So I’ve had my 1.0s Fabia for a year. Great car but a little under powered for modern day traffic (admittedly I’m using the Fabia more than I anticipated). 

I popped to dealer so I could find out cost to upgrade the Fabia for a model with a bit more power.

I had a few to choose from, basically a couple of color editions with 1.2 tsi engine. They were located at dealers other site, so traveled over following day and picked one. Simples! Errr No.

Dealer run figures and it’s actually cheaper (not a month but overall by quite a lot) to buy a new 1.0 Tsi color edition than buy the 1.2 Tsi one year old car with 11k miles that I chose.

The problem is I didn’t want New, all I wanted was a bit more power in a used Fabia as this is just my “shopping” car, not the family car.

Now it’s either, refinance through a bank (higher monthly payments but lower overall cost), to find a cheaper APR to make used viable over long term or not bother and stick with my current struggling Fabia S. 

The only other problem with that is I have currently got money in car which I can carry over. Unbelievably my Fabia S is worth exactly what I paid for it (I’ve checked elsewhere and it’s not dealer bluff!). So after a year of ownership it would go on forecourt for EXACTLY what I paid for it a year ago! I’ve NEVER known a car to lose no value in a year so want to take advantage of that fact while I can. 

The Fabia S plus that Skoda have just released is likely to crash prices of Fabia S models a bit this year, so it’s change now or have to wait until end of finance in 2 years time on my current S. 

I am deflated by it all, I thought it would be simple to upgrade to another used Fabia.

At a loss in what to do, I don’t want to feel ripped off :-(

Edited 6 January, 20188 yr by Pumatron

Yep, I found this out over twenty years ago.

 

Wanted to by a second hand car, found a one year old with 20,000 miles with no service history up for £6999.

Eventually bought a new one for £7111 from the same place including the VED/ road tax.

 

Bought an old but working car with one previous owner, full service history from the supplying dealer and MOT for £200 in 2005.

Traded it in four year later with another 20,000 miles on it in 2009 and got £3200 for it.

Depreciation of + 1600%, doubt this will ever happen again.

 

It might be your dealer has other factors to consider like a sales bonus from Skoda for hitting a sales target.

Try another dealer, look on Autotrader for prices.

 

Thanks AG Falco.

 

You know what, back in 1982 just after the new Ford Escort 1.6 Ghia FWD finally had been given a 5 speed gearbox, I started talking to one of my local Ford dealerships with a view to buy their demonstrator when it became available for sale, I had been planning to trade in my previous model Escort 1.6 Ghia RWD, and being young and naïve I was shocked to find that buying new would be quite a bit cheaper, so that was what I did and saved even more by selling my previous car privately, win - win!

 

It is strange to find that a car dealer or car marque has wound the clock back maybe 36 years, maybe this is a one off?

 

Edit:- actually during the period in time that I was referring to, I replaced my cars every 2>2.5 years as the car market was desperate to shift metal and it was so cheap to change, that seem to stop quite abruptly just before 2000 which was yet I used personal importing from Europe to avoid paying what had become "newer normal" prices.

Edited 7 January, 20188 yr by rum4mo

AGFalco, fancy that, I was composing what I posted when you posted that!

25 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

AGFalco, fancy that, I was composing what I posted when you posted that!

 

Bought my first new car in 1985.

I ordered it in October 1984 but it didn't turn up until June 1985.

It tool so long to turn up I managed to save up enough to pay for it with without any finance.

Memories....

 

Thanks AG Falco

Well because VW were trying to stop dealers in the LHD market placing factory orders for RHD cars back in 1999, my VW Passat 4Motion order was placed with Intercar in Brunssum in Holland in early August 1999, the car was ready for collection end of May 2000, later in 2002, I placed an order for a VW Polo with a VW dealer in Baan Holland, that car only took 2 or 3 months to appear.  It just shows, some times you are prepared to take money risks to save money and screw VW UK, when placing personal import orders, you hand over 25% of the price right away, now if your current car messed up early, you would need to buy a banger to keep you going, but it all felt like a challenge that could not be missed with thousands of £s saved even taking into consideration travelling costs.  One annoying thing was, in May 2000, you could only buy single air fares for, in my case Sabena, from Flight Centre, which was okay as we had a local branch, next hurdle was Chunnel, they would not sell one way tickets, so the easy way out was to buy single tickets from someone who worked for Chunnel and was on the "car importing" forum - note here that at that time, Chunnel consortium would hound you to the end of the world if you bought a return Chunnel ticket and only used it one way, the good thing about Chunnel at that time was that their ticketing covered a 12 hour period I think, so if you arrived early you drove straight onto the waiting train, very convenient.

