Baby BMW Forum banner

Beware the price crash...

15K views 153 replies 41 participants last post by  TerryCTR 
#1 ·
Sorry to be the profit of doom here but is anyone else shocked by the plummet in second hand values?

I thought I would recount my recent experiences regarding M2 values...

I bought my well specced car new a year ago and I had intended to keep it a long while. But ,after my circoumstances changed regarding what I needed from the car, I decided it was time for something more extreme and exotic and I strted to consider upgrading.

I thought I would wait until august 18 to change but a conversation with a friend in the trade two months ago encouraged me to consider jumping quicker. He reasoned that there were about to become a lot of low mileage used M2's for sale as many dealers had put cancelled orders pre LCI into demo/ company vehicle stock.

I approached my supplying dealer and after a fair amount of arm twisting we settled on an acceptable price. I had been tracking values on We Buy Any Car (WBAC) leading up to that time and thigs were pretty stable and predictable. I was happy enough.

Roll on six short weeks since I returned my car and it has dropped in value by a further £5K on WBAC, my dealer is now selling it for less than he paid me for it! My car was manual. He has a slightly newer lower mileage DCT on offer as well (Ex demo, high spec 3K miles) which according to WBAC has lost £6K in the same time (its now worth less than the older manual) and he has slashed the price of that car by £5K! Still can't sell it though... He is now stuck with three low mileage cars less than a year old, a brand new registered pre LCI car and an unregistered new one in the showroom...

And while WBAC isn't the bible it is still indicative of market trends.

I think I had a lucky escape here but I would caution anyone that if you are thinking about getting out of your car, I wouldn't if you can avoid it just yet. And, If I were about to pull the trigger on a new one, I just wouldn't... Or I would make a very silly offer, you may well be lucky!

My supplying dealer is pretty peed off by this sitution too and in a candid conversation he is totally hacked off with BMW pushing cars at the dealers pre LCI. Its very poor really, they have sold loyal customers down the road here. I have to say that Audi have doe a lot better at managing the supply of RS3's and as a resut values have held up much more strongly despite the recent power train upgrades in that car.

Great car the M2 and I thouroughly enjoyed mine but I won't be buying another M product in a hurry. This is the sort of behaviour you expect from Fiat, Citroen or Hyundai! Not a so called "premium" manufacturer...

Controversial maybe? But just my two peneth....

T
 
See less See more
#2 ·
Any trade in price is nearly always the estimated auction value anyway.
Fair enough they could be higher on certain cars but when Bmw and the likes offer large discounts and cheap PCP deals it's not going to help anyone other than their share holders.
 
#3 ·
Personally Im not sure what you were expecting. A rwd sports coupe this time of year os gonna be hit hard this time of year. Enter spring and prices will hold strongerm ultinately new cars are hit hard and we all should know this. As an RS3 owner residuals have been very good but the m2 is the better car... I prefer the better car imo. The m2 i beleive will do better than other m cars on residuals. Virtually any car you buy and sell within a year will take big hit, ront forget 20 per cent of your brand new m2 was vat. Im keeping m2 for the long term (unless csl appears) then it will start to make more sense. Firmly belive in 10 years time these cars will be highly revered even more so than they already do.

Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk
 
#4 ·
Prices have to come down for lots of things. Cheap finance and PCP deals have made expensive cars more accessible than ever.

With interest rates starting to be pushed back up people will have less disposable cash and finance won't be as cheap. The prices of used cars are going to suffer.

Sales have only just started to fall after breaking all records for years. There is plenty of supply out there. I'm surprised that some cars are for sale for so much money when many have been for sale for many months. If they take that long to sell they probably aren't worth what they are asking.
 
#5 ·
When I was buying most of the dealers were still trying to be firm on the prices advertised which pushed me back towards a deal on a new car.

There are cars still advertised that were on when I was looking a couple of months back. Overall though there is a fairly small percentage of all the M2s sold in the U.K. that are on the market at any given time.

There will always be deals to be had from time to time but the best way to get a 'bargain' is buying something that you are really going to enjoy over a number of years. Swapping around every 12-18 months is always going to end up in burnt fingers.
 
#6 ·
There was only 20 manual m2s on trader this week. Not sure if that includes full auc stock or not but still not a massive selection country wide.
I think we were kidding ourselves if we though bmw were going to limit supply to keep residuals high rather than make a larger profit. Would have been nice though.
 
#7 ·
There are also quire a few pre registered and un registered LCI cars pre specified by BMW in the network with dealers. My local dealer Lloyds had 2, one in Mineral Grey and one in Sapphire Black which they were prepared to do good deals on.

Just looking on the AUC website there are 5 pages of M2s for sale which will influence values though the values of early F8x M3s and M4s has come down markedly more.
 
#8 ·
It's always interesting how we want to buy them as cheaply as possible but retain the value and sell them for as high as possible. There are some amazing deals around right now but that doesn't de-value the car. Give it another 6 months and we may get some better ideas on how the value of the N55 M2 is.
 
#11 ·
wenklaw said:
A friends 22 month old Audi RS3 that cost new £53k was valued at £28k by the Merc garage he was intending to buy a C43 AMG!!! Not sure the Audi RS holding up on residuals is strictly true.

He still has the RS3 and hates it, not sure why he hates it so much but seemed to coincide with my M2 purchase
You're always hit really hard with expensive options. £13k of added options is an awful lot.
 
