Just to add in here
I bought my 5 door DSG Golf R pre reg. I paid £29k in September.
I own a few other cars, one being an ED30. I found that in the 4 months of owning the R that I preferred the drive of the ED30, plus with it being new, I didn't really want the R on the road getting battered with stonechips.
Anyway last week I decided to cut the R loose as the values seemed to be dropping like a stone and with all the dealers having glut of pre reg not shifting I decided to move it on. I have a car related business (not sales) but have a lot of contacts such as independent buyers for performance car sellers and also live next door to the DP of an Audi dealership.
The bottom line is that nearly new VW's like the R, GTI and GTD are not wanted in the trade at the moment as many VW dealerships bought a load of said cars and pre reg them all thinking theyd sell - then the VW scandal broke and VW sales are down. That's why when you look on PH, AT etc theres loads of them and there's all sorts of incentives, deals and the like to get people to buy.
Selling a £25-30k car privately is difficult as at that price point people want finance, PX and dealership backing. So this leaves potential buyers of said cars to be the trade themselves, and with them sruggling to shift existing stock, plus the discount they can buy them from VW, selling one back into the trade is impossible without taking a huge hit.
My trade contacts were getting bids for my car from buyers in the trade at 22k! And that's a 4 month old car with 1k miles.
This morning I sold mine to WBAC.com and get £25,500 so Ive lost £3.5k in 4 months (bought it cash)
I must admit that despite taking the hit, I'm glad it's gone because according to 'the trade' values are far from firming up. Sometimes you just have to lok at the big picture and I decided that considering the use it was getting I'd rather lose the £3.5k now rather than keep it for 12 months, put a few thousand on the clock and lose £10K
Anyone who is looking to buy new and has the skill to play hardball then 20% off list is readily available. It's a buyers market for these higher end VW's