BBC STORY BBC NEWS | Business | Rising living costs hit car sales

proper figures

Strangely fascinating - SMMT UK: Motor Industry Sustainability, Competitiveness, Legislation, Technology, Globalisation, Retail Distribution, Education

New cars sales down 6.1% in Jun 08 compared to Jun 07 but only 1.6% down on the year so far. In numbers that 20K fewer sold this year out of 1.6million but 13K of that was in june 222K cars sold fell to 209K cars

Al least skoda are doing well

It'll be interesting to see how Jul-Sept match up.

Jun 08 - Press Release front web.zip

Yep, nice to see Skodas market share increasing.

its only slowing due to media hype

all this credit crunch rubbish is putting people off, i dont think our showroom traffic is down particually, nor do i think im selling any less cars. but more people are thinking twice about buying due to this hype up.

its only slowing due to media hype

all this credit crunch rubbish is putting people off, i dont think our showroom traffic is down particually, nor do i think im selling any less cars. but more people are thinking twice about buying due to this hype up.

One swallow doesn't make a summer so it would be wrong to make great assumption after one month but its interesting to see VW losing 10% of sales in a month and barely up on the year bot Mercedes, BMW and to a lesser extent Audi are doing well. :confused:

A flight to prestige or value but not the middle ground?

its only slowing due to media hype

all this credit crunch rubbish is putting people off, i dont think our showroom traffic is down particually, nor do i think im selling any less cars. but more people are thinking twice about buying due to this hype up.

Hype - are you insane? Of course the cost of living has gone up recently due to the US sub prime mortgage problems, currency fluctuations, food costs, fuel costs etc etc etc etc

Hype - are you insane? Of course the cost of living has gone up recently due to the US sub prime mortgage problems, currency fluctuations, food costs, fuel costs etc etc etc etc

Yep, this is what the Brown Broadcasting Corporation is telling us today BBC NEWS | Business | UK spending power 'in heavy fall'

UK consumer spending power has fallen "dramatically" due to a large rise in the cost of living, research by Ernst & Young suggests.

The average household is 15% worse off than it was five years ago, the Annual Discretionary Income Study says. After household bills and tax, it found the typical family had less than 20% of its gross income remaining - compared with 28% in 2003.

Out of interest Woodenspatulas, are customers still getting finance as easily as before? They shouldn't be from the bank but I've no idea from the in house car finance industry. I'm afraid to say that I think that if this source of finance dries up, new car sales will be toast. :(

Just been looking at the stats from the SMMT report.

I see one person has bought a Rover in 2008 :eek: Wonder how much old stock is left now?

Just been looking at the stats from the SMMT report.

I see one person has bought a Rover in 2008 :eek: Wonder how much old stock is left now?

And 3 sales for MG so far this year

Car sales in general are slipping slightly

although one guy in our office is buying an Elise

Sales have been dipping for a while.

One of the women at work has 2 car salesmen in the family (Toyota and Mazda) and they are both pretty depressed about work at the moment.

Conversely my Dad's pal who sells older cars is doing a roaring trade in pre 2001 models. Never been busier.

Don't know why anyone buys a new car.

It is without a doubt a lot slower at the moment compared to 2/3 years ago and having to do tighter deals to get the numbers done.

The motor trade is getting pretty crap to work in now, not really any benefits.

Long hours, working weekends, company car tax is ridiculous, fuel allowance tax, no profit in it. The industry needs to pick up soon otherwise I reckon a lot of companys are going to be going brankrupt and sales guys aren't going to want to stay in the motor trade; I was quite tempted by a job selling aviation engineering contracts last Feb but thought I'd better stay put given the current climate.

*************

However wait until people find out the batteries are serviceable items and the cost to replace them and OMG is that going to hurt.

Edited 17 July, 200817 yr by DGW
See previous post

Don't know why anyone buys a new car.

They are shiny and smell nice.

Don't know why anyone buys a new car.

Because if they didn't , there wouldn't be any second hand ones.

