Cab Depreciation

[hashluck]

Because I am nice I thought I would share with you the depreciation figures on my 30 month old 3.0 Cab.

Car cost £32K new. Done 18K miles. Car was valued at trade-in as a Sport as it had sports electric heated seats and sports suspension along with lots of other goodies.

Trade-in value I got was £22k against a book price of £21K (for a Sport). I could probably have got £22K privately if I could be bothered and then shaved £1K off the price of the S4 Cab I was buying so I guess the convenience of trade-in cost me £1K.

So car retained 66.6% of its value over 2.5 years. That souds pretty good, but a more galling statistic is it cost £1.80 a mile in depreciation alone.

Will be interesting to see what my S4 will be worth in 2 years. My first not new car for a while and specified with very few extras. This is supposed to be the sensible route to car buying I look forward to reporting back in January 2007!

Another interesting point to all you leasers (or potential leasers) out there. I have moved from the 3.0 to the S4 Cab simply by giving them my old 3.0 back with enough equity over and above my final payment to pay the S4 deposit and keep my monthly payment EXACTLY the same, with a realistic baloon in 24 months which should give me a reasonable deposit on my next car and so on. Not the cheapest way of owning a car but very, very easy. Wish someone was paying for my petrol though.

[Chav]

cheers, interesting stuff

yes the cash price of the s4 is fine...its the running costs that i couldnt really justify doing high mileage etc.

66% for the 3.0 cab is pretty good...usually the basic models retain the most value, so the 1.8T's with just sport spec and leather will usually do best.

i think the S4 cab depreciation will not be so good though, judging by S4 saloon residuals, but buying nearly new rather than new will compensate.

[Scotty]

When did you get the px quote? This time of year is not good for cab sales. I'm sure spring/early summer you help firm up the values.

[hashluck]

Scotty, the PX quote was right now. It is all relative if you are also BUYING a Cab as well as selling, so I did OK on the deal overall. If I had ordered a new S4 Cab for March delivery they were talking about a trade-in of £20K but did admit they would find it easier to sell so maybe I could have got them to go for £21-£22K BUT then I am sure the discount negotiated on the S4 would be eroded! Basically the only figure that matters is the final cost of changing, the asking price and px can be massaged all you like.

[Ari]

Sounds reasonably reassuring, values seem to be holding up well, if not the cast iron that they once were.

I belive my spec (1.8T Sport with metallic, Bose, and one or two others) ought to stand up well as there was only about £1,000 worth of options above sport spec and it seems that the options is where a lot of money is lost on resale.

[Scotty]

[ QUOTE ]

Basically the only figure that matters is the final cost of changing, the asking price and px can be massaged all you like.

[/ QUOTE ]

Totally agree. It's all about cost to change. I've sold my last two cars privately which has saved me approx £3k.

I imported the TT (saved £4.5k) and then bought the S4 from a trusted friend with only 5.5k miles on it and saved about £7k (against new or about £4k against a similar age car)!!

Adding up all the theoretical savings it's about £10-13k which has made the difference between me having the car I've got now or not having it.

[hashluck]

I had a brainstorm when I said depreciation cost £1.80/mile, of course it is more like £0.50! Much more like it. Plus I should add the car only required one service (around £230 I think) so overall running costs are just depreciation and fuel.