Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 11:12
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - Moorw003

Hi,

I'm currently looking to purchase a used DS3 Crossback, and am looking at various cars; late 2020 models with a diesel engine are so unpopular at the moment there are bargains to be had.

What I'm seeing in a lot of examples however is they appear to have been given up after 1 year, appear to have sat for 9-12 months not doing anything, and then have suddenly been listed for sale. A couple of these are from main dealers too.

What is the situation with such cars. Why is something that was owned 1 year, did 10k miles ended up off grid for a further year?

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 12:54
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - Adampr

Probably demonstrators and staff cars that have been used for a 6ear, then stuck on a forecourt for a year and then moved to a reseller or had their price dropped when nobody bought them.

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 13:02
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - Adampr

I wish DS offered a decent warranty - just saw a brand new DS9 on Autotrader at £14k off RRP.

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 15:06
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - sammy1

I wish DS offered a decent warranty - just saw a brand new DS9 on Autotrader at £14k off RRP.

I do not know why the average private buyer is so insistent on a warranty especially with a discount like quoted. OK you could get stung but what are the odds?

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 15:43
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - Adampr

It's not the buying, it's the selling. When I get bored of that car after three years, it still will have lost £20k+ in value and everyone will avoid it like the plague because it's big, French and has no warranty. In an ideal world, you'd keep it for ten years, look after it and have an odds-on chance of having a bargain, but I suppose the fear of never being able to sell it and there potentially being a big bill down the road would loom over you the whole time.

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 16:24
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - Terry W

Covid may be the main culprit.

Fleets and hire companies would want to reduce their fleet size due to lack of demand during lockdowns and limited international travel. They probably have contracts in place to allowing hand back on age - eg: a year old.

The normal route for these nearly new cars would be franchised dealer or car supermarket. Neither would be keen to take on new stock when sales down and an uncertain future.

So they sat in a field for a year unused awaiting market recovery. This is where we are now coming out o the pandemic - lots of stock shortages (Ukraine, chips, supply chain issues).

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 17:17
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - movilogo

Even before pandemic cars sitting on warehouse for 6+ months was a common event.

Don't know the exact reason. May be dealers intentionally restrict supply to keep used prices high?

It may depend on specific models too. When I used to track cars in AutoTrader, I noticed some cars were selling quickly and some were sitting for months.

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Thu 23 Jun 2022 21:30
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - SLO76
Bulk of late low mileage stock like this comes from hire car fleets. No bad thing really, they’re well looked after and any damage is usually repaired properly. Don’t let this put you off a car, though a Citroen DS3 wouldn’t be on my shopping list unless it was insanely cheap.
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Fri 24 Jun 2022 09:50
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - daveyK_UK
Likely to be a ex hire car

Depending on the make/model they normally do either 10k, 20k or 30k before being disposed.

For example pre Covid Hertz sold Honda Jazz cars at 20k miles and less than 2 years old; they also had for sale Seat Ibiza cars with 10k miles and upto a year old.
I assume that’s based on resale value (what is the most lucrative age/mileage to move them on).

Since the pandemic and the new car shortages, hire companies have struggled for stock. Hence they are keeping them longer, with more miles before selling them.
A recent example, a friend ordered a medium automatic and received a 68 plate Seat Leon which had 39k on the clock.
Never would I have expected a big firm like enterprise to use cars needing an MOT but the answer he got back from the desk pointed towards enterprise having very few automatics and they won’t have any replacements until later in the year hence the need to keep using stock traditionally they would have sold on.

The best ex hire car deals I recently spotted appeared to be on the Vauxhall Corsa which is a rebadged 208. I don’t like the current Corsa, it’s far too cramped especially in the back.

Edited by daveyK_UK on 24/06/2022 at 09:54

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Fri 24 Jun 2022 10:44
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - Terry W

Car hire companies are how so many one and two year old cars came to market. There would otherwise be a limited stock - most new car buyers would keep their purchases for much longer than 10-20k and one or two years.

They would be bought in volume by the hire companies - I suspect discounted by 30-50% below new list price. The contract would specify return mileages, duration, price etc.

The depreciation suffered by the hire company would be limited due to their low purchase price

Manufacturer would program in a large fixed manufacturing and component sourcing program reducing their costs. May allow them to use spare capacity, shift certain models up the sales charts, get potential punters into their cars as a marketing exercise etc.

Covid, Ukraine etc has disrupted the normal course of events.

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Fri 24 Jun 2022 23:39
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - daveyK_UK
The discounts General Motors were offering Enterprise to take a large volume of surplus stock vehicles was astonishing, more like 60 - 70% off list price.

This was 2016, a very different world.
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Fri 24 Jun 2022 23:51
Newish Used Cars: Why so long out of action - Adampr

I think Vauxhall were desperate to make the Corsa the UK's best selling car. When I got mine on lease, it was about 2/3 of the cost of a Seat Mii...

And, yes, it's horrible in the back.

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