I was considering having a wee go at this...

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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by rowanmoor » Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:53 pm

Yes, the scrappage is going to have no effect at all. It can't affect used prices as you have to have owned it for 12 months and the scheme only runs for a short time (or until the limited money runs out, whichever is sooner).

Also it is half from the government and half from the manufacturer, and it is voluntary for the dealership/manufacturer so you won't get it for cheaper cars. I hadn't heard the emmisions limit, but how many cars are going to meet that and also be expensive enough that the dealer/manufacturer are willing to give the discount?

I can't imagine there is anybody running (presumably as it has to have an MOT) a 10 year old car who is in a position to buy a new car and actually wants to buy a new car at the moment.

The exception may be if you write it off and decide to replace with new and get the discount rather than get nothing from the insurance - I don't think it has to be roadworthy or even have 4 wheels still attached. It just needs valid MOT which it will have unless you are unlucky enough to write it off on the day the MOT runs out.
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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by rowanmoor » Fri Apr 24, 2009 3:09 pm

I lied. It will have one effect, and a very good one at that :twisted:

It will stop the idiots from the motor trade federation (or whatever it is called) appearing on the radio every 5 minutes bleating on about how bad the car market is at the moment and it isn't fair and so the government has to do something to keep the salaries going for the overpaid managers who haven't the sense to realise they are seeing products that people can't really afford. As if everyone else in the country isn't in exactly the same situation. :roll:

A colleague has been telling me about his friend who runs a garage. He was in the 'it's terrible' camp when they weren't selling any cars and had no business for their body shop etc. So, he got rid of all the expensive 'nearly new' cars on his forecourt with £10,000+ price tags that weren't selling. Then he started buying in all the cheep second hand cars he could find - especially ones with bodywork damage, doing them up in his body shop that has no business, and then selling them on at a profit but still having a windscreen price of a few thousand. He can't keep up with demand and is selling more cars than he ever has before as well as keeping all his staff in employment and a nice tidy profit rolling in. That is good management.
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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by Ciaran » Fri Apr 24, 2009 4:01 pm

I do have to wonder about the scrappage allowence thing, I mean firstly the government aren't exactly flush with cash are they, yet they're going to give you a grand*, and then ask the crippled car industry to cough up the second half (Im sure they'll really love that!), all to co-erce you into borrowing a large amount of money, which no banks will want to lend you, it doesn't seem like its going to boost anything in the long term.

* - No doubt they'll rape you on taxes elsewhere and get it back off you twice over, but that's beside the point really.

Rowan, what your friend with the garage did seems to be an emerging trend.
The small local indy I sometimes get to do generic, less 'Citroenish' work to the XMs, was telling me on Wednesday that he is completely run off his feet. His brother acquired the unit next to him, and now does a bit of bodywork in there. They're doing a roaring trade, and indeed when I was down dropping off the series 1 to be painted, they were just surrounded by cars everywhere, must’ve been 20+ just sitting in the yard waiting to be looked at. A lot of these were mid age, from about 5 years old, upto quite a few 10-12 year olds too.
He said he’s noticed a real upturn in people wanting to maintain perfectly serviceable cars, like 406s, Mondeos and the like, even though they're over a decade old and the owner would ordinarily have bought a new one long before now.

In the bodyshop beside the XM they were working on completely rebuilding the back end of some Daihatsu jeep / SUV thing. It was about 4/5 years old, and needed a complete new boot, side panels, windows and plastics etc. He said that normally no one would want to be bothered fixing damage that severe on anything but a brand new car, but due to appreciating second hand values, credit problems, and the simple fact that no one wants to be lumbered with the new car purchase financial milestone around their neck in these uncertain times, they were happy to fork out quite a few quid to keep this mid-aged car on the road when previously the automatic reaction would have been to bin it and buy a new one.

Second hand cars are getting harder to get here, as everyone’s in the same boat.

That said, I do happen to know that a large, multi dealer Volkswagen / Audi / Porsche franchise here are actually doing very well indeed selling new cars, despite the trends. Doesn't stop scumbag management using it as a handy excuse to trim off staff numbers though...

