In the USA second-hand – used car – SUV prices are going UP! BUY NOW

 

 

Sounds crazy in these times, doesn’t it?

 

Not really though. It’s all question of supply and demand.

 

To digress, they use to say what happens in the USA happens in the UK 2-years later. Last year it was 2-months. Now it’s 2-weeks. Tomorrow it’ll be 2-days. So listen up and get your arse into gear.

 

The demand will always be there because a SUV is a big family car. We are family people. In fact so much so we repeatedly make families.

 

You may think John and Janet have just the one spoilt child. But John has been married before and liked it so much he did it again with Janet. John bought two previous kids with him – well on weekends. Janet has two kids from her previous marriage and now she’s another with John.

 

Uncontrolled reproduction sounds wrong in our highly controlled society. But the fact is God put us on this earth to reproduce ourselves. And we do. He made it enjoyable so we enjoy it and we do it.

 

So we need SUVs or MPVs. We need SUVs because Janet and John have got 5 kids to take on a trip every other weekend. It’s economically viable because one car transports 3 families.

 

But you can’t get SUVs. Because prices have been on the floor so people don’t sell them. A car is nowadays both extremely reliable and durable – you don’t have to change,

 

So demand is constant but supply falls so prices have to go up to balance the situation.

 

It’s the same in the UK. Forget small cars, they’ll always be worth the money. Medium size cars like the Focus, Astra or Megane with a top specification costing 16 or 17 k new could have been bought for less than 10k yesterday.

 

You could have bought a 20k MPV, one year old for less than 12k – yesterday.

 

These cars have been so cheap they’ve all been bought up. Now there’s no supply. But the money is coming in, in its trillions.

 

I’ve no interest in this. I sold my first car in May 1966. I delivered my last car on Saturday the 7^th of March 2009. It was a deeply discounted brand-new Chevrolet SUV.

 

But I think that’s the end of it. Car supplies are low. Money is being pumped into economies. We’ve still got kids to transport and nowadays old-folk – shit that’s me – buy a car now.

 

The only way we can get out of this is if John leaves Janet alone. Having said that he’d only be going with Sue and she’d start doing Dave. But it really doesn’t matter. We can’t win. Me and Mrs Spence have been together since 76. The problem is we’re still together as an adult family of five. So the number of people is OK but the size of the luggage increases. Can you hire a Suburban for a USA family holiday? You can’t; you can get a van with all seats no luggage. The demand’s there but not the supply.

 

Buy now – used car prices are going to rocket.

 

Not profiting, only observing

Ralph

 

This is not a crazy car comparison

 

 

Over on Chevy Reviews I’ve published a comparison between the Renault Clio and Chevrolet Matiz. You might think it’s like comparing chalk with cheese. There’s no comparison. But there has to be because they’re both either called small cars or minis. However the Matiz is only 3.50m long whilst the Clio is 3.99m long.

 

Over the years small cars have grown. We could go back to the original British Mini in the late 50s but its Fiat and Renault who’ve been the most consistent assemblers of small cars. The history of these cars is interesting.

 

The Renault 5 was introduced in 1973. It was 3.48m long, 1.54m wide and 1.41m high. Previously small Renault cars were near 4m long, apart from the Renault R3 and R4 which were near 3.7m long. Incidentally, although the Renault 5 embraced front-wheel drive, the 5 did not follow BMC by mounting the engine transversely to save space. The engine was inline, longitudinal. They later changed over to transverse engines in second generation 5s.

 

In 1971 Renault launched the Clio. The Clio was 3.71m long, 1.61m wide and 1.39m high. This larger Clio was called a super-mini.

 

In 1993 Renault announced the Renault Twingo. The Twingo was 3.43m long, 1.63m wide and 1.42m high. A car magazine said the Twingo was, ‘the best car to not be sold in the UK.’

 

The Renault Clio was re-launched in 1998 with a new body, more space and safety. It measured about the same as the original Clio.

 

The all-new 2005 Renault Clio is what I think of as a super-sized mini. The new Clio is 3.99m long and 1.93m wide. In a Euro NCAP crash test the Clio was awarded 5-stars. And I suppose the growth in small cars is all about safety. Having said that the new Fiat 500 has 5-stars and is only 3.55m long.

 

There are other benefits to super-sizing a mini. You get more space and stability.

 

I suppose comparing a Clio with a Matiz is like comparing a hamburger sandwich with a Big Mac meal.

 

Comparing the new 2007 Twingo with the Matiz is more like it. The Twingo is based on the old 1998 Clio which is the same year the Matiz was launched as an all-new car. However the Chevrolet Matiz is only one of two 5-door cars you an buy for less than £7,000 with low CO2s meaning you only pay £35 per year vehicle excise duty, making the Matiz more affordable to buy, cheaper to run and just as good to drive.

 

Regards

Ralph

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What absolutely everybody needs to know about golf, skiing, cookbooks, cars and the internet

 

Back in 76 I met Mrs Spence. Boy was it hot – the weather. But I owned enough motorbikes to keep the girl cool. We had a great time on the bikes for a couple of years and loved ‘em until I got side swiped by a car in 78.

