Fuel Prices/Car Sales WTF!!!

[gumby6371]

I was reading a report yesterday that said people were using their cars less due to the ridiculous price of fuel. Personally I'm going to put my first born on ebay to pay for fuel as I just can't reduce the miles I do. However the report made sense as obviously if it costs a lot to drive somewhere people will be more careful over needless journeys.
HOWEVER......
Didn't the government spend billions bailing out the car industry due to the fact nobody could afford to buy new cars, surely if you can't afford the bloody fuel you almost certainly can't afford a car to put it in!!!!!

Who exactly sat in their office and thought we'll get away with record highs on fuel and insurance costs without affecting car sales????

I'm pretty sure that if I halved my fuel, tax and insurance costs it still wouldn't justify buying a brand new super eco motor

Rant over, thankyou for listening

[rwb]

Likewise it seems rather pointless to bail out banks when nobody has any money to put in them.

[Welly]

Folk are still buying new cars though, aren't they? so someone out there's got some money

The governments scrappage scheme seemed to make people buy cheap imported cars like Hyundai's etc not that the UK makes cars but hey.

I think some people buy a new economical car to save on fuel/road tax but seem to forget they've got to pay for the flipping thing thus increasing their spending in real terms in the process

My independent mechanic is *really* busy where folk are hanging on to their old motors, getting repairs done instead of replacing the car, and keeping it for another year to see what goes.

I believe we will see a significant rise in the value of old second hand motors as people cash-in there expensive cars or need a cheap run about etc. particularly as plenty of decent old motors were squashed last year so are in short supply

[DiscoPol]

They werent squashed Welly most of em are over here, the market was flooded with RHD cars that couldnt be used on the UK roads again, so the clever Poles bought em by the ship load, literally, and now just about every other car being sold here is an old RHD uk car converted to LHD and registered here, its so bad now that you cant get LHD dashboards clocks and other associated parts for love nor money, the breakers yards are full of LHD cars with written off front ends, back ends etc etc but no dashboards clocks or steering set-ups left in any of them.

It hasnt lowered the prices of second hand cars though, i just paid 7,500 zloty for a 2000 arsetray estate thats best part of 1700 quid in english money as a temporary measure till i get sorted on the new C5, fuel wise we have just had a price hike too we are upto 4.89 zloty a litre which is about 1.05p a litre, which you may think is not too bad but remember that the average monthly wage here is only about 2000 zloty for the Poles(they will pay for native speakers though)

so all in all you have a while to go before your fuel costs are equivalent to ours, worked on a pro rata basis.

[sirwiggum]

Still a lot of decent cheap 406s out there.

Which wasn't ideal when I was looking to sell my ropey one.

And the "bangernomics" market doesn't have a lot in it at the moment, except Clios.

Especially when your criteria is a big comfortable automatic that isn't German (and ideally would have been diesel).

Mk1 C5 2.2hdi auto was nice but overpriced and from what I have read in user reviews, a new world of pain.

That scrappage scheme was an absolute disgrace. A lot of good quality cars and classics were needlessly destroyed by the short-sighted labour government to prop up sales of Hyundai i30s and Kia Seeds.

[kevtherev]

They werent squashed Welly most of em are over here, the market was flooded with RHD cars that couldnt be used on the UK roads again, so the clever Poles bought em by the ship load, literally, and now just about every other car being sold here is an old RHD uk car converted to LHD and registered here, its so bad now that you cant get LHD dashboards clocks and other associated parts for love nor money, the breakers yards are full of LHD cars with written off front ends, back ends etc etc but no dashboards clocks or steering set-ups left in any of them.

