I agree Tigger, PCP is popular because you can buy an expensive car on a modest salary. It's not for me-paying a huge amount of money to hire a car for a few years seems a crazy waste of money-but each to their own. My gripe is not the growth of PCP, but the high cost of the entire Land Rover range. £20-25K for a entry level car shouldn't be a challenge for a company such as Land Rover. The Freelander 2 was their highest selling model and kept the company afloat. They replaced it with a nice looking frilly dress and upped the price £10k. Blaming brexit/diesel is a joke-poor decision making is the real reason for the situation they find themselves in.

All manufacturers are seeing a drop in new car sales but Land Rovers is particularly high. Some of this fall is due to people living beyond their means. They are "renting" a £40k car on a salary that is more suited to a £20k one. As the cost of living has risen, people are finding it hard to either find or justify the cost of the monthly payments on a depreciating asset they will never own.

PCP is a bubble that HAS to burst
You sell an expensive car, with relatively low payments based on the premise that in 3 years it still has a large residual value. While there is a shortage of good quality 3 year old cars this works well. At some point there will be a glut of 3 year old low mileage cars at silly high prices, so why buy 3 year old when you can rent a new one for much less?

Result - no one buys 3 year old cars, value of 3 year old cars falls, PCP figures don't add up, so PCP price goes up and 3 year old car now makes the sense it used to do.

Me I prefer year old cars, let someone else take the 20% initial hit, and still have 2 years manufacturer warranty - then run them into the ground!

PS you can buy a "relatively" cheap DS - no toys, no 4x4, compare this to a similarly priced import, and you realise you are paying a lot for a badge, - know a Rep who has just ordered one based on a drive of my HSE, he is going to be disappointed  Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

The problem I see is that you seem to use up the equity that you have built up by owning your car in the first cycle of the PCP contract. That is you have no real intrinsic value in your present car to offset the deposit of your next.

To me it looks like another of those financial tricks to get you to overspend, or give up your hard earned savings. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 76k+ miles) (MY2015)

dorsetfreelander wrote:

The JLR story is front page on the FT today and I found this comment on the FT online.

Quote:

This is nothing to do with Brexit. I was trying for months to get a 3.0 petrol Range Rover Sport. The delivery date was put back three times and in the end the sales person said he had no idea when I would actually get the car as they a) had completely underestimated demand and b) were prioritising exports because with the pound lower (less so now) they could sell the cars for far more overseas...

I gave up

.

I seem to recall hearing that the new Ingenium plant in Wolverhampton could easily switch to making a petrol version. So where is it? I am beginning to wonder if this is JLR's Kodak moment.

PCP has its uses. Especially if you use it to buy exactly the car that you want from new, look after it, maintain it properly and treat the whole experience as a 3 or 4 year test drive. If all goes well, buy it and get the perfect used car with a completely known history and the run it until the wheels come off it! That what I’m doing with the FF.

Interestingly, some sales staff were amazed that I should want to admit to 30,000 miles a year, suggesting that I should use a lower figure to “keep the payments down”, so this plenty of weak selling and people being encouraged to have a nasty shock at the end of the agreement. I’ve known someone get very badly caught out by this.

Treat them sensibly and they can work well.

As mentioned in the DS thread - Broadspeed and others are offering 15% discount across the board on Discovery Sports. MY 09 GS manual in Lago Grey, Wood Co arm rest and side bumper strips - now sold.

MY 15 SD4 SE Auto Orkney Grey with colour coded Bumper Door Mouldings

LR NUT wrote:

Tigger wrote:

Any solution that involves sacking McGovern must have some serious merit!

you’ve bought his finest creation

And an outrageous bit of styling it was too! Hard to believe it made it from concept to reality almost unchanged.

Unfortunately, a fair amount of practicality was sacrificed for that style and it’s sales have (unfortunately, again) been tailing off quite sharply recently. With a high fashion item, like the Evoque, it’s likely to have a fairly short time in the sun before people move on to the latest thing.

The next gen one is due next year with hybrid option.

Still an amazing feat that it’s only just starting to tail off after 7 years relatively unchanged. 21MY Defender 90 S 3.0 D200

Just my 2 cents....

The first story is a non-story - laying off 1,000 contract assembly line workers whilst also recruiting 5,000 highly skilled engineers and apprentices is actually GREAT news for the UK and for JLR. This is exactly what Dyson have done - keep your high skill jobs here and manufacture overseas where labour costs are lower.

A friend of mine's Dad died a couple of years back and his estate, when valued, was worth £19.5 Million. He had 7 cars, including a Bentley on PCP !

I have a PCP on one of my cars for a simple reason - I have a GUARANTEED buyer in 3 years time if I don't like it! FL2 HSE Auto Galway Green
Evoque SD4 Auto Blue.
FL1 HSE TD4 Manual Black - Gone.
RR Classic V8 EFI - Gone

mmm as a contractor, seeing contractors dispensed with doesn't fill me with happiness, especially as I was about to go to Halewood

LR don't say they are employing 5,000 British Engineers - they will be cherry picking from graduates from around the world, these people will hone their skills at LR and are just as likely to be employed at a competitor in the future.

Bitter I know, but have seen it happen sooo many times.

PS after being right royally stuffed by the last two "employers" I will never be an employee again. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

A friend of mine's Dad died a couple of years back and his estate, when valued, was worth £19.5 Million. He had 7 cars, including a Bentley on PCP !

Big mistake in my view. Seven loose women on speed dial makes far more sense to me.  FL2 MY10 TD4 GS traded in at 2 years
FL2 MY13 TD4 GS Current

Pedro wrote:

I have a PCP on one of my cars for a simple reason - I have a GUARANTEED buyer in 3 years time if I don't like it!

Looks like Brexit is starting to bite. Just announced in FT online.

Quote:

Vauxhall and Opel are slimming their dealer networks as the lossmaking car brands try to improve their profitability under new ownership.
The nameplates will cancel the contracts of their entire 1,600 European dealers, of which 400 are in Germany and 326 in the UK, and re-franchise a lower number of existing sites over a two-year period, it was announced on Monday.
In the UK, Vauxhall will refranchise at least 200 sites, in a move that could see its overall footprint fall by a third.

The group stressed that there would be “no job losses” among the 12,000 UK employees of Vauxhall dealers as the sites would move to other brands or into selling used cars.

“Nobody is being sacked,” said Stephen Norman, Vauxhall’s managing director.

Although its UK dealer network is profitable, Vauxhall and its European parent Opel are aiming to save €1bn by 2022 after being taken over by Peugeot owner PSA last year.

Mr Norman said Vauxhall aimed to sell more cars through a smaller number of dealers in future, while focusing on an increased online presence.

Opel will also refranchise its entire dealer network, he said, although the company has not yet provided details of how many sites will be affected by the move.

Vauxhall suffered the worst year of any car brand last year in Britain, with sales falling 22 per cent and market share declining from 9.3 per cent to 7.7 per cent.

They done the same thing in 2013, they’ve been struggling for years. Their models are just too bland and the new ones are just rebadged PSA products such as the new Grandland X, a rebadged Peugeot 3008 which looks a lot better. 21MY Defender 90 S 3.0 D200