Think Welshy's point (and I know he'll correct me if I'm wrong ) was that you're not paying more - because these two depreciate more steeply than the Fabia vRS, in principle you could pick up a better example of either with the same engine for less than the Fabia vRS.

Or, to rephrase...why pay more for a car with a Skoda badge?

Would agree it's a different matter if talking new prices...

Rob.

I looked at VW options when thinking about getting the Skoda. The VWs were considerably more expensive. For the price of a 1 year old VRS I was looking at 2-3 year old Passats or Golfs. The Bora was a bit cheaper, but still more than the VRS.

I love my Vrs, it's NOT for sale. Unless someone would offer me £18,000 for it - any takers?

That said if (heaven forbid) someone smashed in to you the insurance payout at the mo would be a little more favorable than most cars out there.

It reminds me when my mother bought that stupid PT Cruiser "I buy a car to drive it not to sell it" was her words.....someone drove in to her, car written off....Lost fookin' thousands!

I looked at VW options when thinking about getting the Skoda. The VWs were considerably more expensive. For the price of a 1 year old VRS I was looking at 2-3 year old Passats or Golfs. The Bora was a bit cheaper, but still more than the VRS.

Well if you look on auto trader there are many Golfs Boras and Passats TDi130's and the Golf & Bora TDI150 can be bought for less than the cheapest vRS. Clearly these are older cars with more miles but they have a lot more kit as std.

Clearly if your only interested in 1 year old cars then its not a fair comparison however if your comparing budget wise say you have up to

For someone who doesn't own a Fabia and who clearly thinks they're not up to much (the VAG partsbin comments spring to mind whenever anyone tries 'bigging up' the Fabia) he spends a lot of time on here and also keeps asking about when their prices will fall.

So, for a car that's clearly so naff and the dealers are clearly complete robdogs, why the interest in buying one? Been banned from the Fiat forums for excessive pessimism?

Bit of an odd statement this the engine was first developed by VW the chassis is from the Polo but was given to the Fabia first as the Polo had a year or so left before the then current model life cycle was over. The gearbox is straight out of VW the door handles etc etc.

Look at Aston Martin many of the switch gear are boggo Ford parts - every group manufacturer shares parts thats the reason they merge or are involved withjoint venturers or have taken another comp over. Its all about cost reduction, think about it say it cost VW

Another point as you can see from the Whos driven their vRS the most thread - these are comp car owners/sales reps etc and they are racking up to 65k within a year this then goes back to the lease comp and they get another the lease comp sells the car at auction or they have it for 2 years and then it gets dumped at auction.

Anyone here who wants a vRS should ask a friendly 2nd hand dealer to try to source one for him see if he will look around the auctions. I think Lex sell their cars to trade on Tuesdays in Blackbush (Bracknell way)

Prices are already dropping for the vRS. It dropped £500 versus the previous month alone in the March Glass's guide. But as I plan to keep mine for at least another year, I'm not going to worry about it.

We have just ordered a new VRs (Ltd Ed ) and have been offered £10k part ex for our current black VRs. It surprised me really, I was expecting around £9k trade in. That is for a 9 month old (06 plate) Black VRs, with 14k on the clock (near as dammit), bog standard with no options added on.

I did think about selling it privately, but I'm not sure it is worth the extra hassle considering the trade in value.

The next one will be kept for much longer than 9months too!

Cheers

Andy

We have just ordered a new VRs (Ltd Ed ) and have been offered

Prices are already dropping for the vRS. It dropped

well, West End in Broxburn has a Silver vRS, 06 plate (May), ex-demo, 4000 miles with Leather the only extra, for sale at 12,995

and how much is a brand new Ltd Ed ?

The oldest trick in the salesmans book is to make you think that someone else wants it too & they are going to buy it if you dont...

The dealer I got my car from tried this with me. Trouble is he kept changing the name of the 'enquring dealer' every time I asked about it so it was never consistent.

I got a decent deal on trade in, and I'll be keeping the car until it's paid off then giving it to the missus to use as she likes it too so depreciation does not bother me really. It'll be clapped out by the time it goes so it doesn't matter. If I'd bought a Mondeo on the other hand.....

The dealer I got my car from tried this with me. Trouble is he kept changing the name of the 'enquring dealer' every time I asked about it so it was never consistent.

