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interesting article in the local Gazette. apparently a Land Rover Freelander was £16k or so ten years ago. The equivalent present offering is over £30k from the same manufacturers while in the ten years the average wage has risen by 37%...assuming the writer has his facts right that's a lot of extra cash to find!.
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Cars move up in size and equipment almost continuously - in addition, JLR had full order books for most of that 10 years indicating their cars were underpriced - basic economics it seems.
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While instinctively I agree that new car prices have risen the figures quoted above may not be quite right. HJ used Freelander review indicates it was between £22k and £40k when launched in 2006.
There was a brief entry level model a bit later for £19.5k.
So list price and wage inflation are not far out?
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I seem to recall being told many years ago that Ford had a policy that their top of the range cars ( Probably a Zodiac in those days) was set at approximately the top level of a working mans' annual salary. So the range topper was within reach with a bit of effort. I assume that other manufacturers followed suit to compete. Except of course the perceived quality cars such as Rover, Jaguar and a few others which were always more expensive. Not a bad policy to pursue if they can do it.
Cheers Concrete
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I seem to recall being told many years ago that Ford had a policy that their top of the range cars ( Probably a Zodiac in those days) was set at approximately the top level of a working mans' annual salary. So the range topper was within reach with a bit of effort. I assume that other manufacturers followed suit to compete. Except of course the perceived quality cars such as Rover, Jaguar and a few others which were always more expensive. Not a bad policy to pursue if they can do it.
Cheers Concrete
The Cortina was set at six months average earnings
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I’m amazed at the price of new cars today, I’m even more amazed that so many people still buy them. The list price of a base model 1.0 Golf 3dr 85PS is an utterly ridiculous £19270!!!! I’ve seen Honda Jazz’s at £17k plus and Fiestas at similar. To me it’s madness. I’ll buy them when the market has hammered them down to reality.
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On concrete's point I think he is onto something. From memory average wages are about £27k and I saw a stat in the last few weeks that the average new car cost £27k.
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In 1989 I paid about £11500 for a brand new 3 door 8 valve Golf GTI. It had 112 bhp and very little kit.
Last year I paid £12000 for a brand new Skoda Fabia 5 door 1.0 TSi 110 bhp. It has all the kit you expect form a modern car and whilst the 0-60 time is not a match for the much lighter Golf the in gear acceleration thanks to the Turbo petrol engine would leave the Golf well behind.
As we know cars have grown over the years, the dims of the Fabia and Mk2 Gold are virtually identical and from memory space is as near as matters the same.
Buy the right car form the right place and we have never had it so good.
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In 1989 I paid about £11500 for a brand new 3 door 8 valve Golf GTI. It had 112 bhp and very little kit.
At the time the Golf's perceived competitor was the 205 GTi. List prices for that in January 1990 were 10290 for the 1.6 (115 bhp) and 11790 for the 1.9 (130 bhp). At the end of the year they were both about £400 more. So the Pug would have seemed a better buy?
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“Buy the right car form the right place and we have never had it so good.”
Despite the unsustainable surge in prices (and understandable huge drop in sales) cars are today in general excellent. In the 90’s there were plenty of truely terrible new cars available, from Lada Samara, through Mk V Ford Escort, pre VW Seat Ibiza, Hyundai Stellar, Sonata, and Suzuki SJ, there was plenty of God awful misery on wheels to spend your money on. Today I’m hard pushed to think of any genuinely bad cars. A few grossly overpriced but none that are truly bad.
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Hardly anybody's actually buying them - they're just renting them with only an eye on the monthly figure!
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I’m amazed at the price of new cars today, I’m even more amazed that so many people still buy them. The list price of a base model 1.0 Golf 3dr 85PS is an utterly ridiculous £19270!!!! I’ve seen Honda Jazz’s at £17k plus and Fiestas at similar. To me it’s madness. I’ll buy them when the market has hammered them down to reality.
On HJ's Cars For Sale section, VW are desperate to flog Golf 1.5EVOs because of the bad press about the engine problems. 30% of list price apparently via brokers, if you're willing to put up with engine issue unless and until it gets sorted.
To be honest, the high prices is what put me off many a car when I was looking a couple of years ago. Some deals about, but not across the board. Some very average cars at very high prices. I especially agree about Hondas - WAY overpriced for what you get, and normally barely any discounts, if any. And they wonder why European sales are terrible. It's why I bought a Mazda3 11 years ago instead of a Jazz or Civic - a bigger car with more toys for £2k less.
What I also found to be odd was that some models weren't that popular in terms of sales figures (e.g. the Mazda CX-3), yet had piddling discounts compared to others, including more popular models from their own make.
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In 1989 I paid about £11500 for a brand new 3 door 8 valve Golf GTI. It had 112 bhp and very little kit.
At the time the Golf's perceived competitor was the 205 GTi. List prices for that in January 1990 were 10290 for the 1.6 (115 bhp) and 11790 for the 1.9 (130 bhp). At the end of the year they were both about £400 more. So the Pug would have seemed a better buy?
I had already owned a Golf GTi for 4 years and it had provided excellent service thus another was at the top of my wish list. I did indeed look at the Peugeot 205 and its bigger brother the 309? but both were terribly finished and built compared to the Golf, I needed a mack on in the test 309 due to a leaking sunroof. I also looked at the Mk 2 Astra GTE and whilst I considered the Mk 1 to be great (mate had one) the Mk 2 seemed poor on the test drive (mate swapped his Mk 1 for a Mk 2 and hated it).