 

Going back to buying my first new car, the FWD Escort, I had the issue with my previous car being in my garage waiting for the young farmer's son (agric student), who was buying it, to come up with the cash - his mum and dad were on holiday at the time, so out of the country, that worried me for a bit

 

Edit:-  Memories indeed, I've just checked what is on the site where Intercar used to be in Brunssum, and see that while I thought that area was known as Canada Corner, there is a restaurant now on that site, same building though, and it is called Canadian Corner, so maybe I was wrong about that area being known as Canada Corner!  One other thing, the Ford dealer in Bruges who tended to tolerate personal importing into UK was called Canada Garage, strange?

Edited 7 January, 20188 yr by rum4mo

We ordered our new Fabia S estate yesterday and we were amazed to get a brand spanking new one cheaper than a pre registered one. Ours is pacific blue and we are getting ours for about 10k compared to 11000 for a pre reg. dealers must be getting rid of the S model before this S plus one comes out.

 

Davy

When I bought my Fabia, I had to finance as I didn't have a previous car with any value (I had a Focus, which had died and was embroiled in a legal dispute with the garage I'd bought it off). I had £1,000 to put down, and I have no intention of keeping the car after a few years anyway so PCP was the ideal thing for me. I'm a final year medical student, so I do a lot of driving to hospitals and GP practices for my placements, which is why I need a reliable car, so looked at lightly used Fabias. I found that with a £1k deposit, the monthly payments were in the £180 region for a used 1.2 TSI 90 SE, as were the quotes for a brand new 1.2 TSI 90 SE car on Skoda's finance calculator. The balloon payment for the new cars of course will be higher- but I'm not going to be paying that. The APR is a lot lower on the new cars than the used ones, and there was also a £1,500 deposit contribution and 2 'free' services. 

 

Not to mention that the used cars were early ones without SmartLink and the MFSW, while mine is a MY16 car with both those extras!

Looked at buying a new car for about 3 years since 2013.

 

When the Fabia came out in late 2014 / early 2015 the Mirrorlink put me off. The rest of the car looked good.

The MFSW was a cost extra but I didn't have a car with this so would not have missed it.

 

1 year later and the Smartlink was up and working and the MFSW was now standard. Time to buy.

I would not have paid extra for the MFSW but now after using it I wouldn't be with out it.

 

Also bought it at the right time for the 1.2 TSi engine and with the £20.00 yearly VED/road tax.

 

Sometimes you are lucky.

 

Thanks AG Falco.

 

 

 

Totally agree re the MFSW. You don't realise you need it until you've had it!. My old Ford had the extra stalk thing behind the wheel which performs much the same function, and I absolutely loved it. Basically considered it to be an essential ever since!

 

On the subject of steering wheels though, VAG are very good at them. The wheel on my Fabia is nicer to hold than my dad's 3-series was. Don't quite know what it is but there's something very 'right' about their leather wrapped wheels.

This has happened through the range (including some of the more expensive cars) for a few years on occasions.

 

What sometimes happens is that the new car comes with deposit contribution, lower apr (sometimes 0%) than the used one.   Add in the savings from not having to pay for mot and service/repairs and warranty & breakdown cover for a year longer and sometimes the nearly new makes no sence vs the completely new.     Effectively the nearly new cars are overpriced and only make financial sense to someone who needs a car almost instantly.    At the moment the new car offers are not that generous (there have been times when you could get 0% and half way through the quarter other offers like extra £500 off or £500 fuel gifted).   At the moment it is a bit more complicated as you have to factor in old tax rate (on year old) vs current £140 per year (on new), if it is a keeper that can save you over £1000 if you only pay £20 per year for 8-10 years.

 

The UK market suffers from half annual sales spikes (when registration plate changes),  Also there have been Tax changes, and the very fast shift to petrol from diesel, this has caused the UK market to be badly out of line with expected trends 2 or 3 years ago (or even a few months ago).   Skoda UK seem to be relatively sleepy and seem to have not reacted dynamically to the shift (and of course the production capacity is now inconsistent with the engine choice split etc).   Between Skoda UK slowly reacting to market preference shift, and factory capacity constraints, there isn't much short term incentive to pander to UK buyers.   Unless you need new car quickly, I would wait until after 1 Mar registration change (or until 2 April when next quarters finance offers come out) as it cant be as poor as this quarters offers.

 

 

Edited 8 January, 20188 yr by SurreyJohn

Simples.

Some Used cars were given to high a trade in or were returned to VW Finance after silly low deprecation values when Skoda / VW were trying to get them on the road.

The Dealerships need to make a profit as their Accountants / Share Holders / HMRC expect, and they have the cars on the books, 

they are financed cars that the Dealership has borrowed money to purchase, sometimes just one person needed to buy one car and pay the stupid high price.

Come time they might go off to auction, but the Dealership never wants to sell at their 'Cost Price', 

that makes the Depreciation of Skodas look bad. 

They will sometimes offer someone too high a trade in, punt the car not moving then the merry go around continues.