Buying brand new - Is it REALLY that bad?

I bought a £46K car with 8K on the clock for £33K. It felt no different to driving a brand new car out of the showroom and was pretty much specced as I would have chosen anyway so nothing lost there. £33K would not have got me into a similar spec new 520d MSport which was coming to £41K, so I simply didn't see the point in buying new as it would have been throwing money down the drain and right now I can't afford to do that. People spending £30K on a 1 series is beyond me I have to say, same as a Golf or other such small car. Drive it for 2 weeks, park it next to mine and ask passers by which one they would prefer if they were priced the same.

I've bough expensive new cars in the past, I shall no doubt buy them in the future but when it comes to run of the mill exec cars I really can't see the point. M5 which is new to the market then you have little choice and if you bail early you wont take a bath, but I spent £42K on an RS4 and sold it for less than £15K 4 years later. Now that's a lot but when I bought the RS4 there was an identical new one that I was considering for £56K, imagine if I'd have bought that one and added the same miles...
 
This talk of buying new cars just reminded me that I saw a manual F10 535i M Sport a couple of days ago. Obviously someone realised that he'd never get what he wanted second hand :)
 
[TW]Fox;21696140 said:
its hardly a custom dream spec.
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It's not a dream spec but i've opted to remove the M-Sport suspension because the ride was too hard. I imagine I would be waiting a long time for a car with the same options to become available on the used market.
 
w1lliam said:
Nearly new all the time. Never new.

What about the spec you want? I'll look for one that has every option included.
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Go on then, you find an A1 with xenons, leather, full option sat nav (inc 40GB HDD), bluetooth, PDC, climate, 18" double spoke wheels, auto-dimming mirror, auto wipers, ipod connectivity, etc etc etc.

Either no-one has ever bought one, or no one has bothered to sell one second-hand yet.
 
paradigm said:
Go on then, you find an A1 with xenons, leather, full option sat nav (inc 40GB HDD), bluetooth, PDC, climate, 18" double spoke wheels, auto-dimming mirror, auto wipers, ipod connectivity, etc etc etc.

Either no-one has ever bought one, or no one has bothered to sell one second-hand yet.
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If you fancy waiting till July, my girlfriend's parents are emigrating and her dad's A1 will most likely be up for sale with all of those options :D.
 
paradigm said:
Go on then, you find an A1 with xenons, leather, full option sat nav (inc 40GB HDD), bluetooth, PDC, climate, 18" double spoke wheels, auto-dimming mirror, auto wipers, ipod connectivity, etc etc etc.

Either no-one has ever bought one, or no one has bothered to sell one second-hand yet.
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What are you getting at? There are some on Pistonheads and it's not hard...
 
paradigm said:
Go on then, you find an A1 with xenons, leather, full option sat nav (inc 40GB HDD), bluetooth, PDC, climate, 18" double spoke wheels, auto-dimming mirror, auto wipers, ipod connectivity, etc etc etc.

Either no-one has ever bought one, or no one has bothered to sell one second-hand yet.
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Would you ever actually spec that? You'd have to be bonkers, it'd end up costing more than an S3 or something.
 
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peterattheboro said:
The A1 is such a pointless car.
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I know that the reason my girlfriend's dad bought one is because he had just sold his A6 and wanted to downgrade. The kids had all grown up and moved out so he didn't need such a large car. He still wanted a premium badge and feel to his car with a nice interior to boot. For someone like him, speccing up a fully loaded A1 still works out a hell of a lot cheaper than what he has been used to paying for cars.
 
[TW]Fox;21694699 said:
I'd love to see the maths on this because the depreciation curve on his choice of car would have to be completely linear irrespective of age for this to be the case. Few cars are like that!

[re. luxo saloons]

Even more the case then - in terms of raw £ you'll lose far more on a new luxury saloon than a new base model hatch. Just see how much a new 7 Series costs and then see how much a 12 month old one is!
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So he's looking at new Mercs vs used Mercs for the replacement of his current Merc which was nearly new when he got it. I know the current one has cost him a lot in running costs, but that's his budget for motoring, and the costs have been due to mechanical failures due to the age of the car. Essentially, for that same budget he claims that a new one will cost him about the same across the same time period due to the much improved fuel economy on the new model and the fact that any failures will be covered by the warranty. I think he also wants to get away from that 6-7 year old car syndrome when things start to fail at a particular mileage and he needs to be able to depend on it.

That's all I can tell you though - it's out of my league.
 
Jonny69 said:
So he's looking at new Mercs vs used Mercs for the replacement of his current Merc which was nearly new when he got it. I know the current one has cost him a lot in running costs, but that's his budget for motoring, and the costs have been due to mechanical failures due to the age of the car. Essentially, for that same budget he claims that a new one will cost him about the same across the same time period due to the much improved fuel economy on the new model and the fact that any failures will be covered by the warranty. I think he also wants to get away from that 6-7 year old car syndrome when things start to fail at a particular mileage and he needs to be able to depend on it.

That's all I can tell you though - it's out of my league.
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That's not really 'depreciation on new is the same as on second hand' though, that's 'had a proper nail of a car and is now scared of second hand' :p
 
[TW]Fox;21697476 said:
I dont mean who would buy an A1, I mean who would buy one with every option. It would be ridiculous, just as it would be ridiculous to buy a 520d SE and spend £25k on options.
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Well I guess it depends what someone wants if money is no object. I personally wouldn't spend £25k on a brand new A1, instead I would look for a TTS or something even better. For me engine, drive etc were more important than a massive spec.

Saying that the A1 comes standard with lots of tech (for a small car). Eg my sport model came with multi function steering wheel in nappy leather, sport seats, leather gear stick/handbrake, Audi mmi with flip up display screen where you can access Radio, CD, iPod, Bluetooth phone/audio, iPod aux/SD card slots, fog lights, led rear lights, and some more. :)
 
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