Depreciation

-

A little over 18 months ago, I paid £15,650 for my (then) 4-year old 350Z. Judging by the classifieds on Pistonheads, I'd now be lucky to get £10k for it. Eeek!

Mind, when I first drafted this post back in early April, it was even worse. Some cars of the same age were going for just £8k. Had I sold at that point, I'd have lost almost 50% of the car's value in a little over 15 months. I've never known anything like that sort of depreciation. Maybe for a brand-new car, but not one that's meant to be past its initial rapid depreciation period. It's not even as if I paid over the odds at the time.

Still, it's not worth getting upset about and the market appears to be coming back, albeit slowly. And the launch of the 370Z will doubtless be accounting for part of the value lost in the 350Z. All in all, I'm taking the decision to ride out the worst of the recession before I start looking properly for car #5. Now to get the various mechanical niggles fixed...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Driving the Tank

-
I don’t normally give cars nicknames. With the Zed, however, I’m tempted to call it The Tank. Not because of its size or muscularity, but as an abbreviation of sensory deprivation tank. Yep, that’s right — and it’s not a good thing. The test-drive concerns I had about the 350Z being too comfortable a car are still with me. Except now, I’ve translated that nebulous feeling of unease into a sense that it simply doesn’t provide enough feedback. Journeys at night and in wet weather can be absolutely exhausting. I find myself trying to heighten my senses to the tiniest cues coming through the steering wheel, chassis and pedals. Often I’ll end up leaning forward in my seat, as if listening to a quiet friend in a noisy pub. Thankfully, however, it’s not like that all the time. When you put your foot down and hustle it a bit, the car starts talking again. You begin to feel you’re dictating things rather than reacting to them. Sadly, I’ve had very little opportunity to grab the bull by the
Read more

Windfall

-
You get a £500 bonus at work — how do you spend it? The big decision for half of my colleagues appears to have been XBox 360 or Playstation 3? Myself, I’ve opted for a front bumper respray. Of course, as soon as I said as much, I was told, quite earnestly, that I really need to stop thinking about cars so much. Hehe. Well, it made me laugh anyway. :) Yes, I might well be chucking money away — I doubt the work will add the equivalent value to the car come the day I sell it — but it won’t half improve my enjoyment of the car. As it stands, the polka-dot affair I’ve got at the moment (courtesy of Bill Heaney’s crap finishing) makes my heart sink every time I approach the thing. In just a week’s time, I’m going to be smiling again instead. It’s been at least 6 months since that last happened (the lack of blogging here in that time is no coincidence) and maybe it’ll reinvigorate me full-stop. Dammit, I love driving too much to feel depressed about my car. Roll on the good times. Oh, a
Read more