NEW figures show that car buyers in Warrington and across the North West bought over 810,000 used vehicles last year.
That’s 11 per cent of the nationwide total (7,530,956) and places the region in second spot when it comes to UK used car sales.
The figure is up by 11.5 per cent on the year before, and demand looks set to grow.
One report shows that more than one in three drivers in the town plans to change their car this year and, with the pandemic and global shortage of semiconductors impacting the new car market experts believe the consumers’ keenness for used cars will continue during the year.
Steven Whittle (pictued), head of business at CarShop Warrington, on Calver Park Road, said: “One of the key drivers for customers buying a used car is that they’ll receive it a lot sooner than a new vehicle.
Another major benefit is despite the incredible rise in used car values, they’re still cheaper, on average, than buying from new.
“We’re also seeing a number of families downsizing from two cars to one – due to hybrid working and no longer needing two vehicles, two insurance policies and twice the maintenance costs – and instead buying one more expensive car.
“Others have saved money during the pandemic – by not spending on going out and holidays – and they now have some disposable income to upgrade. There are so many factors impacting on the market.
“The value of some of our most popular used cars has risen by up to 57 percent which is also driving growth. It’s certainly another trend we’re seeing here at CarShop, which is why we recently launched our ‘sell your car’ scheme – providing the people of Warrington with a quick and easy way to get more for their car by selling right now.
“We’ve designed it to involve as little faff as possible, with no admin fees and no hidden costs and it even comes with home collection.
“Our experience with electric and hybrid vehicle sales – and increased demand for these fuel-types -mirrors industry-wide stats as they’re now filtering through to the used car market.
Nationally, there was record demand for used battery electric vehicles – up 119.2% on the year before with 40,228 used vehicles sold and accounting for 3.1% of used car sales. At CarShop, we expect this number to grow significantly as we have more stock to sell. However, with 96.6% of all used car sales being either petrol or diesel fuel types, we’ve got a way to go to achieve our zero-emission ambitions.”
Black was most popular used car colour amongst buyers in 2021 – more than 1.6 million were bought. Silver used cars came second placed in the popularity stakes with 1.28million bought, closely followed by blue, with 1.25million purchased with this paint colour. Pink trailed in last place, with just 5,000 sales last year.
