I read this and want one… Good lottery numbers welcome.
…And less than 3 years on…exactly the same base spec car as in the article now has seen a price rise of over £3,200
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Yeah they’re big money now, my car was about £22500 list I think 6 years ago, equivalent spec now is at least £28500. I know on the 2.0 some of that will be attributable to the emissions “fine” Mazda pays for each one sold, but I would’ve thought the 1.5 was exempt.
I know. The thing is cars are big money these days across the board. That 28.5K you mentioned seems high, and it is. However, you can easily push close to that price just configuring the likes of a Kamiq and adding the odd thing like a rev camera. Cars are serious money now. I wonder how much of it is to do with PCP buyers (i.e 90% of the buying public), who buy cars looking at the monthly price. It’s easier to jack up prices more subtlety then.
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Couldn’t agree more, - pcp buyers (renters?) have handed too much pricing control to the dealers.
Most buyers won’t do the (simple) math to work out if they’re actually getting a good deal or not. They’re really only interested in the monthly payment and the new motor on the drive.
It’s even more confusing if you’re p/x ing your old rental, with guaranteed future values muddying the water, plus deposits, interest rates, manufacturers contribution etc etc.
If you’re savvy, and don’t have a p/x, it’s often cheaper to take a pcp out to take advantage of the makers incentives, than paying cash. As long as the finance is cleared immediately.
As usual in life, research, research and more research pays dividends.
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Yes PCP/lease disguises the true price. Look at Dacia, their early adverts were proud to show their full list price (just put “Dacia advert” into youtube) their latest advert states £99 per month (except it isn’t if you read the small print). Unfortunately the masses have let the manufacturers get away with it and there is no turning back.
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It’s been a while since we’ve seen Nder — their last post was yesterday.
It’s not so much letting them get away with it, it’s just many of the same masses now live in a contract world. Owning nothing and paying for everything on the never never.
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I also can’t get the PCP thing when salesman talk about ‘your new car’ and people themselves talk about ‘their’ new car.
How it it ‘their car’ when they’ve just bought a car home and not even pain an ‘instalment’?
Someone by me pays a bit over £400 for ‘their’ car. So in three years they’ll pay about £14.5 grand for essentially jack all when they ‘hand it back’?
I find it both amusing and frustrating at the same time when I ‘try’ to buy a car, maybe with a part X, and the dealerships I’ve dealt with seem OBSESSED with trying to get me to ‘buy’ it on ‘finance’.
How many times have i said I don’t want scabby finance. Trying to use words which they’ll soon get the gist that it’s useless proceeded down that path.
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Not forgetting, a 25 year mortgage is nothing less than a 300 month payment scheme on something you don’t own either until the missives are released in month 301/302 or whenever…by which time people pay 10s of thousands more than the original price. But, at least the only balloon payment are legal fees to finish it off, and a load of profit thanks to decades of avaricious mouth breathing “Must 'Avs” deliberately getting stitched up for “Offers over innit?”
Ok, I’d love an ND and I know which one.Not green eyed in the slightest but on the other hand I’m sure my bank statements are a lorry load healthier.
Prefer to sit it out and let A N Other bleed their cash first. I figured last year running 2 old 5’s over the last 16 years instead of twin PCPs means we are around 85k better off and circa 17k per annum better off ( to include depreciation etc) .
Almost certain to be in an ND in a couple of years…probably an auto RF.
For cash.
Anyway…our focus in this household is my medic niece is now in an area nr. sunny Kabul. Again.
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I think some dealers may also get a “kick back” (or that used to be the case not sure if that has been disallowed more recently) from the finance companies when signing a customer up for finance hence the push for it.
I must admit I did take Mazda’s 3 year 0% offer on the ND since it was 0% so free use of someone else’s money for 3 years seemed a good idea. (no doubt someone will point out I may have got a £2k discount for outright purchase so the 0% actually cost me £2k, but still I was happy with the deal)
From memory, I think Stealer Dealers are “provided?” by the makers with a sort of backhander / slushfunder of £1k to 1.5k for “wiggle room”. Read it ages back mind…may not be the case of late.
