You buy a new car for 15k. You drive it away, its immediately lost several thousand pounds worth of its value. If you lost your marbles and went to part ex it the following month, you might get three quarters of the price you paid for it against a simlarly overpriced vehicle.

No other large purchase which is available to the average Jo suffers that kind of loss of value immediately after parting with the moolah. Yes, we are being shafted/ stiffed/ stuffed.

NO? Buy a mobile phone and take it into Cashconverters or such and see how much they'll give you for it, or your 55" plasmas screen etc etc.

And you have a choice. If you can't afford it, If you want more/better choice there is a way. It's called work for it. study, get promotion, work more hours, be good at what you are doing and the rewards and choices will come. I know, been there done that!

"Depreciation is the big clue to the fact that yes, we ARE being shafted."

So buy a car which does not depreciate quickly, or a 12 month old one, or buy an older car.

I am amazed people complain about this when you have LOTS of choice and no-one forces you to buy a new car .

There's a word - rather several words- for people who complain about depreciation on new cars which nthey willingly buy - none are repeatable here..

I buy and keep for a decade or so - annual depreciation # is negligible.. Usually 1-3 years old so practise what I preach..

2003 Yaris d4d bought at 2.5 years old for £7200. Still owned. Annual depreciation under £600..

Depreciation is hardly a new feature of car buying and its one the manufacturers cannot hide. Back in my youth British brands like Ford depreciated far slower than Datsuns and Toyotas despite being available in far greater numbers, thats why I generally bought them. Now it seems that its more down to individual models being more in demand that dictates residuals and some Japanese brands do very well.

Trouble is some buyers practice the Ostrich method of car ownership and only start to complain when they spot something that would have been obvious before they bought if they had bothered to do their research.

You cannot blame the manufacturers for the buyers stupidity.

The turbo ones give a lot more power. And they have marvelous fuel economy, I am averaging about 60 mpg from my 95 PS Polo.

If we are talking just about mpg, then I have averaged just over 60mpg for the last 9 years in my Pug 207SW with the 1.6 HDi engine. It's not difficult if you don't flog it or use it only as a short-run shopping trolley. Cruising on the motorway it shows about 70mpg, and the computer agrees well with my own calcs.

Come to that, I average about 48mpg from my 1990 205 with the 1360cc engine, but the car weighs a good bit less than a ton. Technology has certainly improved efficiency, but many of the gains have been offset by making the vehicles much heavier (40-50%) for all sorts of reasons.

Obviously a diesel will give better fuel economy, albeit whilst leaving an often very smelly trail behind it. The larger off readers often smell absolutely foul. The Up has a petrol engine. I was making the point that three pot petrol engines can give good mpg albeit not up to the diesel level.

<< Obviously a diesel will give better fuel economy, albeit whilst leaving an often very smelly trail behind it. The larger off readers often smell absolutely foul. >>

Driving on the M56 last week I noticed a diesel car with a thick exhaust whenever the driver accelerated, even gently. Those sights used to be quite common many years ago, but are now pretty rare. Presumably that is mainly due to tighter MoT limits. That car would certainly not password.

I recently went on the M3 and saw two cars come on from a slip road, and when they accelerated each left a huge cloud of thick black smoke. I assumed it was the DPF regenerating, but maybe not given your comment.

I recently went on the M3 and saw two cars come on from a slip road, and when they accelerated each left a huge cloud of thick black smoke

Its common round these parts. Youngsters buy old diesels (normally VW's), have them mapped, stick a "Dirty Diesel" badge on the back and try and get in the All England Polution Team. The clouds of smoke are simply unbelievable and the ones with down turned exhausts leave huge black soot lines on the road.

which are then burnt off to gaseous (invisible) combustion products during regen - as I understand it anyway.

Regens should not produce black smoke, a bit of white smoke sometimes but thats it.

There is a garage near us still advertising Remaps, DPF Removals and MOT testing on its signs. I hope the DVLA will close them down soon and slap huge fines on the owners.

But remaps don't have to be smoky and neither does full out acceleration. At Cadwell last year there was a race for Ssangyong pickups and all had Superchips remaps as part of the regs. I expected a smokefest but I was wrong. They were all totally smoke free and surprisingly quiet for an agricultural vehicle. No idea if the DPF's had been removed, if they had the lack of smoke was even more remarkable.