 

Life wasn’t all roses. I got a lot of flack about vanishing for half, maybe a whole day, sometimes plus evenings to play golf and drink port.

 

Anyway, her indoors decided we were going skiing in 78. We’ve been ever since. Before we – she – had kids, we’d go 5 weeks in a year. We got good.

 

The reason I’m relating this to you is because if you’ve ever played golf or been skiing you know or can remember you thinking to yourself ‘this is all I ever want to do for the rest of my life.’

 

I didn’t get to do the golf thing for long because Mrs Spence couldn’t bear to be without me for a second. But we did a lot of skiing.

 

OK, we’ve talked about bikes, golf and skiing. Where do the cookbooks come in? Yeah, cookbooks are such a thing your word processor won’t flag them as two words. Cookbooks are one thing. I’m the cook in our house. I learnt to cook for hundreds in military school. I obey orders and do just like it tells me in my books. As for Mrs Spence, she’s the only girl I know who can burn water.

 

Here’s the connection. I’m reading the Sunday Times magazine and a couple are sat in ski resort compiling pop books. What are pop books? They are books compiled from secondary sources. In other words they didn’t go out and do the original basic research. They copied from numerous books and compiled it in their own book. They simply make a few edits to make it appear original material.

 

It’s true, people do this. Check out your bike, golf, skiing, cookbook books – same shit – right! They’ve even got the same photos.

 

Let’s finish with cars. I somehow got into this car comparison thing. So I check out the big four or five magazines. Now I know cars because I’ve been selling them since May 66. And I delivered my last on Saturday. Back to the mags’. Guess what – same shit. You find one mistake in a car mag’ and you find the same in them all. They’re all copying one another and repeating mistakes. It’s why I’ve the audacity and arrogance to publish my own car comparisons. I make them by hand. I make mistakes – so tell me.

 

Now it gets even more interesting – if the above has been. I don’t actually create each page of my car comparison pages. I copy paste and edit. I’m like a manufacturing machine. I’m my own little pop publisher.

 

Now it gets really interesting. Here’s what happened. I copy my Fiat Grande Punto vs Chevrolet Matiz page and paste it to edit it into my Ford Fiesta vs Chevrolet Matiz page. How many edits did I have to make? They tell me the new Ford Ka is a Fiat 500 in a new skin and the 500 itself is a Panda in a different envelope, but what’s going on with the Fiat Grande Punto Ford Fiesta thing? I think it’s all good by the way.

 

Ralph

Your Popular Pop Publisher

 

 P.S. what I’m hoping is my pop published car comparisons will become so popular I can sit on top of a ski resort and publish them. Then me and Mrs Spence will really have a thing going on.

Do You Make These 10 Big Car Buying Mistakes?

 

 

Before the internet people bought cars for a number of reasons:

 

• Reached a savings target
• Come into money
• Promotion
• Change of job
• Change in life cycle
• Old car no longer roadworthy
• Old car broken beyond repair
• Car stolen
• Car written-off
• Flood damage
• Avoid MOT
• Planned change cycle.

 

There were many reasons and more. But today some people buy cars because the car they recently bought is the wrong car for them. Two common reasons are: the car doesn’t suit their lifestyle, or they can no longer afford it.

 

It’s very easy to get carried away on the internet and then start shopping dealers for the best deal. We all want the best deal. None of us want to pay more than we need. We’ve all got a friend who bought theirs cheaper.

 

The problem is surfing the internet glides over important factors to consider before shopping around.

 

Buying a car is complicated. There are so many things to consider. What are those things?

Regards
Ralph

There’s Only One Car Cost You Can Cut

 

 

I use to categorise car costs as depreciation, interest and maintenance = DIM.

 

But since I’ve become interested in car comparisons I’ve realised when you buy a car you buy the costs that go with it. When you buy a car you make a lot of cost choices with the purchase which are predetermined.

 

If you buy a certain derivative of make and models of car new or used then you buy into a depreciation rate be it measured in money or percentage. There’s nothing you can do about it because the used car market determines values.

 

The same goes with interest or the opportunity cost of your money. Once you buy in depending on the amount and period the cost is agreed.

 

Again, the same goes with vehicle excise duty, fuel, maintenance and MOT.

 

If you decide to buy a small car you’ll probably pay £35.00 or £120.00 annual excise duty. You make your choice and thereafter there’s nothing you can do about it.

 

With a small car you’ll on average return a combined mpg of about 47mpg. Most small cars return about the same. You can’t do anything about the price of fuel.

 

And the same goes for servicing, tyres, brakes and MOT.

 

Generally, the bigger the car the bigger the costs.

 

You may say you’ll dispose of your old car retail rather than trade. You may say you’ll pay cash. You’ve got lots of choices but once you buy the car you’re locked into a class of costs.

 

You can’t influence the second-hand car market or interest rates. The same goes with vehicle excise duty and the price of fuel.

 

You can take great care of your car which might save you money. The extreme difference is probably £700.00 per annum. But you’re unlikely to move from one extreme to another.

 

The only cost you can renegotiate every year is your car insurance. You can half your costs by shopping around. There’s no love lost in the car insurance industry. You have to be an unfaithful customer. What did that song say, ‘my momma done said, you gotta shop-around.’