I got a decent deal on trade in, and I'll be keeping the car until it's paid off then giving it to the missus to use as she likes it too so depreciation does not bother me really. It'll be clapped out by the time it goes so it doesn't matter. If I'd bought a Mondeo on the other hand.....

Well yes if you are keeping the car for say 10+ years then depreciation costs per year do drop significantly.

In an ideal world we would all buy a brand new car and run it for 15-20 years or more and at the end of that time its worthless. However the problem is that peoples circumstances change i.e. family/move from the city to a farm or for some reason one person on here buys a silver 05 plate then within 12 months trades it in for a black one ouch.

My personal finance head view is never spend more than say

One of the cheapest I can find (although it sys it is a 1.4tdi) ...you will need to scroll through pics

Auto Trader Dealer Pages - Auto Scene Ltd

They still seem to be pretty rock solid at the moment.Certainly retaining far more than 50% after 3 years

One of the cheapest I can find (although it sys it is a 1.4tdi) ...you will need to scroll through pics

Auto Trader Dealer Pages - Auto Scene Ltd

They still seem to be pretty rock solid at the moment.Certainly retaining far more than 50% after 3 years

These are ASKING prices its not like the S.E. property market where people pay asking price or start bidding over asking price for the house.

I have never paid asking price for any car at worst Ive had a 10% reduction between asking and what I actually pay.

In addition this car may be on here for weeks/months without selling so the owner may have to in the future drop his price - remember every day a car loses money Glasses guide and others update this every month.

However at the end of the day the car is worth what someone is willing to pay for it and how quickly the seller needs to sell it. Basic economics

These are ASKING prices its not like the S.E. property market where people pay asking price or start bidding over asking price for the house.

I have never paid asking price for any car at worst Ive had a 10% reduction between asking and what I actually pay.

In addition this car may be on here for weeks/months without selling so the owner may have to in the future drop his price - remember every day a car loses money Glasses guide and others update this every month.

However at the end of the day the car is worth what someone is willing to pay for it and how quickly the seller needs to sell it. Basic economics

The thing is people ARE paying these prices. You look at Autotrader over a few weeks and the listings are never there for longer than a week (the default posting period is 2 weeks I think?). You phone them up (as I did) and the comments you get back are "sorry, it went a couple of days after I put the ad in".

The trouble with this kind of supply and demand is that you don't have much bartering power. People seem to want them and because the market is not saturated with them as it is with say Mondeo's (being a popular fleet car) then the prices don't tend to drop much through haggling etc. It's just like the housing market as you put it. My parents were looking for a house recently and struggled to find anything decent for a decent price (and they were being fairly realistic). Demand is still outstripping supply and as a result proces will remain high.

I considered a Mondeo but decided it was too big and would struggle to get it on the driveway as it's a sharp turn to steer the car onto. Also looked at Golfs/ Bora's but they were more expensive than the Fabia and older with higher mileage.

I've owned about 13 cars now, and sold most of them through the Autotrader. Most of them took a few weeks to go (especially my MR2 which was a pig to sell) and I ended up posting the ads up a couple of times. In fact the easiest car to sell was my Xantia. That went within 3 days and I sold it for what I paid for it. :eek:

I'm not saying the Fabia is immune to depreciation.....that's impossible. It's just it would appear demand is rising and fresh supplies have now stopped with the manufacturer no longer making them (and the new one not being out until next year). This means people are hunting the used market for these cars and slowing down the depreciation somewhat.

I've just looked on Autotrader now and there are a few on there for about

If your wanting these for the £5k territory then auctions are the place.

The supply is now coming from lex and other lease comps who are dumping them into the Auctions and this will continue as it was a very popular comp car due to low tax and its overall package.

The only experiance I know of on Autotrader is a mate had a 2 year old Seat Leon Cupra in black it was on there for 3 months and all he kept getting was comps phoneing him up and offering to find a buyer for a fee. He had a few calls but the offers were silly i.e. 3-4k less than advertised price. It was pure luck in the end that he was able to get rid of it.

Maybe he was unlucky maybe not - however if you look at certain cars i.e. Lotus Carlton there is one on here with under 40 odd miles from new showroom condition and thats been advertised for years.

Are you after one for your missus or yourself?

