“If” you have access to another source of funding you might find a PCP carries a higher deposit contribution from the manufacturer, maybe as much as £1,000 depending on the time of year and market conditions. You can then pay it off in whole within 7 or 14 days without penalty and have a bigger discount on your new car, ask me how I know… 
4 Likes
How do you know?
3 Likes
It’s still a strange situation, buying or selling an MX-5 during Covid lockdown.
Why aren’t there many for sale, well decent ones, because owners are holding off selling just yet?
So what there is for sale are going for a decent price, short supply it seems?
Are folk actually travelling to view these cars or just snapping them up over the internet and getting them delivered?
The only thing stopping me viewing a car is the travelling to view, I probably can’t even get to see it if I made it to the showroom, not open but what about private buyers?
When this lockdown is over will prices fall as owners start maybe selling theirs or to upgrade? I’m certainly holding off until then, still not sure fully if I want to change mine.
Same for me with my last few BMW’s.
The dealers discount is available for anyone to negotiate, however to get the finance ‘contribution’ (£4000) I had to take out a pcp. There’s no penalty for paying the finance and balloon off early, which is exactly what I did.
One example.
Full retail price including options was £39905, to keep it under the £40k road tax ripoff.
The total I paid with a pcp (which I settled the following day) was just under £33000. If I’d paid cash it would have been £37000. Go figure…
That was an M140 in June 2019.
Dealers and finance companies are getting very rich from pcp deals though, as for some reason customers can’t, or won’t do some basic maths before committing.
The dealers make it all seem so complicated, and then simplify it by presenting a low monthly payment only, not how it’s been arrived at, or what the real total cost of the car is.
Mind you many customers don’t care, all they see is a new ‘prestige’ car on the drive.
1 Like
There’s been a lot of mx5’s sold over the last few weeks. In Feb there were loads advertised, most of them have gone now. A really buoyant market.
1 Like
PVC had hardly anything left the last time I looked…!
See, PCP just hurts my brain. Mind you, I have dyscalculia so that could have something to do with my refusal to understand 
But yeah, you’re right, I think for a lot of folk, it’s that thing of the ‘shiny new toy’ every couple of years. I just think it’s a crazy amount of money for something you don’t even own. Like the difference between paying rent and having a mortgage.
One of my workmates has recently seen the light. He had a perfectly nice car that he really liked, although it was a PCP, but instead of making a final payment and owning it, he got suckered on a glitzy new thing. He’s now paying about £450 p/m- NOT including fuel, for a car he says isn’t much better than the one before! 
Some people don’t want too much capital tied up in cars and PCPs are often a better deal than leasing if you start adding on a few extras. Some PCPs have exorbitant rates, some even offer 0% as Mazda are at the moment.
I agree there are some that don’t want capital tied up, and there is an argument for protecting oneself from the vagaries of the used car market, residuals etc, but the whole system is geared to moving new cars.
The advertised interest rates on some pcp’s are very good, 0%, 2.9% etc but when you look at the details they often come with high deposits, or are applicable to stock cars only, only brown cars, or other restrictions.
Used car pcp’s (yes, they are available) often have rates of 8%+.
Also many people don’t know about the extra £350 a year for 5 years road tax on cars with a rrp of over £40k, forget the 8k annual mileage limit isn’t realistic, and that the 4th year of a typical pcp won’t have manufacturers warranty. (God help JLR drivers)
I could go on…
Car sales staff are trained to determine how much the customer is able to pay monthly, and price-to-change any trade in first. Then they know how far they can go, then they steer Mr Joe Public to what tin they need to shift most rather than what the customers think they need or want.
Same Lemming Mentality of those who walk into leg lifters like Brighthouse etc where the gullible line up for a TV worth say £1500 and they don’t bother to figure it will cost them 4k in 4 years.
Mortgages are a prime example. over 25 years, if you never sold, you used to pay around 3 times the initial advance…but that will be less so today with base interest rates as they are. Back in my day in the '80s @ 13 odd % it was thus.
Each their own, but even when I could afford a new car, I’d not go near it due to my distaste of rampant depreciation & interest loadings. Way I used to see it was how much I had to earn to get ripped for tax to pay somebody else’s good life.
Had lots of fantastic cars…cash on the barrel… in my time privately all pre-owned, but only new ones were…company cars!