They are shiny and smell nice.

As good a reason as any

smell nice.

I bow to that one.

In fact a new car smell is up there with mown grass:D

Dr Z, true.Someone's got to take the big financial hit on my behalf:) (I'm just jealous because I don't have money to burn and don't like debt)

Why people buy new cars....

The company is paying rental on it for x years

I bow to that one.

In fact a new car smell is up there with mown grass:D

Dr Z, true.Someone's got to take the big financial hit on my behalf:) (I'm just jealous because I don't have money to burn and don't like debt)

It's not always that bad an idea to buy new - I have done for my last two cars and got a good deal plus the benefit of a full warranty , but my situation is slightly different to most people as I have a car allowance instead of a company car.

If I was buying purely for myself and didn't need to use it for work purposes I'd have something quite different - a good bit smaller and not brand new.

its only slowing due to media hype

all this credit crunch rubbish is putting people off, i dont think our showroom traffic is down particually, nor do i think im selling any less cars. but more people are thinking twice about buying due to this hype up.

Credit crunch rubbish? try being self employed and looking for a new deal on a self assessment mortgage, that will show you if it's rubbish or not.

I downsized to the Roomster and cancelled my order for a ZZR1400 because my mortgage is about to go up £200 a month and there don't seem to be any deals available for self employed. I imagine that people like me make up a fair chunk of the UK workforce and so it does / has effected decisions I have made as it will with others.

Anyway .... enough off topic from me

Credit crunch rubbish? try being self employed and looking for a new deal on a self assessment mortgage, that will show you if it's rubbish or not.

I downsized to the Roomster and cancelled my order for a ZZR1400 because my mortgage is about to go up £200 a month and there don't seem to be any deals available for self employed. I imagine that people like me make up a fair chunk of the UK workforce and so it does / has effected decisions I have made as it will with others.

Anyway .... enough off topic from me

I've certainly noticed that I've got less disposable income - my diesel bill has gone up by 800 a year and I know I'm spending a tenner more each time I go to the supermarket. That's just two bills.

Fortunately I have a 5 year fixed rate mortgage with 3.5 years left to run so I'm hopefuly going to avoid the worst of the problems there.

I'll be doing sums very carefully when I decide what to do about the car instead of automatically trading it at three years old , and won't be buying anything as expensive to run as I had planned.

Following a 6% drop in June, July sales dropped 13.1% :eek:

SMMT - Detailed Article Stats all there again.

Following a 6% drop in June, July sales dropped 13.1% :eek:

SMMT - Detailed Article Stats all there again.

Excellent news if you want to buy a new car now though.

Dealers should be bending over backwards to do a deal

Excellent news if you want to buy a new car now though.

Dealers should be bending over backwards to do a deal

You would think that wouldn't you but if a dealer is nowhere near hitting target, will they really give you a good deal to sell a car? :confused:

Interesting to look at the stats again. Aston, Bentley, Porsche are down badly as you would expect but the Froggies are bad too with Renault, Peugeot and Citroen all down 12-16% so far this year. Japs at Honda and Toyota down 10& and 7% respectively.

a couple of surprises for me - MINI who's sales are static. Considering their excellent fuel economy figures, low tax levels and new clubman model, their sales are static which to me says they're still expensive for people. Look at Smart, new model and sales have rocketed.

and BMW who are 11% up! Must be their low tax/high economy position and a couple of new models helping. We're a year into the 'credit crunch' and I expected falling residuals to be working against BMW long before now and also there were rumours about them not discounting through brokers earlier in the year. Obviously they're more resilient than that and I assume they're got quite a bit of profit margin in each car to play with to keep sales up. Going forward, the Euro exchange rate must be a worry for their British market so we'll just have to wait and see.

Also why are Volvo 20% up?

BMW is actually planing to increase prices to cover their additional manufacturing costs. They must still be confident about their sales.

A work college has a husband and son in car sales and both are finding things pretty depressing right now. The local Vauxhall dealer seems to have had the same stock for a lot longer then usual too.