Golf was the best car and seemed good value at the time considering its rock solid residuals (the Peugeot was poor).
Kept it for 7 years and 113,000 miles. last saw it 3 years ago (it was 26 years old) and had just over 200,000 on the clock. Owner was planing a restoration (probably took it to bits and that how it will stay). Now on SORN.
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In 2007 £1= 1.5 Euro (approx)
Now it's 1.3 Euros
Against US dollar .. was c 2.0 now 1.3
Brexit has made the pound fall - a lot..
We import iron ore, and car components..
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In 2007 £1= 1.5 Euro (approx)
Now it's 1.3 Euros
Er, try approx 1.16 Euro (1.3 = 77p, 1.16 = 86p)!
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In 2007 £1= 1.5 Euro (approx)
Now it's 1.3 Euros
Against US dollar .. was c 2.0 now 1.3
Brexit has made the pound fall - a lot..
We import iron ore, and car components..
The Pound had fallen quite a bit more before June 2016 than after, but you're right - quite a bit of its depreciation has resulted in car price rises. But not all of it. Raw material prices have fluctuated quite a lot over the years, even accounting for changes in currency values, often due to demand, which is linked to the econmies of the area and world in general.
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Agree with so many of the comments posted cars are out of reach for many in terms of ownership. People just lease pay through the nose and hand them back after being dictated to as to how much miles they can do for the agreement. I am sure many of the brainwashed people doing this are seeing it as some kind of status symbol but they own nothing. I simply refuse to pay the prices being asked and would rather run an old vehicle. The vehicles I own are all 10 years plus.
It is funny to drive past some small tiny houses with the latest German financed metal outside but that is another story...
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A base diesel Citroen Berlingo Multispace MPV could be picked up for £12k in 2016
A base Citroen Berlingo MPV is available nowhere cheaper than £14.9k in 2019
While it’s a new vehicle, the price increase in 3 years is considerably more than inflation.
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A base diesel Citroen Berlingo Multispace MPV could be picked up for £12k in 2016 A base Citroen Berlingo MPV is available nowhere cheaper than £14.9k in 2019 While it’s a new vehicle, the price increase in 3 years is considerably more than inflation.
Still, at least the NHS has another £350,000,000 a week to spend ......................................
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The pound was in decline against the euro before the referendum was called
If anything Britain economy has done better than a lot of so called experts predicted
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The pound was in decline against the euro before the referendum was called If anything Britain economy has done better than a lot of so called experts predicted
Total cobblers, and I can't be bothered to explain, (but I do keep accurate records of the daily €/£ exchange rate and have done so for the last 15 years as I import from Germany).
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The pound was in decline against the euro before the referendum was called If anything Britain economy has done better than a lot of so called experts predicted
Total cobblers, and I can't be bothered to explain, (but I do keep accurate records of the daily €/£ exchange rate and have done so for the last 15 years as I import from Germany).
Economic comparisons involve a lot more than currency exchange rates - fact is that the German economy is faltering and the UK economy has confounded all the Brexit doom & gloom merchants and performed better than expected - consistently returning some of the highest dividend yields in the world.
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Nick62,
The pound was falling vs the dollar and euro before the referendum was called, evidence on xe.com or many other currency tracker sites
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The pound was in decline against the euro before the referendum was called If anything Britain economy has done better than a lot of so called experts predicted
Total cobblers, and I can't be bothered to explain, (but I do keep accurate records of the daily €/£ exchange rate and have done so for the last 15 years as I import from Germany).
See here:
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=EUR&view=10Y
https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/bank-of-england-spot/historical-spot-exchange-rates/gbp/GBP-to-EUR#charts
There is no need for you to tell porkies especially when they can be disproved in seconds.
Edited by Leif on 15/04/2019 at 14:14
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The pound was in decline against the euro before the referendum was called If anything Britain economy has done better than a lot of so called experts predicted
Total cobblers, and I can't be bothered to explain, (but I do keep accurate records of the daily €/£ exchange rate and have done so for the last 15 years as I import from Germany).
See here:
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=EUR&view=10Y
https://www.poundsterlinglive.com/bank-of-england-spot/historical-spot-exchange-rates/gbp/GBP-to-EUR#charts
There is no need for you to tell porkies especially when they can be disproved in seconds.
Indeed - I remember back in the early-mid 2000s the Pound being being much nearer the $2 mark: from the graph (second link), it looks to have dropped about 25% in value, which means imports are 33% more expensive. Luckily, some of this is offset by advances in technology making electronics and the manufacturing process cheaper.
My guess is that if the £ had stayed roughly flat, car prices would be about 10% cheaper than they currently are. One other factor that makes a large difference is that local business rates have been going up a lot over the same period, which presumably car dealers pass on to their customers, just like town centre shop owners. We also need to add in the increase in VAT from 17.5 to 20%. I also suspect that more makes are trying to go 'up market' by adding more extra toys and gadgets than they used to, adding to the list prices.
It probably hasn't helped that those canny buyers using brokers or buying pre-regged cars have meant less 'ordinary' walk-in customers who get less of a discount, so (with the £ value falling) manufacturers up the list prices to compensate.
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