Traditionally, January or February are the best months to buy a new car. Dealers are pricing the remnants of last years stock at discounted prices and if you are prepared to buy a car with a 2019 build plate you can save a mint of money. It is exactly the same as the 2020 built car sitting alongside it in the showroom but in the eyes of the car valuers it is now classed as being a year older. That used to be a big issue when it became time for as trade-in, but the trade-in market for lower priced cars has virtually disappeared.
There used to be a wide margin between the fitting out of cars in the higher and lower price range but competition has shaved the difference. Rear vision cameras and ungraded music systems are basic now across most model ranges and the build quality has come a long way since those first Japanese " buzz boxes " appeared on the road. In today's market, the cars with the limited warranty and unknown performance are the new brand arrivals from China and there is the expectation that they will quickly become very competitive.
New car prices have remained fairly static through 2019 as dealers have absorbed the cost of a falling Australian dollar but there is the expectation that there will be a correction during this year. The pundits estimate that this will range between $500 and $1000 for cars in the price range from $20,000 to $50,000. The contributing factor will be determined by where the cars are actually built.
During the past year the Australian dollar has fallen eighteen percent against the Thai Baht and fifteen percent againstb the Japanese Yen.. Both of these countries are the major manufacturers of the cars that are sold in Australia with Japan scoring 41.4% of overall sales and Thailand 25,5%.
We may be surprised to find that this is so because we tend to evaluate car brands with the country of origin of their maker. The big selling Toyota HiLux and the Ford Ranger are produced in Thailand and other popular cars like the Toyota Carolla , Mazda Hatchback and CX5, Subaru Forester, Honda CR-V, and Toyota RAV are predominantly made in Japan with some produced in Thailand.
How the Australian dollar is holding up against other foreign currencies has a lot to do with what price tag sits on windshields here. It is expected that European luxury cars will avoid this price hike because the Australian dollar has only dipped against the Euro by 4.6% over the past two years.
The money managers warn that we probably have about a window of from now to the end of March to buy a new car at the old price.. The car companies lock in their " hedged funds " on exchange rates for a set period. That period is about to expire and the new rates are predicted to start arriving by the end of March.
New car sales in Australia have eased off from market expectations. From a safety point of view it is clear that the latest technology built into the modern car is far superior to that of vehicles just five years old, and thats a good reason to update the family car provision plan !
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