It hasnt lowered the prices of second hand cars though, i just paid 7,500 zloty for a 2000 arsetray estate thats best part of 1700 quid in english money as a temporary measure till i get sorted on the new C5, fuel wise we have just had a price hike too we are upto 4.89 zloty a litre which is about 1.05p a litre, which you may think is not too bad but remember that the average monthly wage here is only about 2000 zloty for the Poles(they will pay for native speakers though)

so all in all you have a while to go before your fuel costs are equivalent to ours, worked on a pro rata basis.

we had a polish wagon collect some pallets from work yesterday .it had 3 bmw 3series on the back all of them slight bodywork damage ,mainly broken bumpers all with english plates( v+w reg )on with the last 3 letters covered with duct tape. wondered wht the poles would do with them,initially thought they would be broken for spares, didnt realise they converted them to lhd. nice motors too fantastic condition apart from the bumpers , cant believe they would be writen off for such small amount of damage
sayin that tho my mate was pranged in his volvo and it damaged his rear bumper and the at fault divers insurance co wrote it off , gave him the car back and a cheque for 2.5k and he had the car fixed for 350 quid.. lucky bugger

[FarmerPug]

the fuel prices may go up but i dont see any less snobby yummy mummys driving about in huge 4x4s with 1 child.
Heres the thing, how does our country make money any more, we barely make anything do we. with rover gone theres no significant car industry. Jag and landie, and aston are all owned by foreign companies. So theres no motor industry, But what big industry is there here in the UK. Surely it cant be good if everyone works for the public sector?

[Welly]

how does our country make money

Taxation

[FarmerPug]

how long can that last

[sirwiggum]

Taxation and banking.

Banking is the biggest con out, someone making a profit by taking everyone else's money.

Ever tried going into a bank and trying to lift a grand of *your own* cash out? They look at you like you're robbing the place

No manfacturing base, totally insustainable, the country is doomed.

[TRAVIS BICKLE]

Im a truck driver for DSV UK, our depot is the port of imingham and we cover most import and export deliveries between the uk and denmark, sweden etc. You would be amazed at what this country makes and exports, for instance. Just about all european car makers front subframes are made in the north east, same for roof rails, you name it we make it right here in blighty and ship it out to the car plants, glass, body panels. Plus loads of other stuff, specialist steels etc etc. Everywhere i collect from is saying that things are picking up, some places cant keep up with demand. So companies are making money, they are just using this economy crap as a reason to build up cash to keep themselves flush and reduce costs.

[TRAVIS BICKLE]

Take the company i work for, its massive, operating in 52 countries, before the economy went tits up they were banging on about how much profits were up. They have been keeping quiet, but they are still making millions. As other smaller firms go bust from over stretching, our lot were like circling vultures. Taking over everything, making their profits look smaller buy buying out everything, they have air freight, cargo ships, rail cargo everything. And do i get paid any better for it, er no we had a pay freeze for two years as the company is having hard times. My arse!

[FarmerPug]

there might be some industry over there on the mainland. But over here in northern ireland all i can see is food producers. Theres a kitchen company up the road buisness is slow, a pvc window company buisness is slow, and a cp hire place again buisness is slow. I think over here we were too dependant on the building trade, to build housing estates galore, especially in nice scenic areas. Do we still have seagate hard drives here?

[sirwiggum]

there might be some industry over there on the mainland. But over here in northern ireland all i can see is food producers. Theres a kitchen company up the road buisness is slow, a pvc window company buisness is slow, and a cp hire place again buisness is slow. I think over here we were too dependant on the building trade, to build housing estates galore, especially in nice scenic areas. Do we still have seagate hard drives here?

I think seagate is just a shell now, same with the old Nortel plant.

IT industry in Belfast is healthy enough, but manufacturing isn't.

Biggest success story is probably Wright buses. They get exported all over UK, Europe, Asia and I think they even made a tram-bus for the states!

[TRAVIS BICKLE]

work this out, im at an asda warehouse in skelmersdale picking up a 25ton of cardboard for recycling.........................in germany. Must be cheaper to send it over there than get it recycled over here. I will probably be bringing the same stuff back again when its been made into MacDonalds drinks holders.