The prices have gone up but so have a lot of other prices over the last couple of years, that we can all agree on and you buy the age of car you want to drive, we could debate that forever. For me I think the biggest reason Mazda are strong on pricing is the lack of a credible alternative, what other two seater roadster with great handling comes anywhere close for a price point around 28-30k as a new car.
I think there’s something in the theory that PCP pushes prices up. In fact I’m sure there is. As with houses, when people aren’t paying with their own money…
It makes utter mugs of otherwise sensible people. I have a couple of otherwise sensible friends who, every 3 years or so, have a new car on the basis that “they did me a deal and I’m actually paying about the same/only a bit more/a bit less than I was before so I couldn’t refuse it”. The fact that they probably owned half the old one, and now they own almost none of the new one and have just signed up to another 3/4 year’s payments seems to evade them.
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Yes, crazy isn’t it
Hi John,
I have an alternative theory on the PCP popularity, based upon my understanding that in the 80’s and 90’s ‘most’ new car sales were to lease companies who provided company cars for employees who got them as a perk or essential tool for their job.
Financial uncertainty in the 00’s meant a lot of firms removed the company car perk and all these people loosing the benefit had no equity with which to buy their own car. Being used to not owning a car the lease/PCP approach seemed a good idea and they could maintain the ‘kudos’ of a nearly new car on the drive.
Just an thought.
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Yes, interesting theory. And it’s carried on through the ages to offspring. Even more so as we live in a credit society.
My take is it’s a case of saving/raising the money for the first new/pre reg/very light demo car, and continued financial discipling to save thereafter.
What I mean by that, it takes a lot of discipling for someone without a lot of savings, and who is currently driving a '09 plate Alto to save up £25K or so to get a new/pre reg car. It can be done as, after all, if they’re going to be paying £400 a month for their ‘PCP’ car, they can afford to have saved up that amount each month. But that takes time and discipline and not conducive with the ‘need’ to have the Beemer on the drive for those neighbours to see…now.
The second one comes in after they’ve saved and bought that car. They’ve now got to continue that saving ethos, so they’ve got the money ready for their ‘next’ new/pre reg/light demo in X amount of years time, when they sell their car. Of course this is ‘easier’ as that newer car they bought and saved hard for will give a decent part X compared to that '09 plate Alto they started out with.
All this takes a lot of discipling.
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We only use pcp’s if the manufacturers/finance companies incentives mean it’s cheaper to buy the car that way rather than paying cash or HP, which these days it often is. As long as it’s cleared soon after inception it’s a no brainier for us to use them.
There is however a strong argument for keeping the pcp going, especially as there’s a few 0% interest deals at the moment.
After all a car is a fast depreciating asset, and who knows what will happen to used prices over the next few years.
With the powers that be and the climamentalists pushing us all into electric nonsense cars there is a degree of protection from prices for run of the mill ic cars going into free fall.
Sad, but true.
Very good point. Let’s face it, we don’t really know what is going to happen come 2030 and beyond, ICE cars might drop in value, with only maybe sports cars rising, if they are allowed to be used and not taxed to hell.
We just dont know.
A friend of a friend has just convinced himself to upgrade his Cayman, into a £70k GT4 model, ‘you only live once’ and all that. He reckons it will hold its value. I say thats a lot of money on a car with 2030 on the horizon, when we don’t know where values will be.
I liken PCP to a subscription. We live in a subscription society now, everything is available on a pay monthly basis. Phones, meals, wine, beer, music, TV, cloud storage, pet food, shaving products, cars… People are happy to pay monthly for stuff for as long as they want it. They always get the latest stuff and when they no longer want it they stop their subscription. OK, your paying over the odds but your paying for the convenience.
Slightly off topic but…
Here’s a concept. With the advent of connected cars, will we soon be paying for car features on a subscription basis too? A car manufacturer builds every car with every perceivable option (that’d make the manufacturing process simple), then the consumer can choose to have options turned on an off as they desire. “I’d like heated seats for the winter please”. “OK sir, that’s £6 per month”. The heated seat option is activated remotely for as long as the driver pays their £6 or for a pre-determined amount of time. “I’m making a long journey, can I have cruise control please?”. “Yes sir, that’s £1 for the day”. Tesla and the like may already do this, I don’t know, but cars with touch screen control really lend themselves to this as they don’t need physical buttons, the buttons “appear” on the cars touch screen when the subscription is activated.
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