Ciarán

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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by Peter.N. » Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:19 pm

I have been thinking the same about the value of older cars, only from a different angle, you can repair them! apart from the XM, I reckon one of the best value for money car is the Peugeot 405, particularly the diesel estate. I have obtained several for friends and they are delighted with them. The are roomy, comfortable, economical , repairable, and most of them are in excellent condition with little or no rust, if there were no XM's, I would run one. The 406 is not quite as good, to heavy for the 1.9 diesel and the seats are to short, but its still a contender. As recomendedby Ciaran, the early mondeo is big, comfortable and repairable. I just couldn't handle a car that stopped for no apparant reason, and I had to get it to a garage to find out why :x

I'm getting off the subject a bit :oops: if I find its not here I shall know why. :D

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Last edited by Peter.N. on Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by citroenmad » Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:14 pm

When buying a brand new car, you rarely expect to pay the list price, especially with a Citroen! Anyway, often models have a chunk off the price anyway, i doubt these deals will be attatched when you trade in a 10+ year old car for a new model, you will pay list price minus the £2000 for the car. So its not really a massive difference to buying a new car.

Will all of these cars which are taken by dealers for £2000 actually be scrapped? Or will the better ones be sold on? Obviously its to be scrapped.

If they are all to be scrapped, that surely goes against the 'green' factors? I for one would not trade in my 10 year old car which had served me very well for the past 12 months or however long, to let it be scrapped just so i can have a new shiny plastic/disposable car (thats what most new cars are, arnt they?). Cars get far too sentimental to me to do that to them :oops:

Older cars are no more pollutante to run than newer ones, yes you get the super green ones which you pay £35 a year tax for, however a lot of cars are much higher than that. If our older cars are running well they will be very clean indeed. The MOT tester i use is always amased at how cleanly the Xm runs.

Idoits are running this counrty :?
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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by citroenxm » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:22 pm

Right ok

This NEEDS moving to a post of its own.. Its about the Scrapping value of a car and not a CX as was in the first post... :o ;)

Well never find it again.. and its clearly a strong point at the moment..

Paul
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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by andmcit » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:38 pm

Paul

I think you're wearing your moderator's hat a bit too tightly! ;)

Surely the one thing that was truly enagaging and entertaining in the now discarded
forum was the general opinion and banter where technical details and topics
AREN'T INVOLVED. So what if the thread meanders around various aspects - that'd be
the path of conversation if we were all sat around basking in front of an open fire in
a pub over a pint!!

Plus, I don't imagine we'll need to cross reference the SMMT desperate measures to try
and retain the champagne days of the past when the simple fact is the bubble has burst
and the industry has been over supplying the marketplace for the past few years;
things won't and cannot go back to the way they were - to rub a bit of extra salt in
we've been taken as mugs by the manufacturers in Blighty the past few years too paying
a premium for the same cars that are sold in the rest of Europe...

Andrew

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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by citroenxm » Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:46 pm

Okay .. I shall remove it then - my hat I mean.. :D ;)

..........

PS: Good to see yur still with us Andrew! you've been quiet lately, have been wondering about you!


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Re: I was considering having a wee go at this...

Post by xmexclusive » Sat Apr 25, 2009 9:28 am

Hi Paul, Andrew and All

I actually think both the views expressed can be encompassed if Club-XM.com stays dead and we do decide to turn this into a permanent website. At present all we have got up and running is just a temporary forum to maintain some continuity for those members that were active on Club-XM.com and have managed to find us. It is not a full website by any means. We are getting postings, people are interested, we have independant site back-up, a Webmaster that we can talk to and a number of moderators that appear regularly on the Forum. The interesting thing is that those Moderators have so far not seen the need to curtail forum chat so the site content is evolving in much the same way as it did on Club-XM. All that is missing is a set of more permanent probably read only webpages where the valuable technical threads, the interesting XM factual information and a formal gallery of XM record photgraphs can be displayed. The role of the Moderators would be to select the best and important parts of the forum chat to populate then update their alloted webpages. It would work in the same way as the self help section used to on Club-XM.com. When fully up and running this type of system would require quite a few more Moderators than is typical on most websites but that would actively involve a greater part of the membership which could only be a good thing. It would also make this site very differerent from Club-XM.com which was simply site owner control with virtually no membership involvement.

John

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