I found, after a few weeks and maybe 4/5k miles on, the novelty had completely gone and thanked God I was not footing the bill for a new toy.
It’s all a matter of very personal life style choices. But as a result, this house was 100% debt free, zero credit cards to this day. We just did without till we cash purchase as a rule…or saved up for “it”.
This attitude, incidentally, is spawned from being employed in finance for years clearing up peoples’ Keep up with the Joneses dire crocks of… 
Human nature in this age of credit driven capitalism made me a lot of money out of re-financing people who, no matter whether they were on £25k P/a or £125 P/a …many but NOT all people by any means generally spend far more than their net worth, and rarely set aside rainy day buffers.
Many of them got there through sheer bad luck, but the ones I really felt like slapping good and hard were those who thought it their God given right to max it all out to the detriment of their innocent families…usually with a malignant narcissistic mind set it was all other people’s fault.
Suffice to say, our lad (32) saved 50% of his Army wage for 12 years and today has a fully paid with cash modest Fiesta and a 45% mortgage on his lovely new home. No idea how that happened…(cough). Nor does he own a credit card or wants one, but I want him to have one (oddly) for consumer protection. Use it one day, pay it off the next.
Choices…choices…
If you think I’m tight, his cheeks squeak when he walks. DNA?
5 Likes
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that what a car is advertised for is it’s value.
That said I did see a couple of overpriced wrecks vanish from the market last week so it does make you wonder.
I don’t think any bargain hunter is taking notice of CV19 restrictions.
2 Likes
I am partially in the trade and am watching BCA website pretty much daily. All MX5’s are flying out about 15-20% above “clean” cap price. its astonishing to see. example an NC launch edition with 120k this week booked at 1500 sold at 3000, ND RF Launch edition booked at 14500 sold at 17000 and then you add fees on top. Bear in mind this is also WITHOUT being able to see or check over the cars before sale, its all done online right now so you have no idea what the car is like except for a few dodgy pictures taken by the auction or dealer
The whole market is mad right now for most cars. We have discovered that a lot of “premium” cars are being shipped overseas as well so thats not helping with supply and demand.
Interesting. Do you know exactly where in the World they are going?
I know a classic car dealer who says that finding new stock is difficult at the moment as a lot of people are just hanging onto their cars.
A lot is going out Malta way (probably before being shipped on to the Middle east?) The island is too small for the amount of stock we have seen heading that way. Rumours are also circulating about cars being “held” in an airfield somewhere without even going to market
1 Like
Rumours are also circulating about cars being “held” in an airfield somewhere without even going to market
Hardly makes sense to me if true.
I’d have thought in these times shifting as much tin as possible would be a survival plan.
I’ve a nephew in a main Audi dealer in Glasgow who has to observe the pecking order of meet & greet 1st through the door politics, and he’s borrowing just to pay his bills.
Greasy little fellow even asked me for a hand-out…
He got a short one word response.
One of my used car friends (£10k - £20k family stuff) is stockpiling, he’s been buying up sensibly priced cars since December in anticipation of a third lockdown and not advertising them.
His wife’s not best pleased as he ran out of space on the lot and there’s now 7 cars in his front garden!
He did really well after lockdown one ended and hopes to repeat it in a few weeks.
He reckons things are looking good…
1 Like
The way some moronic super-spreaders are performing ( the clowns) I’d not be surprised of his success.
Went to Tesco yesterday just for a roll of Gorilla sticky tape, and spent 15 minutes dodging pongy obese 4 toothed idiots complete with multiple rancid off-springs. Repulsive behaviours. The tape shelf was not the only load of gorillas in my vicinity.
2 Likes
I’ve been offered more than £1k more than what I paid for my 2007 Z-Sport nearly three years ago from a chap who lives in my village. Always lost money on a car apart from a Mini I had in the late 70’s so nice that I won’t hopefully lose on this one.
3 Likes
I feel even more lucky with my purchase now…
I’m also a biker but I’ve never considered an MX5 as a four wheeled bike. I once had a 5.0 TVR Chimaera now that was like a four wheeled bike…
No offence intended here and I have a 2.0 MX5 but it’s speed and performance is not in the same league … Great fun cars and the best bang for the buck convertible but they ain’t really fast 