The slow, sad death of the affordable car
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/11/how-safety-and-ev-red-tape-killed-the-affordable-car/
Posted by MoistSnow220
The slow, sad death of the affordable car
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/02/11/how-safety-and-ev-red-tape-killed-the-affordable-car/
Posted by MoistSnow220
26 Comments
Small cars have been legislated to death. By the time you put everything legally required in a car it’s so expensive it proportionally doesn’t take much more to make it a crossover/ bigger
In 2006 I purchased my favourite ever car, a Renault megane dynamic 2.0, 3 door hatch, it was roomy enough for 4 adults (5 in a squish), well specced, safe (one of the first 5* ncap cars), quick, efficient, and really good handling. Purchased new from main dealer for £9995.
19 years later, compound inflation says I should be able to get something similar brand new for £16500, yeah right. A new megane is £30,000.
Try living outside of London without a car! You just end up becoming a hermit because getting around is such a nightmare. What’s going to happen when the average person can’t even afford to get to work?
If new cars were affordable people would be less inclined to sign up for lucrative (for the dealership) monthly payment schemes. They don’t want you to buy the car outright, it’s better for them if you don’t.
The Car Industry is guilty of greedflation.
I bought a brand new Transit Connect in 2016 for £16k.
Today the identical van brand new would cost nearer £35k!!!!!
(So I couldn’t afford that and bought one that is 2 years old for £19k.)
Difference that warrants £20k difference? Almost nothing, I have both vans still and they are the same platform, they haven’t changed much about the Van.
The only difference is the newer one is Euro6 ULEZ compliant. Which just means they bolted on stuff like ADBlue and Sensors/Electronics that monitor Emissions (and cause lots of issues). All that stuff is old technology that they already had and being used on other cars/vans in their range. The van is essentially just a Ford Focus.
Inflation has doubled prices since 2007.
And cars are far far better than they were.
Something people don’t comprehend.
I hate cars. People tell me I need to drive. No thanks. Walking, cycling, buses and trains (if I’m feeling masochistic) for me!
Sad? No. Excellent, more like.
Cars are a menace; they are noisy, polluting, and take up too much space. The fewer of them exist, the better. Making them unaffordable for most is a good strategy to achieve this goal.
About 25 years ago a fairly reasonable spec VW Polo would have cost around £10k that’s £18.6k in today’s money. That wouldn’t buy you a basic entry level model Polo today.
Back then £10k would have bought you a Polo, Ka, Fiesta, Corsa, Clio, Micra, 206, 106 etc. Today sub-18k doesn’t buy you a lot [https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/best-cars-vans/351901/top-10-cheapest-cars-buy](https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/best-cars-vans/351901/top-10-cheapest-cars-buy)
If you live in a moderately sized town and up then just get an ebike.
Got kids? Expect to buy them a car if you live outside London.
Furthermore, It’s the sad slow death of any affordable secondhand car. Gone are the days of picking up something reasonable that will see another 2 -3 years usage with a fair amount of MOT remaining for under £500, £1000 or even £1500.
For a country that is littered with motors, How prices have shot up over the past few years is beyond belief.
Well, ULEZ has stopped new drivers from buying £500 cars. I bought an L reg escort as my first car for £400 quid and learnt how to do the maintenance on it, which gave me a valuable skill and helps me save money to this day. Unfortunately, it is hard for new drivers to find a decent banger which is now starting to hit £2k.
Stop scrapping perfectly good cars and more people will be able to drive them. For example, I went to the US and the 80s land yatchs are still being driven
The Dacia Sandero is pretty heroic in this category tbh. Easily the best value car on the market.
It doesn’t help that we, as a population, are buying into big cars and ‘luxury’ badges. Everyone wants to project that they are doing well, so they lease big overpriced cars, which means the used market is full of cars that aren’t cheap to insure or maintain.
We need more Japanese kei cars, sure they’re a LEGO block on wheels, but they get the job done.
All this push for EV’s only too is all money making scams.
You can’t do any kind of work on your EV, everything has to be done by the dealer or mechanic, and most mechanics don’t wanna work on EV’s because they can literally kill you with a touch.
Shit sucks that this is the future we’re going toward.
There’s no reason to buy a brand new car, it’s just throwing money down the toilet as they depreciate so fast. Buy them second hand from the mugs who leased them and took on the depreciation or the mugs who bought a brand new one and want another after three years. You’ll get a 3 year old car with above average mileage for around 1/3 the price of a new one and it will easily last you another 10 years as cars live longer these days. If that is out of your price range then buy a 5 year old car, or a 7 year old car. You probably won’t start having major issues with a car until it hits 12-15 years of age. If you want to save even more money then get a pre 2017 £0-30 road tax car like I did.
I bought a brand new MG ZS180 V6 20 years ago for £12,500.
Admittedly just before they went bump but it was a total steal. Dread to think what an equivalent would cost nowadays.
What are the most affordable cars these days?
My current car is a 2011 Kia Rio, I bought it in 2014 I love it so much, its quick, its diesel (sorry, atmosphere) and my local mechanics say its easy to fix stuff. Its done 150000 miles (I bought it on 19000).
It cost me £6k when I bought it.
I am dreading the day it dies 😔
There’s nothing so expensive as a 2nd hand french or german car.
I bought a used Alfa Romeo MiTo and I love it.
I plan on driving it until it completely disintegrates.
We should ban those giant cars. Such a disgrace wankermobile.
It’s it’s anything like in Canada, government over regulating is to blame.
3yrs ago i bought an old diesel C class merc with 42k on it. Cost me £2400. Garage had advertised twice. Couldnt shift it. Now, there’s no chance of finding similar. At the same time I’d sold similar for £650, with 72k.
Ok, what we need from this article is “average monthly payments”.
The headline price of the car is largely irrelevant. Yes, it is relevant to the cash purchaser and the finance company and so on, but think, for a moment, if you will of how the car makers operate.
Your car costs, say, £5k in raw materials. They sell it to you for £30k and you pay £500 a month after your deposit of… £5k. Finance provided by… “Car Manufacturer Bank Ltd”
Now you’re not someone who is a £25k one off profit centre for the car company, you’re a £500 a month profit centre for the company. They can then commit £500 a month to expenditure for the coming 3 years, and will probably get a sale from you at that point. Or you’ll walk away and have to pay a £15k ~~hostage release fee~~ final payment.
PCP is the tail that wags the dog of the final price. They need £500 a month to make this car work and the raw materials to be covered, so they work backwards to arrive at a price.
You will own nothing and be happy.