Edited by SLO76 on 24/07/2019 at 18:02

A new Skoda Scala 1.0 for example is £18585! It’s a good car but it’ll lose £10k in year one if it’s predecessor is any guide and the trade will no doubt use it. You could run a good used luxury car for less.

Very true but only idiots fail to do their research and obtain the best deal (hopefully a deal that suits them). If that's the case and they are happy job sorted.

Take my experience when we bought the Fabia. Broker was offering 14% discount on all Skodas except the Karoq and Kodiak but some models (most in fact) had other incentives as well.

We went to look at the Fabia estate thinking that the hatch would be too small for the MIL's wheelchair. £1000 more that the hatch so not the end of the world. Whilst in the showroom we spotted a Rabid hatch which looked just the right size but the dealer told us to forget it. Said it was based on an older Polo and was narrower but longer with a poor driving experience. Added to that no incentives. So whilst the Fabia Estate would have cost us £13,000 the inferior and smaller Rabid would have cost just over £14500. Eventually we bought the Fabia Hatch for £12000 when we ascertained that the wheelchair would fit. Saved £2500 and got a better car.

Just looked at the current offers/prices and the Scala in 1.0 TSi 95 SE spec is £17724.10 with a £1250 bonus and 2 services for £99.

The larger Fabia estate in 1.0 TSi 95 SE spec is £15241.10 with a £2000 bonus and 2 services for £99.

Thus the larger identically specced Fabia estate is £3233 less expensive.

As you say only an idiot would buy a Scala.

DO YOUR RESEARCH

Edited by skidpan on 24/07/2019 at 17:12

Their attempts to plug gaps in their range with the Pulsar were halfhearted and the later Note and Indian built Micra just weren’t up to the right standard quality wise.

We were very tempted by the Pulsar, cracking car at broker prices but Carfile took it off their list just before we were serious about changing, shame that. The 1.6 DIG-T would have been a great car at £12,000.

With regards to the Note the 1.2 DIG-S we bought in 2015 was great. In 3 years the only issue was the well known front anti-roll bar bush failure and they were replaced under warranty after 1 year by an improved item which was still fine after another 2 years. All the car needed was a better engine, the supercharged DIG-S whilst economical was nowhere near as good as turbo units in other brands, the 1.0 TSI VAG unit is a good example.

Nissan simply forgot to market the Pulsar and Note, all they were bothered about was the more profitable and fast selling Qashqai. Even the salesman we dealt with knew nothing about the car. he spent 10 minutes looking for the supercharger and pointed to several items under the bonnet one of which was the alternator. ventually I put him out of his misery and told him the car was not a supercharged version.

Less than half car sales are to private buyers who I assume are the main purchasers of smaller cars.

The buyers probably fall mainly into three groups - older driver/retired who have fairly predictable undemanding needs, second cars.for local use, and millenials often buying through a purchse/finance deal

A large volume of sales are to fleets, and a fairly small proportion to businesses.

New cars in this country are hugely overpriced because manufacturers think they can get away with it.

The proof is in the car supermarkets where prices for a 1 year old car (mainly ex lease and hire companies, overstocks and model runouts) are routinely on sale for a 40% discount on list price. . having covered 5-20000 miles

Edited by daveyK_UK on 24/07/2019 at 22:40

Suzuki seem to struggle with too many models and not enough dealers.

There are three small hatchbacks (Swift, Celerio, Baleno) and four SUVs (Ignis, Jimny, Vitara, SX4). That sounds like at least one too many in each category.