Name your price?

Dealers are bracing themselves for a difficult last quarter. Whilst that should have traditional winter buyers licking their lips at the thought of some great bargains, the climate indicates that this may not be the case.

We spoke to a couple of dealers and asked what was happening in their world and they explained that, despite the tropical unseasonal weather, the wholesale price of 4×4’s and smaller SUV’s has already started rising alarmingly. However this is not necessarily due to any pent up demand or car buyers trying to take advantage by getting in early but more the lack of desirable product around.

Our guy told us that if a customer wants a base model small 4×4, either petrol or diesel, they might get it at a reasonable price, but anything with a modicum of spec is fetching massive premiums.

Time will tell whether these uplifts will be able to be profitably transferred to the customer but, according to our two examples, they are adamant that top specced 4×4 will be sold at market value as they are likely to be almost impossible to replace.

One example they gave us was an R line Tiguan which in less than a fortnight has gone up by a staggering £2,000 in the trade, purely because of the lack of supply in the market. Not only that our many says if he can find an automatic DSG version with lots of toys it will be almost “name your price” time.

What a crazy world we live in!