#12 ·
AndytheGreek said:
I opened this thread because I thought there might be something intelligent to read.
nope, just someone stating the obvious, all cars depreciate...
Spot on really there are very few cars that will ever achieve the 'investment' status and certainly not if they aren't a limited run. The M2 however good it is IMO will never be seen in the same light as the 1M, it's a car you can walk into a dealership now and find 2 or 3 ready to go. It's no different to any current M car. It's going to depreciate just enjoy it.

The one car I regret not buying was a 987 Boxster Spyder that I could have bought at 35k :evil: but let's face it Porsche is a different market at the moment and we don't crystal balls knocking around :lol2:
 
#13 ·
AndytheGreek said:
I opened this thread because I thought there might be something intelligent to read.
nope, just someone stating the obvious, all cars depreciate...
Good point AndytheGreek! Well made...

However, for those (like me) without your superior intelligence I shall elaborate a little more... This is not about the fact that M2's as with all cars (Porsche GT's accepted) depreciate. Even I know that. And actually I'm not moaning here as I got out of mine very well indeed...

No; I was in fact just pointing out that there is a used value correction going on at the moment that others may be unaware of. And if you are hoping to sell for a high retained value in the near future you may be suprised. Or If you are likely to buy new any time soon you may want to consider pushing hard for a good deal as the wisdom on here (and elsewhere) up to now is that there is a long wait and no good deals to be had. Likewise there should be some cracking used deals around as many dealers are overstocked

Even my dealer is shocked by the sudden change in values and he is candid enough to be hacked off with BMW...

T
 
#14 ·
I think 10% should be the target discount on an lci now, I managed 11 but the dealer was trying hard to remedy a previous issue.

Unfortunately all M cars depreciate heavily and the M2 is now following suit, if depreciation is an overiding concern then they are probably best avoided.

Ultimately I feel the M2 will still do ok, better than the M3/4 due to lower production volumes and a more accessible list price allied to less rampant discounting.

It is possible that the M2 may ultimately go the way of the Z3 and Z4M Coupes once it is out of production, plateau and then start to gain ground again.

Personally I don't really care, I expect to lose money on these indulgences and I don't bother looking at the situation until it's time to change which is a minimum of every three years possibly four, change more frequently than this and you just make things worse.
 
#15 ·
If you're PCP'ing and take it full term then depreciation is irrelevant as it's factored into the monthlies. However, if you are playing the low mileage game but racking them up - or you only intend keeping the car for 6 months then it's an issue.

Even TRL bought an M2 thinking it would hold but has since flogged it.
 
#16 ·
There was a relevant article on the BBC website recently about new and used car sales falling in general - with a subsequent drop in used car prices.


My thoughts for what it's worth on the M2....

Strong values initially - minimal supply with used selling above rrp. Unsustainable.

More used and increased new supply now correcting prices to where they should be. Discounts available on new passes over to used prices.

But with the general used car market dropping just now, its causing a bigger correction for the M2.
(The huge increase in cheap PCP contracts in recent years is now coming back to bite the used market)

However, generally low production and high desirability may firm up used prices in the future.

Just my 2p worth.

I will stick to my usual formula.....
3 years ownership with circa 30k miles.
Anything above 50% retained value from purchase price is good.
 
#17 ·
FishFingers said:
There was a relevant article on the BBC website recently about new and used car sales falling in general - with a subsequent drop in used car prices.


My thoughts for what it's worth on the M2....

Strong values initially - minimal supply with used selling above rrp. Unsustainable.

More used and increased new supply now correcting prices to where they should be. Discounts available on new passes over to used prices.

But with the general used car market dropping just now, its causing a bigger correction for the M2.
(The huge increase in cheap PCP contracts in recent years is now coming back to bite the used market)

However, generally low production and high desirability may firm up used prices in the future.

Just my 2p worth.

I will stick to my usual formula.....
3 years ownership with circa 30k miles.
Anything above 50% retained value from purchase price is good.
Agreed and well written sir, your usual formula is same as mine, anything else is a bonus.
 
#18 ·
the deals on new cars over the last 4 years were never going to be sustainable as those cars come onto the used market they will be the cause of an abundance and ergo a fall in values. Which is good for the majority who cant afford new cars. Used car prices are still higher than they were pre scrappage scheme and only another scrappage scheme will prevent the current downward trend continuing.
 
#22 ·
petay135 said:
My figures were based on 8k per annum but that seems low, is this for an unregistered 67 plate M2?
My GFV on a 67 plate unregistered M2 is circa £25.7k on 48 months at 8k p.a
 
#25 ·
Ahh ok I understand now, BMW increased all the GMFV's about 3 months back, I think to make the monthlies more accessible on PCP as the lower the GMFV the higher the payment required over the term. Advantage of a lower GMFV = potentially more equity either when you get out of the car or at the end of the term if you run to 48 months

Higher GMFV = more insurance against a price crash plus lower monthly payment if that suits your budget but you will pay more in interest due to interest being charged on the larger balloon payment throughout the contract.

Swings and roundabouts really - BMW originally made the terms of finance entry for the M2 quite unappealing, high APR and low GMFV based on their view at the time of desirability and value retention being in line with the 1M Coupe. That was never going to happen and so they relaxed the parameters to stimulate orders.
 
#26 ·
I hope the lower monthlies don't start to turn it the way the Golf R has gone.

Loads of them on the roads - with people affording them on low monthlies (lease or cheap PCP) - then handing them back at the end of the term.

Floods the market with used cars and affects used prices negatively.

The FCA are/were currently looking at PCP on two fronts, due to concerns about the number of cars being taken out on PCP (85% iirc). Firstly affordability for the customer in the longer term and also systemic risk to manufacturers if they suddenly get landed with shed loads of used cars they can't shift on.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top