Just heard on the BBC 10.00 radio news that new car sales for this November are 37% lower that last November! Things are not looking good and some of my customers manufacture parts for the motor industry.:(

Just heard on the BBC 10.00 radio news that new car sales for this November are 37% lower that last November! Things are not looking good and some of my customers manufacture parts for the motor industry.:(

Go to www.smmt.co.uk if you want to look at the figures.

Intresting report, diesel car sales at 47%, so thats why diesel is 15p more than unleaded:rolleyes:

Well I tried to do my part..

With Ford and GM tottering on the brink in the USA, this could get really ugly. 2009 is going to be very tough on car dealerships and the motoring industry in general. Remember this quote from our Gordon "an end to boom and bust." Yeh right, now it's 'Boom and Nuclear wipe out'. All caused by people who never get their finger nails dirty.

Just to see who’s hurting and who’s really hurting (the Frenchies, sacre bleu), here’s a list of manufacturers and their sales/registration record (I’ve taken the very low volume ones out and their ‘noise’ is at the bottom). How their 2008 sales compare to 2007 in order of relative success (incidentally Skoda is currently the UK’s 16th best selling car marque)

MARQUE

Smart +44.1%

Dodge +23.6%

Volvo +12.6%

Jaguar +9.8%

Kia +9.1%

Chevrolet +1.9%

Nissan +1.0%

Audi +0.3%

Daihatsu -1.5%

Mazda -2.6%

Skoda -3.7%

BMW -4.6%

Hyundai -6.1%

Ford -7.0%

Fiat -7.2%

Mercedes-Benz -7.6%

Volkswagen -8.4%

Vauxhall -10.0%

AVERAGE (total volume) -10.7% down YoY

Toyota -11.0%

MINI -13.1%

SEAT -14.9%

Mitsubishi -15.7%

Citroen -16.9%

Alfa Romeo -17.6%

Suzuki -17.6%

Peugeot -18.8%

Subaru -19.5%

Honda -20.0%

Bentley -25.3%

Aston Martin -28.4%

Renault -28.6%

Land Rover -29.3%

Porsche -30.3%

Lexus -32.1%

Saab -32.2%

Jeep -34.9%

Chrysler -35.7%

Proton -38.6%

Registrations below 1000 units in 2008

Abarth 0.0%

Corvette -75.5%

Daimler -11.1%

Hummer 232.7%

MG 12200.0%

Other British 15.8%

Rover -97.2%

Rover MG -97.7%

Tata -66.7%

Cadillac -50.3%

Ssangyong -54.3%

Perodua -17.0%

Lotus -7.3%

Registered 2000 but no details of marques

Other Imports -8.7%

Intresting report, diesel car sales at 47%, so thats why diesel is 15p more than unleaded:rolleyes:

17p differential at one garage near me...

Am surprised at the rise of the diesels, seeing how it's getting to the stage that it's not worth having one any more - a 207 GTi or Fiesta ST would be cheaper for me to run in terms of fuel cost per mile based on current prices (although neither would have enough doors! ). Then there's the cheaper tax, servicing...

Edited 4 December, 200817 yr by ap0gee

If the gap keeps increasing there will be some interesting choices for my next car in 2 years, the difference in Road Tax would easily be compensated for by the fuel price difference and the price difference between the fuel types when buying new.

I posted the annual figures rather than the monthly figures as they are truly shocking and as the accompanying SMMT notes say, may have been adversely affected by the VAT changes over that last week.

I expect December sales to bounce back and be 10% down, give or take a few % on the back of that.

Having watched the monthly stats for a while there's a few interesting battles going on. Take Audi and BMW. Audi has been fairly consistent all year and their flat performance is a success in this market. How have they achieved this? Discounts? Continued source of finance?

BMW on the other hand, I expected them to do comparatively well on the back of their badge and their Eff Dyn system which exploits the company car tax system. They started out quite well but in recent months their sales have fallen sharply. Would be interesting to find out why. Are their lease deals now not so favourable? Restriction of discounts to private buyers?

It would be nice if they made the prices cheaper

Couple of things

1. I think the green thing has had a lot to do with it.It's annoyed me the VED stuff and where as we would have splashed out maybe £30k on new cars every 3 years we won't do that now.If only a 1000 people feel like me,the greenies cost the car industry £30million? Thats a few jobs

2. Did people ever really buy a car? People were taking deals of £299 to buy say a £25000 car with all manner of inventive deals such as lump sum at the end and people just choosing to start over again rather than pay that lump sum.Alternatively lease deals etc

There must be an incredible glut of nearly new cars out there.Bet we are awash with cars hence why the second hand prices have bombed too (as well as due to greedy government/green obsession/screw the motorist)

For the car manufacture, they are not worried whether you, buy or lease the car all they want to do is shift x amount of 'units' per month and make a profit. Honda are stopping production for February and March because there are big stocks of new cars waiting to be sold. Unfortunatley all the other manufactures are in the same boat.

I work for a company that supplies parts to Honda, Bentley, Aston Martin and Jaguar. I think i'll be out of a job in feb/march.

I'll be alright if i can get out of my mortgage payments for a couple of years as per the latest govt plans, i can walk to my local supermarket for shopping and hopefully live off jobseekers. As i've never been out of work since leaving school, i'm looking forward to it in equal amounts to being scared of it.

Just hope my PS3 doesn't break:D

Well this thread is highly depressing.

Yeah, sorry about that James, but there's not much good news around at the moment.

However I would normally be looking to trade my Octy II in during March/April next year, but with the no VAT offer on New Octy II's It might be a better deal than an 08 plate with 5k on the clock. So I might be bucking the trend, but sadly not enough for the car industry to celebrate I fear.