I am Mystified

[Paul an Jane MK]

We purchased our first Moho a 2008 Swift 590RL over Easter 2016. It had been a wet Easter so when we turned up on the Easter Monday the dealer seemed keen to do a deal so we bought for £25k with a starter kit including lots of useful stuff along with two gas bottles plus a years warranty and a new bike rack.

Two years later having decided we wanted a bit more space and a fixed bed I was being offered £20k p/x Against a used Moho and £22k against a new one. In the end we got a great deal on a special with all the extras on my wish list plus a few more so got £22k for our Swift in March 2018. Bearing in mind a retail purchase in 2016 and a p/x two years later to only lose £1.5 k per year is not at all bad as you are paying for the convenience of driving in with your old one and driving out with the the new one simples.

Now this is when I get confused, being a nosey devil I looked on the dealers website to see how much our old one was up for and got a shock to see advertised for £27 995 not surprisingly a year later it is still for sale as I would consider that overpriced. Do dealers not need to sell used stock, seems a lot of money to tie up in a depreciating asset. Do they over price used vehicles to make new ones look better value?

I run my own business but not a strategy I understand.

 

[martin2603]

I part exchanged my 2008 MH for a new one and only lost 1k of the original price in that time, it was later up for 5k more that I paid for it, and it sold!
And yes it was a Swift.! As there is always a yearly price increase it increases the used vehicle values. correspondingly. Shame Car values don't work in the same way. !

 

[gus-lopez]

Do dealers not need to sell used stock, seems a lot of money to tie up in a depreciating asset.

It is far worse here. I have no idea how many of the second hand car & lorry dealers make a living when you see the same vehicles for years, yes years.
Even private sellers advertise stuff for months & months on end.

 

[pappajohn]

We sold our RV for £18000 privately.
A year later I saw it advertised on a well known RV dealers website for £29000.....£5000 more than we paid for it six years earlier. I pity anyone who bought it at £29000.....it was worth £18000 and no more.

 

[Paul an Jane MK]

Omg @pappajohn that is some mark up!

I suppose with limited number of RV’s in UK there is a chance of getting away with it perhaps. Ironically back in the mid 90’s when our son was racing karts around the UK we used a Transit van and caravan but I really wanted a Motorhome but we only had a budget of £10k. Everything we looked at SWMBO dismissed as horrible. At one dealer in Nottingham I think had an RV which had a price of £11500, It was a 1987 37’ Southwinds and looked awesome. Looking through the window we expected it to be completely bare inside but it was actually really nice so our next assumption was one of the numbers had dropped off the price or something.

When we spoke to salesman he was very dismissive saying that it wasn’t theirs they had been trying to sell it for a customer but we’re going to tell them to collect it as no one wanted it. We put in a cheeky offer and bought it. We were over the moon.

First journey back from a race meeting the alternator failed, I strapped our generator to the A frame of our trailer and ran an extension lead to a battery charger under the bonnet. A bit harrowing but got a recon alternator the following week and for several years travelled around England. Ireland and Scotland in great comfort

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