Older people who have seen boom and bust several times, and can sense the bust is looming again, arn't going to be buying cars for some time, arguably some makers have deserted their older regular buyers and chased the younger ones.

Going to be lots of tears again, with thousands of twenty/thirty somethings especially living well outside their means, new houses new cars new designer clothes (even on the baby, what's that all about) designer shoes smart phones you name it plus celebrity style holidays several times a year, all on the drip and nowt in the bank.

Interesting times coming.

...and how many finance houses/banks will be in trouble?

Our government has done a great job of destroying the market for new cleaner diesel cars.

The stupidity is astounding. Our incompetent MP's knew diesel was a "dirty" fuel but went ahead with tax reductions to increase sales, and now, when cars with modern diesel injection technology are much cleaner they increase the diesel taxes!

Why do we vote for these cretins!

Oh yes-and another thing-I just wonder if people are at last waking up and realising that cars actually do last more than 3 years.

With careful ,regular, proper maintenance and near zero depreciation, 100,000 miles plus and a 10 year life is easily the cheapest option.

Aha--Am I sniffing that the advice here is to buy a 3 year old car in another three years for a rock bottom price?

I have bought 2 new cars in the last 40 years but mostly stick to used ones. The cost of new cars seems very high and the initial depreciation is very high. I have no plans to upgrade mine and am sitting waiting to see how the market pans out.

Perhaps now many people (other than being turned off diesels by recent events) are having second thoughts about just recycling their cars every 3 years or so, taking (as you say) a huge hit (mostly) in depreciation for a car that is really mostly poser-material (most people don't use or need all its features, including all the optional extras), and maybe waiting for manufacturers to start offering more basic cars that are fundamentally more hardy, reliable, especially over the longer term.

Each generation of car is (generally) obviously better than the ones that preceeded them, however with the pressures on household budgets, increasing environmental legislation and the restrictions they will have on car use (and financial penalties), the cost of ownership going up in recent years, etc will undoubtedly have an influence over not just whether we buy new cars, but how often.

PCP and similar finance deals I think are at their peak, maybe now in decline, and I believe much of the increase in recent years since the 'end' of the financial crisis/recession has been driven by people buying cars (especially, and a lot of other things) on credit, putting off pyaing for them well down the proverbial road.

Only now that many people are finally waking up to our endebtedness, both personally and as a nation, as well as the current political uncertainties (especially the chances of a Corbyn-lead [sorry folks, here's the politics bit] Labour 'government' being in power in the not-to-distant future), many people are now holding off buying new cars, especially if their current one (as I am doing) isn't actually falling to bits and is still more than roadworthy.

Creating and sustaining a false market based on envy (of your neighbour's/firend's.colleague's car), vanity and hype (cars are better today, but they're not THAT much better), and paid for by our long-term financial health cannot be good for anyone, least of all a country. Hopefully sanity is slowly returning to the market (especially to reduce diesel car sales back down to nearer what it used to be, i.e. for people who did very large annual mileages and/or regularly carried very heavy loads/worked in agriculture.