Almost new pre-reg car - more expensive than new?

If you were to bang cash on the counter most dealers would suggest 6 months or so with no guarantees on delivery timetable. It's a long wait.... I'm surprised they are not adding a few k to the ones they have.

Global shortage of semi conductors

Unfortunately it's a typical case of supply and demand dictating prices. You might get the newer car cheaper but you could be waiting until next year for it is less whereas the pre reg is there right now if your not overly concerned about the spec. With typical waiting times and availability of brand new models thin on the ground dealers know that there won't be a shortage of suiters for it even if it costs more than a new one. It's a seller's market out there at the moment.

The dealer may not actually want to sell the car at the moment!

Lead times on some new vehicles are so long, that if a pre-reg sells, they won't be able to replace it with anything. This leaves the dealer short on that model car in case someone does want to test drive one and place an order for whenever delivery is, and in a lot of cases means someone doesn't have a demo to drive home in.

Delivery, metallic, any options and in quite a few cases, paint protection etc. will be included in the price of a pre-reg

Dealer charges probably not added to the "new car" like delivery charges,paint type,cleaning/preparation,registering with Revenue,plates, etc

If,you are talking about the pre reg 20km - has been around the forecourt or over to the local Texaco for a fill or one trip home with the salesperson.It's a new car just with one previous owner

Try ordering a car from the factory from the likes of one of the VAG brands and see how you get on. You will be waiting months for anything that the dealers haven't been allocated already. Factories are not back to 100% either, Covid and social distancing in the work place have not gone away. They are still playing catch-up and there is also other industries impacted by the semi conductor shortage such as the computer industry or basically anything that uses a chip or circuit board.

So someone else has an extended test drive of it or it's being used as a courtesy car? If someone has it on extended test then they maybe hoping they buy it and they might have a trade-in that the dealer wants versus your straight deal. In normal times your deal would have trumped the other person but dealers are very short of used stock now and they might actually make more money by taking a trade in from another interested buyer. They may also be on an extra bonus or incentive scheme from the distributor to shift x number of new cars already in country by a certain period.

Yep, I’m experiencing this first hand. A car I’ve ordered was apparently build-complete in early August but it hasn’t boarded a ship yet and no sign of it doing so anytime soon. So it’s a month sitting on the ground somewhere around the factory. I’m now told it’s still waiting on semi conductor(s), weeks after it seemed apparent that it was completed

At this rate it will be a January reg…

this parts shortage problem is not getting any better as far as I can see.

All makes are affected. The Japanese / Asian manufacturers had stockpiled a lot of parts though, so I read, so they didn't hit the problem as early as the Europeans. But Toyota recently announced that they're cutting production by 40% so they're obviously feeling the effects now.

Then how they deal with the situation varies from make to make. BMW are stripping out spec for example, to get the cars built quicker, whereas VAG seem to plough on and build the cars to spec but end up with enormous lead times due to shortages.

211 pre reg is simply a car registered at the end of June so that the dealer could hit their targets for a rebate.

An unregistered car will have "delivery charges" of a few hundred. These charges are added as vrt is applied to the retail landed price, thus saves vrt on the costs after the car lands at the dock.

Plenty of Nissan quasqai about as they are made in the UK, so easy enough for nissan Ireland to get additional stock as UK car sales are substantially down on 2019 levels.

To put it simplistically, when the pandemic hit last year, most manufacturers cancelled or substantially reduced their forward orders for chips. In the meantime, demand for consumer electronics & IT equipment boomed as we worked from home and were locked down (think laptops, video conferencing equipment, games consoles, phones, smart devices like TVs, tablets etc). This demand quickly absorbed any excess capacity the chip makes had.

When the auto manufacturers got over their 'chicken little' moment and realised the sky wasnt going to fall in, they faced being at the back of the queue for the chip makers as the order books were full and they have been there ever since waiting for production capacity to increase. The European & American manufacturers were most pessimistic and hence worst affected. Tesla being the notable exception managed to keep full production (but they are not at the same scale in fairness).

Some of the Japanese manufacturers have fared well until recently, however even they are affected as Toyota is now reporting they are finally being hit hard with production shutdowns. The Koreans (Hyundai/Kia) were more savvy, but increased demand from buyers look for alternatives has in turned created delays.

New supply chains are being developed which should mitigate this risk in the future, however this will not affect the current shortages in the near term.