Credit crunch creates smarter car buyers

Three More and more car buyers are choosing protect themselves during the ‘Credit Crunch’ by buying their cars on finance schemes that guarantee the future value of their car.

With the uncertainty surrounding interest rates, house prices and inflation, Personal Contract Plans or PCP schemes offer fixed cost motoring with a guaranteed value for your car at the end of the term, protecting you from excessive depreciation.

Motorpoint, a leading car supermarket, has recently seen a 16% rise in the number of customers buying cars on their Boomerang scheme.

There are numerous factors that cause a car to depreciate such as new model releases, market flooding, with 4x4 vehicles residual values continuing to suffer because of increasing fuel and road tax prices

Motorpoint Spokesperson John Gillespie said: “Customers are often shocked by how much their car has depreciated in two or three years, and have not budgeted for this. As a result, they are forced to either keep their current car for longer than they intended, downgrade to a lower specification, or part with more cash.”

“A good PCP scheme enables a customer to budget precisely and means that market forces that the customer cannot control will not leave them out of pocket when they come to change vehicles” he concluded.