Cash Out Now – The End of the Used Car Game

So I popped into the Vauxhall dealer the other day. First, it was impossible to park - lots of spaces filled with cars for sale, but none for customers. Diagnosis? £144 an hour. Not heart surgery, not legal advice from a silk – just a bloke plugging a laptop into a car. At that rate you half expect them to throw in a foot massage and a glass of champagne, but no – you get a plastic chair and an invoice that makes your eyes water.

Now, if you think that model is going to survive the next decade, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. The Chinese aren’t just coming, they’ve already set up camp and are flogging tents at half the price. BYD, MG, NIO – they’ll deliver your car to the doorstep, update it while you’re asleep, and charge you less for the privilege. No need for a glass palace with cappuccino machines – just a bloke with a tablet who turns up at your house, smiles, and fixes it.

Meanwhile, BMW and Audi are still trying to flog you the dream of “residual values” – those mythical creatures that vanish the moment you try to part-exchange. Who in their right mind is going to drop twenty grand on a five-year-old German badge when you can buy a brand-new Chinese SUV, under warranty, for the same money?

And the used market? Forget it. Everyday petrol and diesel cars will be worth about as much as a bag of crisps in a thunderstorm. The only ICE cars worth keeping will be classics and oddities – the stuff enthusiasts want to tinker with on weekends. My GT6, for example – once I’ve finished turning it into a mint-green, turbocharged restomod with burr walnut and a growl that would wake the dead – that’ll still have value. Not because it’s “approved used” or comes with a stamp in a dealer service book, but because it’ll be a proper car. A car you want, not a car you tolerate.

By 2030 the whole second-hand game will be Chinese makers recycling their own fleets – ex-subscription cars, cleaned up, re-warrantied, and sent back out like Amazon returns. The local dealer forecourt will be reduced to flogging what’s left of yesterday’s ICE scrap to people who haven’t noticed the music stopped.

So yes, enjoy that £144-an-hour diagnostic rate while you can. It’s the last gasp of a dinosaur. The Chinese aren’t just wiping the floor – they’re taking the mop, the bucket, and the showroom carpets with them. Meanwhile, the GT6 will be thumbing its nose from the garage, still worth something because it’s got soul.