Pre-reg vehicles making up a large proportion of new car sales?

Leonard Hofstadter

Noticed this on Toyota's website.

Now never mind the fact that the general public are still showing their extreme stupidity/blind loyalty towards Toyota, who are shockingly still number 1 this year, despite the fact that there are so many infinitely better cars on sale, the last bit of the article is what struck me.

"In terms of the market we do notice, and would be concerned about, an increasing level of ‘pre-registered’ vehicles. The practise of relying on it for a significant proportion of a brand’s sales is unhealthy and ultimately will negatively effect the residual value of brands subjected to it. While the short term market is difficult, down 13.5% on the first 6 months of last year, it is not in anybody’s long term interest, distributors, dealers or, most importantly, the customer to distort it by inflating short term sales of particular models."

I wonder what makes are doing this, and how widespread is this within the car trade at the moment? I presume that Toyota aren't doing this if they are expressing concern about the practice, or am I wrong on that?

CiniO

What acutally is a pre-registered vehicle, as I just don't understand this term.

kildare.17hmr

CiniO wrote: »

What acutally is a pre-registered vehicle, as I just don't understand this term.

Distributors and dealers have targets to hit, if they are not hitting the targets they will sometimes register vehicles and sell them at a discount in order to hit their targets

Marcusm

The first car I bought was a pre reg; basically, the garage (or distributor) values sales numbers or incentives more than cold are customer cash. The car is registered and then simply held for sale. Sometimes they are sed to supplement demonstrators but more often they are not. When I bought mine, they'd only it left so I tested the car itself. 15 miles on the clck became 21 and I bought the car for approx 65% of supposed value. It had been registered 3 months earlier.

Atlantic Dawn

Not much "wrong" with it, however when you buy one of these you are owner 2, when you are going to sell it next owner will be owner 3, might put potential purchasers off having an additional owner, even though a Cartell/Motorcheck report will verify short ownership for owner 1.

BigEejit

captainspeed wrote: »

Now never mind the fact that the general public are still showing their extreme stupidity/blind loyalty towards Toyota, who are shockingly still number 1 this year, despite the fact that there are so many infinitely better cars on sale, the last bit of the article is what struck me.

I drive a honda myself and, arguably, it could be one of what you class as an infinitely better car. But are there many cars at the same price point as a Toyota that are infinitely better?

Guy:Incognito

BigEejit wrote: »

I drive a honda myself and, arguably, it could be one of what you class as an infinitely better car. But are there many cars at the same price point as a Toyota that are infinitely better?

It all depends on your definition of "best". Imo best does not just equal most reliable.

L1011

BigEejit wrote: »

I drive a honda myself and, arguably, it could be one of what you class as an infinitely better car. But are there many cars at the same price point as a Toyota that are infinitely better?

Based on the reliability of my employers fleet 11 and 12 reg Aurises, I would classify anything that can go for more than 5000km without a major crippling fault to be infinitely better.

They are the least reliable vehicles the firm has *ever* had and we had a brief fixation with Citroen at one point!