« Reply #23 on: 19 December 2010, 11:02 »
I appreciate that adding cost is never a good a thing but am I the only one that thinks £300 when your spending £24k or so on a car isn't really that much in the grand scheme of things?
It depends how hard come by the £24k was. If people are getting dripped up, then a few quid extra a month will hardly be noticeable, but if you buy your cars with real money that you have worked hard for and saved, then every little counts.
Dubber36 you're quite right. Many VW buyers are private buyers, they buy VWs because of their percieved quality and decent-ish resale values. If you're buying a car using your company car allowance you won't generally worry too much about what things cost until it gets near to your limits and the amounts you will be paying out of your own pocket.
However if you're buying a car out of your own savings (not talking PCP deals here) or by taking a bank loan then every penny counts. Just a one off £300 rise may be fairly easy to swallow BUT we're talking rise upon rise upon rise here over the last year or so. You will only spend so much of your own money on a car (assuming you have any financial acumen) before you decide 'enough is enough'. VWs super-high resale values are a bit of a myth until the cars get quite old.
As I don't use my car much and knew I wouldn't use it at all over winter, so to cut a long story short I looked into moving the GTI on. I phoned a few VW dealers and they merely offered about £2k less than book price quoting that they can buy used GTIs direct from VW for not much money. I asked how this was as if I was to order a new GTI there would be a 5 month waiting time and yet VW have cars in stock ready to punt on to dealers at trade prices with only a handful of miles on them. None of them could answer this question without the usual car salesman sh!te. The actual book value has now dropped over £3k in two months despite the new car costs going up and up. For that sort of drop I'm quite happy to keep my GTI tucked up in the garage for a few months.
This sort of thing will kill off car sales to private individuals. If you need a car as a tool for your work then fair enough you will have to cough up what they ask. If you're buying a car out of your own monthly take home pay then it's a very different matter and indeed every penny counts and there gets to a point where you just decide to keep your existing car.
If a punter senses a bargain they'll often cough up their cash whether they need something or not. If a punter feels their pants are being pulled down they'll look elsewhere, especially during a recession.
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‘25 8.5R, ‘23 8R, ‘20 8CS, ‘19 135iX, ‘19 TCR, ‘17 Ed40, ‘17 GTD, ‘15 7R, ‘13 GTI PP, ‘11 GTI, ‘09 GTI, ‘98 Ibiza Cupra, ‘05 GTI, ‘06 Polo GTI, ‘04 GT TDI, ‘05 Fabia vRS, ‘02 GTI T, ‘03 Ibiza TDI 130, ‘01 Leon 180, ‘89 mk2 16v, ‘99 Ibiza TDI, ‘96 VR6, ‘98 Ibiza TDI, ‘92 VR6, ‘88 mk2 8v, ‘92 Polo G40, ‘91 mk2 8v, ‘89 mk2 8v, 205 GTI 1.9, ‘83 mk1 GTI, ‘80 Scirocco GTI, plus some others I’ve forgotten
