Does buying cars on January cost less?
Discussion
I bet the OP's is thinking January time is when the bills come in after Christmas and there's not much demand for buying a new car? Was true some years ago but with covid its a funny one with car sales, I know some people who now work from home chopping in their 2.0 diesels for some v6 or v8 action as they are driving less now.
Nib888 said:
I bought a BMW 440i for 24K now I can't stop thinking if I waited till January which is start of a new year if the used cars will be cheaper since it will get 1 year older?
Car age isn't based on calendar year.Do you really think that if somebody buys a new car on December 31st, it's one year old on 1st January?
Registration age plays some part - although not much these days - but that doesn't change in January anyway.
I found December a great month to buy, I went in to the dealer, test drive, talked price etc and left.
Literally called me half way home with a better deal, even said he would usually have played it cool but I was the only customer he had spoken to all week. Picked the car up 2 days before Christmas
Literally called me half way home with a better deal, even said he would usually have played it cool but I was the only customer he had spoken to all week. Picked the car up 2 days before Christmas
In my experience, “book” value takes account of both the registration year (Mar/Sep) and the calendar year registered.
It doesn’t make any difference to the car of course, just depends when the car was originally registered.
So OP, if you bought new yes it might make a small difference if/when you trade it in, but if you’d waited til January you may have paid more to buy it. If EU exit pushes up new car prices, used may follow suit...
It doesn’t make any difference to the car of course, just depends when the car was originally registered.
So OP, if you bought new yes it might make a small difference if/when you trade it in, but if you’d waited til January you may have paid more to buy it. If EU exit pushes up new car prices, used may follow suit...
Nib888 said:
I bought a BMW 440i for 24K now I can't stop thinking if I waited till January which is start of a new year if the used cars will be cheaper since it will get 1 year older?
To be honest, used cars are about the highest they have been for years at the moment, so you could argue buying used now whether November or January may hurt or may have been wise. Depends what the market does over the next few months. I nearly bought a 30k miles 2016 340i touring for £16400 back in March, but decided to get a 540i instead.
Looking around now they are all £6000 or more, or an increase of 35% over the 9 months.
But this could be the new normal, used cars holding their value as less people jump into new metal going forward.
New prices have gone up a lot recently, combine that with Covid and people's realisation that being saddled with a monthly payment that is never actually paying anything off, has seen the used market pick up.
At the time I was thinking 3.5 year old car for £16400 vs nearly new at £32k, seemed fair enough and if anything pretty normal.
Now though, nearly new M340i touring for £42k vs 4 year old 440i touring for £22k. So you can either look at that as still pretty similar, or you can look at it as old model, and £6k or more than a few months back.
In other words best not to think about it, just enjoy the car.
January is actually usually quite good for many car dealers. November December is when things slow down.
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