Insider view

Having visited some dealers today, I was struck by just how busy they were. In some cases customers were queuing up and there weren’t enough salespeople to see them, so I asked myself ‘crisis? what crisis?’ The theme however is that although people are buying they, quite rightly, expect a good deal and a first class service.It was also interesting to see that most of the cars being offered for trade in were large engine 4-5 yr old petrol cars meaning that the threat of impending RFL increases is having a dramatic effect.

I also spoke to some veterans at the auctions who informed me that 4wd cars like ML (Mercedes) X5 (BMW) and Touareg (VW) and especially Range Rover’s were being valued at up to a staggering £8,000 less than the equivalent 6 months ago. This has probably been caused by a mixture of high fuel prices, RFL increases and the general doom and gloom around the country at present.

So whatever you do if you want to buy a 4wd don’t buy new, you will save a fantastic amount of money as the auctions are full of late plate low mileage examples and dealers will have pressure to re-use money by retailing out of these expensive cars. For instance a Diesel, automatic, full leather, sat-nav 6cd auto-change with 19″ alloys which may of cost £40k new can, in some cases as a year old car, be bought for low £20ks.

What a lot of car for your money!