A quick look at the list prices of most cars on the market will show the damage being done to customers pockets. In a competitive market superminis should not be costing in excess of £20k, City cars are way to close to £15k for comfort and most small family cars are heading North of £30k. Subaru are about to leave, Mitsubishi are following suit. Most other Japanese firms offer a reduced range in Europe,

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I agree, and given my age, 70 next time, I am aiming to make the Sportage my last car purchase.

If we are travelling together off peak, trains to london are £11.70 each way, (newtwork rail card and senior railcard.) Buses free here for me, and I have a mate taxidriver who doesn't pay rent for using my garage and we get free taxis, which i hacen;t used for 6 months..

<< We’ve lost the joy of actually owning rather than renting a car and all the showmanship that came with the motor industry >>

That is part of the reason why our two cars are 12 and 26 years old. The main reason is that we are both 55 years older than either of them ...

All of teh above written by SL076 is true.

BUT

remember it has been the policy of ALL UK Governments to devalue sterling to minimise the impact of perpetually borrowing money to pay for goodies like the welfare state.. rather than taxing us.

In 1969 a new Mini cost less than £1,000 and gold was $35 per ounce or so.

Today c £16,000 for a new Mini and $1920 per ounce. (16 times and 54 times)

and in those days oil was around $5 per barrel vs $40..now.

Plus the UK car market is small in world terms and almost all makers have to convert from LHD to RHD to sell in the UK....

Let's see : which car makers make so much money they will worry about a small difficult market. Many smaller makers will restrict range - and increase prices... and if they cannot make a profit , give up...

And finally... who knows what Brexit deals will we have with japan and the EU?

Businesses HATE uncertainty as they cannot plan.

I. Now that we're out of the EU, they and other makes should be lobbying for more realistic rules than the corporate CO2 ones to be applied in the UK (especially as they aren't 'real world' figures and obviously are then biased to small cars with engines that do better in tests than the real world).

And which manufacturer in their right minds is going to produce special engines for the small UK market?

And if you want to clean up UK air, it ain't going to happen.

It was more the long-term trend I was worried about. They've never recovered from the days of the financial crash in terms of sales in the UK.

I think it's a combination of not particularly peppy engines (especially at the top end), little depth to their range, the effects of overselling their diesels and the reliability issues that came with that and, I'm sad to say, the highly variable and often poor reputation of their dealer network for the post-sales experience.

I was one of the lucky ones to have had a reasonable dealership experience overall. Brand loyalty can be lost very quickly through poor customer service and reliability woes.

If they aren't careful, they could go the same way as Mitsubishi in the UK and EU and essentially pull out. Now that we're out of the EU, they and other makes should be lobbying for more realistic rules than the corporate CO2 ones to be applied in the UK (especially as they aren't 'real world' figures and obviously are then biased to small cars with engines that do better in tests than the real world).

Last year they sold 249,371 cars in Europe - that is the most since 2006 and the 3rd/4th highest since 1990

carsalesbase.com/europe-mazda/

So why so worried?

Mitsubishi is pulling out as they are part of the Renault and Nissan Alliance and so not required in Europe sales wise as Nissan & Renault cover those sales with their own cars as well as the budget market with Dacia.