After someone in a thread here mentioned that O3s are depreciating faster than expected, I thought I'd look up and see what mine is worth - and got rather an unpleasant shock...

 

I used the Parkers site, which iI suppose is as good as any of the others.  My car (vRS TDI Estate, with only a few extras) cost about £25k new last June, so it's 10 months old and has done about 10k miles.  Parkers valued it - for a private sale - as just over £17k. That's £8,000 down in just 10 months.

 

Over the years I've mostly owned VWs and considered their depreciation fairly good, so I thought I'd compare the depreciation on a similar Golf Estate - the 2.0TDI. Interestingly it is also down about £8000, so maybe Skoda isn't any worse than VW after all.  Or are diesels values being hit by the talk of them no longer being considered "green" - with extra congestion charges planned, etc.?

 

Obviously the worst depreciation is in the first year, so hopefully the rate of decline will slow down gradually, but it certainly means I can't think of changing for several years now - not that I was.

 

 

Depressing. If I was looking at buying a "standard" Octavia I would not buy new...

I wouldn't say that is a huge amount as just over £4k is VAT which is lost driving off the forecourt which is to be expected. If you took it out on PCP then it does enforce the reason to take out gap insurance though!

Edited 23 April, 201511 yr by JamesVRSmk3

I'm not sure Parkers is very accurate but they have definitely dropped a lot, just as nearly all new cars do.

Can you buy one year old with 10k on the clock for that money?

Loss of VAT + 20% is par for 1st years depreciation on mainstream cars offered as part-ex.

 

So £25K - VAT = ~£21K

 

£21K - 20% = ~£17K after 1st year.

 

 

Values then drop ~20% of remaining value for each addtional year.

 

 

Year 1 = £17,000

Year 2 = £13,600

Year 3 = £10,800 (matches the PCP value of my VRS to within £150)

Year 4 = £8,704

Year 5 = £6,963

Year 6 = £5,571

Year 7 = £4,456

Year 8 = £3,565

 

Of course, mileage, condition, prestige, location, insurance, emissions taxes, and state of the economy will affect final values.

Edited 23 April, 201511 yr by Orville

Can you buy one year old with 10k on the clock for that money?

Interesting question...

 

On the Skoda site they have the following:

 

July 2014,  6k miles for £20,495:  http://www.skoda.net.r66.co.uk/carview.aspx?id=604844840

March 2014:  15k miles for £19,790:   http://www.skoda.net.r66.co.uk/carview.aspx?id=604672473

 

Bearing in mind you'd expect to get a discount on those prices, and these are dealer prices which presumably include warranty etc., I suppose my £17k isn't too far out.

ive just ordered one on pch and specced it up to a £30k car and it will cost me £9400 for 2 year. i think its the cheapest why to do it but i may be wrong

ive just ordered one on pch and specced it up to a £30k car and it will cost me £9400 for 2 year. i think its the cheapest why to do it but i may be wrong

I assume you have negotiated a very good discount because I doubt SUK would give a final value of £20,600 on a 2 year old car?

 

What is the purchase price, deposit, mileage  and final value? Options do not generally add to future PCP value.

Edited 23 April, 201511 yr by Orville

Orville he's gone PCh so will walk away after 2 years no residual value

Depreciation does seem a bit high, according to my latest finance letter from VW and apparently what the car is worth after 2 years of ownership I'm in the red by £3k. If the depreciation carries on like it appears to be, I won't be buying the car at the end of the pcp as I intended to. I'll be paying over the top to do so by looks of it (if the GFV is anything to go by). Octavia 3= money pit???

It was probably me alancha..have banged on about it a bit to be fair :-)

It seems that so far the O3 is a very bad depreciator.....my brother works in the trade and gave me a trade CAP value of £14k for my 22.5k mile Feb 14 registered 2.0 Elegance estate manual.....also said id likely only get that on a part ex.....selling to a main agent without buying something else will probably knock a good K off that.

So in just over a year mine has lost £9-10k....I was expecting to lose a good bit on it but that is a bit strong for my liking. Comparatively I traded both my Fabia vRS and late Mk2 vRS Blackline estates at 18 months and 12 months respectively and both had some equity in them and I didnt go about purchasing them that differently....thr low deposit and 0% arrangemenr on it probably hasnt helped my cause though.

I am currently looking into chopping it for a new Golf GTD but I suspect the equity position is so poor that Im not going to be able justify it at the moment.

Its also fair to suggest that its a victim of its own (initial) success.....people seemed to go pretty mad for it when it was launched and lots of car hire/fleet companies seemed to have purchased lots of them which have now flooded the used market and pushed down prices....also the new vRS wax extremely popular but now there are alot of used cars available and same situation.

Seems as though (from personal experience) that Skodas proved a better ownership prospect when they were still to some degree seen as an acquired taste.....where supply didnt exceed demand at least.

Probably be the last Skoda I finance personally if this is a sign of things to come.....its cheap to finance but I could be stuck with it for a good while longer and that doesnt suit me particularly.

