Used Values Of The New Is

[Barry Lavin]

Finally, in my opinion, no cars offer good residuals, some are just less horrifying than others.

Yep that's fair, well except Mini's and Ferrari's........ :P

The only thing that can change the fortunes of the IS is how popular it becomes - the old IS did well for so long, because it never sold that great, but was desirable to those who wanted one, hence its values stayed up. The new one seems to be selling much better, but the flip side of that is that if desirability declines, then residuals will tumble. The only affordable car that I've seen that has sold by the bucketload and still maintained great residuals, is the BMW mini

I realise that Ireland is slightly different but when I traded in my C180 on my lexi and lost €16000 in 20 months because of all the extras in the merc that I got nothing for ( you NEVER have the right extras). I asked the sales guy what I was looking at dropping per year on the lexi and he told me €7000 (about £4900)

He also said that the MM which cost just over €5000 would be worth an extra €2000 on a trade in. When I asked him about the petrol vs diesel he told me he had no idea as it was new to him. Yesterday after looking at this thread I checked a few garage web sites over here and already the diesel is becoming more sought after and more expensive second hand than the petrol. This is probably due to our crazy tax regime which gives you the possibility to claim back VAT on diesel over here if self employed or a company. Also diesel is 10cent (7p) cheaper than petrol over here at about €1.10 (£78p) per litre.

[Northern Boys Luv Gravy]

Yep that's fair, well except Mini's and Ferrari's........ :P

I think even MINis are talked up too much though. I had a one year old Cooper with Chilli pack, air con, all the right extras etc.. It was in immaculate condition and had done 18,000 miles. It cost £14,500 new. Come to sell and I had no offers privately and a stream of traders telling me MINIs don't hold their value anymore and could only offer £10k. Eventually I got £11,250 from a MINI dealer cash. Not a bad result but not as good as they'd have you believe.

I have decided to hang onto the Ferrari for the moment.