having also sailed through it previous 7 MOTs) than, say, 20 years ago?

My impression is that with so-called "advances" in technology and production techniques, cars are made ever more cheaply, and shoddily, and are designed to last only as long as manufacturers want them to last.

[...]

Yes. 20 years ago, it wasn't unknown for a *5* year old car to fail an MOT on structural corrosion. Some cars would fail their first MOT on steering joint wear back then. That's fairly unlikely now.

IME, things like suspension and steering components have much longer service lives than of old.

All manufacturers of all types of consumer goods need to strike a balance between first cost, quality, perceived value, and longevity. My perception is that cars of the last decade are generally better made and designed. It's not unreasonable to expect modern engines to run for

200,000 miles with no major failures. Many cars of the 80's would be unlikely to manage half of that.

Chris

Surely mud flaps as well? Mats and flaps - that well known deal-clincher. It must be true - Mike Brewer said so.

"GB" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Our most recent car is H-plate, and has somewhere approaching 200k miles on it. It waltzed through the last ticket - as it should've.

Jonathan Bryce gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

So in 2.5yrs of ownership, you took a perfectly good, solid 5yo car to the brink of scrapping?

Clearly, you're not in the business of "maintaining your car" or "having the vaguest modicum of mechanical sympathy".

An MOT pass is not some theoretical once-a-year highpoint of condition, y'know. It's a bare minimum.

Bullshit.

Yes.

Yes.

Bullshit.

"Jonathan Bryce" wrote

But you should *expect* the (per month) monetary amounts to drop, for a longer period - even for similar depreciation rates...

If your car had actually depreciated at a constant rate of 3.4% per month, dropping to 700 at month 42, then it would have been worth around 860 at 36 months. That's worse than the value of 1000 which you had budgeted for at that time, isn't it?

"Ronald Raygun" wrote

Your post didn't show on my newsreader until after I'd made my second post!

Ordinarily I would bow to such a coherently put argument, but can you really deny that it is in manufacturers' collective interest to achieve perpetuity of custom by ensuring the market doesn't become saturated with cars which last forever?

I expect you'll be tempted just to say "yes", but perhaps you could expand on it a little. :-)

You're confusing two things. You claim that cars are made ever more shoddily (which is not true), but then you want acceptance or otherwise that a short-life is in the manufacturers' interest (which is less true than it was, because "full-life" & "all-up" costs are examined by fleets etc).