Orville he's gone PCh so will walk away after 2 years no residual value

Ahh, I misread that bit. Lease company is probably doing a VAT dodge, alongside big discounts from the distributer. There are some great deals available on PCH. Golf R's and 135i's quite often pop up at ~£300pm.

It was probably me alancha..have banged on about it a bit to be fair :-)

It seems that so far the O3 is a very bad depreciator.....my brother works in the trade and gave me a trade CAP value of £14k for my 22.5k mile Feb 14 registered 2.0 Elegance estate manual.....also said id likely only get that on a part ex.....selling to a main agent without buying something else will probably knock a good K off that.

So in just over a year mine has lost £9-10k....I was expecting to lose a good bit on it but that is a bit strong for my liking. Comparatively I traded both my Fabia vRS and late Mk2 vRS Blackline estates at 18 months and 12 months respectively and both had some equity in them and I didnt go about purchasing them that differently....thr low deposit and 0% arrangemenr on it probably hasnt helped my cause though.

I am currently looking into chopping it for a new Golf GTD but I suspect the equity position is so poor that Im not going to be able justify it at the moment.

Its also fair to suggest that its a victim of its own (initial) success.....people seemed to go pretty mad for it when it was launched and lots of car hire/fleet companies seemed to have purchased lots of them which have now flooded the used market and pushed down prices....also the new vRS wax extremely popular but now there are alot of used cars available and same situation.

Seems as though (from personal experience) that Skodas proved a better ownership prospect when they were still to some degree seen as an acquired taste.....where supply didnt exceed demand at least.

Probably be the last Skoda I finance personally if this is a sign of things to come.....its cheap to finance but I could be stuck with it for a good while longer and that doesnt suit me particularly.

Yes it's a pretty dire situation in my opinion. My Octavia is worth about 10.5k in part exchange with 4k on clock after 2 years, which means I have 2k to go before I am at GFV and another 18 months before my pcp ends. It's kind of scuppered my plans to sell the Octavia in last 6-12 months without digging deep into my pockets now. Looks like I'm keeping it to the bitter end. The highs and lows of a pcp I suppose.

It's interesting, we're paying basically £9k for 3 years and 30k lease on the new scout - so my gamble/question is will I be able to buy an equivalent car (not that be as it's not pcp) for say £10k after 3 years - if so basically had a scout from new for about £19k (albeit two different cars!) - i think list is £26-27k, which would probably be discounted but still £23-24k I suspect.

I know its luck of the draw often but the financials on this car have left a bitter taste and I dont think ill be buying another.

I feel more sorry for those that have PCP'd v high spec Elegance/vRS or L&K cars as with no disrespect they will well and truely be having their pants pulled down at the minute.

Its rather a frightening prospect to think there are people out there who have likely paid late 20's for a car thats possibly done 10-12k year one.....that would really upset me unless I was planning to keep the thing more or less forever.

Year 1 I'd say is right. Most cars drop a lot, and 20% is quite low..

But shocked at Pumatron's valuation. Maybe because of the low mileage?

Moral of the story is to buy nearly new and save a bundle. There are lots of high spec ex-demo very low mileage Superb IIFLs for less than £20k which is less than the discounted price of my car but the list price of S2 would have been around £5k more than my O3. Hopefully the S3 will suffer a similar fate and there will be some bargains to be had in 12-18 months time!

ive just ordered one on pch and specced it up to a £30k car and it will cost me £9400 for 2 year. i think its the cheapest why to do it but i may be wrong

Kinda depends on the car's condition appraisal on exit from your PCH personally, I don't believe SUK will try it on as the bad press would affect future sales, I kinda think these current PCH are just a loss leader to grab market share.

More likely to lock people in to PCH.

As far as I can tell on PCH there's no discounts unlike buying

I looked at PCP Over three years,name deposit and the monthly rate came out More than a Jaguar XF Sportbrake black edition due to the poor residuals

ive just ordered one on pch and specced it up to a £30k car and it will cost me £9400 for 2 year. i think its the cheapest why to do it but i may be wrong

Not suggesting it was the wrong thing to do but had you eased up on the spec your PCH deal would have been much better value still.

I looked at PCP Over three years,name deposit and the monthly rate came out More than a Jaguar XF Sportbrake black edition due to the poor residuals

 

I assume that you looked after you bought your Skoda...

Not suggesting it was the wrong thing to do but had you eased up on the spec your PCH deal would have been much better value still.

Yea, I've posted my thoughts before that options completely ruin the value of a lease. And £9.5k over 2 years is comfortably A6 or 5 series money instead.

I started with the Simpsons vRS deal, negotiated maintenance and added a spare wheel and it comes out at around £6100 all in for 2 years.

Just hoping that the bad residuals don't turn VWFS into dehire charge monsters in 2 years time.

Edited 23 April, 201511 yr by mr1

ive just ordered one on pch and specced it up to a £30k car and it will cost me £9400 for 2 year. i think its the cheapest why to do it but i may be wrong

depends if you've got the cash to buy outright,

 

you can get a new vrs tdi estate for £19720,

should be worth more than £10300  when  2 year old