After a shaky start, the scrappage scheme is now in full swing. Whilst many will be opting to use their old banger to get money off a small new car (and thus reduce the price by a significant percentage), the real heroes do something else. The real heroes use their old cars to secure money off a Nissan GT-R!
Auto Trader broke the story that two Japanese supercars have been purchased under the scheme within hours of it going live. One can only assume that the lucky purchasers managed to win the lottery. I am extremely jealous of their new purchase and can only hope that they regularly read the blog and are happy for me to have a go behind the wheel. Certainly I’d class it as £2,000 well spent!
Scrappage says
May 20, 2009 at 8:57 amScrappage is not all its cracked up to be!
Yes its promoted as £2000 off but thats not really true, its just typical gordon brown spin tacktics.
The government are only putting £1000 up and dealers and manufacturers have to put £1000 up. Of course most dealers and manufacturers have already got savings of over £1000 on new cars against RRP’s so they dont need to knock any more off.
Ford for example increased prices accross the new car range to cover this extra cost, an example on a Ford Focus:
Pre scrapage Ford Focus Zetec climate offered a Saving of £4200 (excluding scrappage)
Same vehicle with inflated RRP now Saving is shown as £4500 including the 2k scrappage.
With Ford sneakily pocketing £700 extra profit and Ford dealers stuck looking like idiots to punters yet again.
Mary Sheridan says
May 20, 2009 at 10:01 amScrappage seems a good idea, but is the wool
being pulled over our eyes once again. Look into it
carefully before getting involved.
willy Wallace says
May 20, 2009 at 10:30 pmScrappage is all its cracked up to be!
aye its promoted as £2000 off but thats is really true, its good gordon brown spin tacktics.
The government are only putting £1000 up and dealers and manufacturers have to put £500 then dealers put £500 and manufacturers ont have savings of over £1000 on new cars against RRP’s so what planet are you on i work as a salesman also its helping the scrap industry cause these cars must be crushed.
martin says
May 22, 2009 at 2:15 pmThe BIG issues IMHO
1. Gov being cheap only £1k The scheme virtually pays for itself in the VAT they’ll reclaim. hardly a bold brave move then
2. Some of thes cars being crushed are perfectly useable, not very green and a raft of cheap 1st cars being taken out of the used car market pool
3. Stock – there are, contray to many peoples veiws very litle stock around especially small cars
4. as people already said since beginning of the year been massive price increases. Popular family cars by as much as £2k since January manufacturers blamed £ exchange rate and dropping sales, fair enough, but now £ stonger and prices not moved. Offers being manipulated to look better than might be.
5. Actully seems like making some good news. this is driving traffic into dealers and has seemed to boost overall confidence. many punters realising that new car not gr8 deal for them once go into dealership and so having sensible conversation on nearly new. resdiaul values also holding up so despite the Governments best efforts to get it wromg, there are signs that having a positive effect. lest hope it lasts
cool bananas
Not getting ripped off says
August 4, 2009 at 6:45 pmIts a Scam!
I went in to an Arnold Clark dealer and the 1.4 vauxhaul astra had a wopping £7995 price sticker along its side..I told the chap minutes before that I had a car eligible for the scheme and he sent us up to the vehicle on our own while he went for “a chat” with his boss…he came up..ripped off the £7995 and told us “Its price is going up to £8995..and thats including the scrappage allowance”..Total sham..so what they did was start at the FULL Retail price..then take off the £2000..so it = £8995..an EXTRA £1000 on the pre-May 17th start date for scrappage Scam…I dont know if its the dealers, the manufacturers, the government or all 3, but they can all go bust for all I care, they do not deserve to stay in business IF a deal like this is for real and they still take the p’ss.
Vote with your wallets..and let them sink!