Either way, if that's what they're going for at the auctions (final selling price) then buy one! Snap whoever's selling it's hand off!

I'd want one for myself and run it for a few years then once/if there are nippers on the way scrap the banger she has give her this and then get myself something else.

The only drawback currently is that my car [touchwood] is running perfectly - clearly I have lost money on my car however I will only realise this loss if & when I sell it. Mind you for calculating the cost per mile I always assume it is worth zero now and as is obvious every month which goes by the monthly total cost of the car drops and as the miles pile on the cost per mile drops.

The bad points for me of the vRS is small boot, not many have multichanger cd's and none have std Ipod connections, the front legroom is much tighter than my current car (similar to golf etc all very tight), and I think it sits too high on the std rims. I wouldnt be interested in changing the wheels/lowering either.

Im sure there will be a barrage of posts now championing its good points but when selecting a car you already know its good points whats important are the bad points and if you can put up with them.

i traded mine in a couple of weeks ago (black magic, vRS, March 06, 22k miles) and got £10,100 (after a lot of haggling), and moved to the dark side (Seat Leon), got a really good price for the new car which cost me less than the Ltd Ed. Vrs and is better specced to be honest

all swings and roundabouts tho as it is a car that is 1 year older than the new ltd.ed but 'hey-ho'

Skoda would offer me £9200 for trade in against the Ltd.Ed :( so that's why I ended up defecting :(

I must admit that the Leon Cupra TDI is another very appealing car indeed.

I'd want one for myself and run it for a few years then once/if there are nippers on the way scrap the banger she has give her this and then get myself something else.

The bad points for me of the vRS is small boot, not many have multichanger cd's and none have std Ipod connections, the front legroom is much tighter than my current car (similar to golf etc all very tight), and I think it sits too high on the std rims. I wouldnt be interested in changing the wheels/lowering either.

Im sure there will be a barrage of posts now championing its good points but when selecting a car you already know its good points whats important are the bad points and if you can put up with them.

You're thinking on exactly the same lines as me cos that's what we're doing. She's currently running a 306 HDi into the ground and when my vRS is paid off she can have it and I'll buy something else. Also, around the same time, nippers will probably be on the way. She's already scaring me by purchasing buggies and stuff off eBay.

Oh and by the way all, another type of buggy that WILL fit into the boot of the Fabia is a 'Loola'. It's short enough to go in sideways, hence she's just got one from Fleabay.

:bigeyes:

If it weren't for the fact that she works in childcare then I'd be mega worried, but I know that she's just planning ahead whilst she has the cash. Wedding (August) and new house are next before nippers are on the cards. Phew!

Anyway I digress, onto your second point regarding the Fabias bad points.

The boot is small I agree. I'm going to have to remove my towrope etc because there is not enough room alongside it for shopping etc.

Also, the seats are a STUPID colour and the material is quite feeble. It fluffs up easily. This is why I'm fitting leather at the end of the year. This will also be handy when nippers arrive as they're notoriously messy.

Front leg room is fine providing there is noone in the back and then the front passengers can be quite greedy and slide the seat back. Having said that we always do fine leg room wise even with passengers. Trouble is once again with rear passengers they catch their feet on the rear of the front seats and mucky them up. Grrr...

But, it is a small car. It looks bigger than it is due to the chunky styling and the fact it's fairly tall. You have to make sacrifices when moving to a small car I guess.

On the plus side, I'm usually the only one in it and as such it's fine for me and my work bag. It goes well, handles ok and is comfortable and well equipped.

Went in a mates Puma the other day and whilst it handled far better it was slow, cramped (very.....no head room AT ALL) poorly equipped and the seats were cr4p. The engine is asthmatic and gutless up top and the boot, whilst a good size has a rubbish opening meaning you can't put anything in it.

I felt glad to get in my little Skoda which felt simply luxurious in comparison and much faster too.

Having saud that, I've also been in a standard Fabia (1.2 6v I think) and that was god awful. Horrendously slow, handled sooo badly, rubbish seats, noisy, poor on fuel and looked hideous.

If it weren't for the vRS I wouldn't own a Fabia. In my opinion they jump from being poor to being altogether very good from the lower spec models to the vRS.

The Leon FR TDi is a lovely car too, but it was just a little out of my price range. Maybe next time......if I don't end up with a Mondeo family wagon.