As the new number plates have filtered onto our roads I was wondering how important this time of year is for car dealers and indeed the car manufacturers. The 10 plate cars have now been on sale since March 1st with the option of pre-ordering the 10 reg vehicles a few weeks before the launch. Although you may think this time of year is easier for car dealers to sell vehicles because of some customers wanting to be the first to own a brand new car, this year might be an exception to the rule. The problem for car dealers this year is that the government scrappage scheme has now ended. Although many car dealers have used their initiative and created “swappage” schemes which work in a similar way to scrappage scheme just without any government funding. It is still going to be a difficult time for car dealers though as customers seem wary in purchasing a brand new car.
This is particularly the case when you search online for offers. Most of the offers I found were still taking into account the scrappage scheme prices. This might be the case if the car dealer is going to foot the £2000 but most of the dealers I contacted were simply advertising the wrong price. I can imagine it will take time to change these prices but this has only added to consumer confusion.
Even though my job involves information about the car industry I wasn’t fully aware of date of which scrappage ended. The car dealers that I know of also had difficulty knowing the exact date when scrappage ended as many thought it was the end of March. In reality it was around the second week in March that the scheme started to wind down its operation. This has undoubtedly affected sales mainly because car dealers weren’t sure on the end date for scrappage. If they’re not sure of this then I don’t know how anyone expected potential car buyers to know about it. I fear car dealers have an uphill battle in terms of sales volumes. Enquiries will probably be there but car buyers are probably reluctant to go through with the sale. Instead car buyers are likely to browse brand new vehicles in order to find the best deal or even just to search the market. During a new plate change there is a wide array of choice for consumers. For example car dealers not only sell new and used vehicles but also pre reg cars such as vehicles which have only been driven for a few thousand miles. Usually these vehicles have been used as rental vehicles on the islands around Britain. They’re sold for a few thousand or so less than the brand new equivalent. These cars are usually less than six months old and also include the remaining warranty cover which in most cases is either 3 years or when the car hits a certain mileage limit. This begs the question why bother purchasing a brand new car. Check out your local car dealers today.
