As an occasional dealer in top-quality used cars, I used to enjoy the simple pleasure of picking up a nice ‘cheapy’ for a customer. Typically 9 or 10 years old, a little Fiesta, Polo or Clio would be taken in part-exchange by a garage against a newer car and I’d then buy it from the dealer at trade price.  These cars would then provide another few years of cheap motoring for their next owner, typically a young driver. Lately though, cars like these have been getting almost impossible to find ‘in the trade’So, where did all the good ‘uns go? I’m pretty sure that the answer lies with the much publisced Scrappage Scheme.  All those lovely T and V reg Polos, Micras, Fiestas and Clios are now nothing more than a 3′ x 3′ cube whilst their last keeper relishes in the delicious aroma of a new Hyundai Getz or Kia Picanto!

Sure, these new cars are a little more environmentally friendly than their 10 year old predacessor, but to me, the scrapping of a perfectly good car is a terrible waste. I can’t blame the dealers as they are legally obliged to provide a ‘Certificate of Destruction’ for the car in order to claim the government’s contribution to the £2000. I can’t blame the owners as the allure of a showroom fresh model, a healthy discount and not having the trauma of advertising their old car in Autotrader. I entirely blame the government for the needless scrapping of thousands of perfectly good cars and depriving the teenagers and students of today the chance of a bargain first car. Of course, some of the cars that’ve been scrapped haven’t been ’little’ ones. There are many stories of Jaguars, Porsches, Mercedes Benz and BMW’s been scrapped.  An angry response to an article on Sky News about the scheme spoke of a ‘BMW M5 being swapped for a poxy Astra 1.4′ and that it was a waste of a good car.  Even one of our customers traded a nice Audi A6, but with some large expenses looming, he certainly did the right thing. There was even an item on the local TV news last week about a very rare 1940’s Riley being saved from the crusher by an enthusiast who paid the £2000 himself to the owner!

Searching through the classified ads nowadays is much harder when looking for a little bargain as there are significantly fewer. A lot of the examples on sale are from owners that probably couldn’t afford to take advantage of the scheme and buy a new car, so they’re fairly likely to not be the best examples on the market.

Sure, it’s accounted for over 35000 sales and has kept the dealers (and the car-crushing machine) busy for the last 8 months but I can’t help but hope for the time when the government’s money runs out. Then, slowly but surely, there’ll hopefully be a few nice W and X reg cars filtering through the dealer part-exchange network and a generation of new drivers will be able to get their hands on a bargain again!

 

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