Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Car Market in 2017

What tax breaks? AFAIK there arent any. Its a natural human instinct to blame someone else for everything that goes wrong and politicians are a handy target. But the present diesel car panic is just that - a panic. Bit like the panics we have seen in the past where a forecast sugar shortage sees Joe Public emptying the supermarkets.

My family car is an old banger diesel Merc from 2009 so its not even affected by the london ban. Whats it worth at 90000 miles, a fairly typical 11000pa? Maybe 2k to 4k. So why should I panic and sell it in the market? By the time the new regs get around to affecting me, the car will be heading for the scrapyard anyaway.

I dont think I am untypical but I doubt I am going to persuade you to let the politicians off the hook.

Coming back to the state of the car market, the bulk market is weakening with new car sales dropping, incentives and discount deals common. Its not that easy to say why this is happening. Private sales down 9% business sales down 5% in september and the trend is declining. Sure diesels have fallen further than petrol and alternative fuel vehicles are up 40% to a 5% market share, but some of that decline must reflect the boom in sales that we have just had. You dont buy a new car every year.

What I wonder will be the effect on MMC. Well Morgan buyers being of above average age for the most part, and worry / gloom coming with age, I can see Brexit having a more marked effect on Morgan. Pensioners more inclined to sit on their pension pot than to spend it. And the numbers of new cars in dealer showrooms suggests that MMC has swung from a shortage to an over supply.

The other area is the classic car market. Increasingly highly priced classics are failing to make reserve at auctions and are sticky on the websites. The really rare cars are still fetching big money with a record of 18million for a dbr1 at monterey and not much less for a mclaren p1 ( interesting to see two brits push the ferraris out of their usual top spot) However further down the quality ladder, the situation is quite different and you have to wonder that as Brexit bites and the economy slows whether all those "collectors" who bought on finance will now need to think of selling. How much worse if inflation rises a bit and so do interest rates.

I know that I am much more of a glass half empty person but I cant escape the feeling that we are past the peak and on a downslope. Just too many straws in the wind.

I have a classic car dealership just a few miles from me. They are still asking aspirational prices for their stock. I view their website daily, being a classics enthusiast, but their turnover is very slow. I’m certain a sense of realism will soon appear in the marketplace. I think “average” classics have peaked as an appreciating investment. Morgan is no longer the “cheap” sportscar it once was but having viewed many YouTube clips of the manufacturing process I realise that the labour cost must be very high. These skills have to be paid for at premium rates. This is not a robotic mass production line.

I don't know about in the UK, but in France for years now there have been substantial incentives to buy diesel cars. The blinkered obsession with CO2 pollution because of global warming has led to the promotion of diesels whilst completely ignoring the highly noxious and harmful effects associated with some diesel emissions.

Over here there is an emissions tax payable on new cars which is entirely CO2 related. This favours diesels over petrol engined cars other than hybrids

Company car tax is still based on CO2 emissions alone (tho' there is now a small surcharge for the car being a diesel) which massively favours the purchase of diesels over petrol engined cars other than hybrids.

I can claim VAT back on diesel but not on petrol.

The incentive, which I think came from Gordon Brown, was to reduce the road fund/ road tax on diesels. Only a small incentive but when linked to better mpg and instant torque, together provided a springboard for diesel engined cars.

Our previous Golf Mk4 TDI was a superb car for distance. A much easier drive than the petrol equivalent. When I changed it, I may have gone for a GTI were it not for timing chain issues which were dogging VW in 2012.

Hindsight tells me I should have risked it.

Don’t forget the BIK (Benefit In Kind) taxation links to CO2 introduced by Mr Brown - may have had a more significant impact than RFL.

Blimey Howard, where have you been hiding ? In 2001 the Labour government promoted the use of diesel cars and introduced a new road tax structure that effectively penalised petrol and favoured diesel.

The result was a massive increase in the number of diesel cars on the road

Unsurprisingly they were more interested in political headlines than real science and the results have got us where we are today.

Exactly!

I have terrible memory but I think there was also a gap in the tax on petrol/diesel as well at some point around then, it made diesel cheaper which combined with the greater economy of diesel when used correctly.

Of course once diesel hit >50% of the market that got fixed byt he tax being raised to make it more expensive than petrol.

I don't ever remember diesel being cheaper (in the UK), but then my memory isn't what it used to be - mind needs a defrag