63 plate. December 2013 or January 2014?

[pumpsmynads]

Hi,
I don't wish to come across as some accountant bore worrying too much about residual values but how much difference in price after say 3 years would there be between a December 2013 and a January 2014 A6 2.0 S Line auto?
Does anyone have a Glass' Guide that would show the difference now between last year's 2012 and 2013 62 plate to use as a guide?
If the difference is only a hundred quid or so I might as well collect my car before Xmas and enjoy. Thanks for any help in adv.

[razor77]

Assume your neighbour buys the same car, colour, spec etc, just he waits until the new reg, and you don't, you both do the same milage and advertise at the same time giving a buyer choice. I believe the buyer will take the newer one, where the cars are identical save the wheels, paint colour, 5k miles, first major service, location (where said neighbour moves 100 miles away).... I would guess the majority of second hand buyers at the same price would put the difference of a month at the bottom of the list.

[Guest 2]

Suppose it would be better selling a 2014 car instead of a 2013 one?

Keep an eye on Audi approved, look at how little they pre-register throughout December then they all come at once in Jan.

[razor77]

Look at how little they pre-register throughout December then they all come at once in Jan.

But Chris, the OP's question is about perceived value of the car in 3 years time, not someone buying pre-registered.

[Guest 2]

Yeah I know but a 2014 car is always gonna be better than a 2013 car right?

Of course it depends on how the cars kept, SH, owners etc but having 2014 on your V5 is better than seeing 2013

[Whippy53]

Yeah but it's still a 63 plate and a model year 14 build, dont see it'll make a heap of difference.

[rickerby]

Depends what your planning to do. I would imagine that if you trade it in for another new one in around 3 years, by the time the deal is stacked with discounts, incentives and all the other things that tend to mask the actual trade in value of the car, the difference will be negligible if anything at all.

[jk88]

I belive there will be a difference. If you look up a couple of examples on Parkers, with the same car either side of the year end, the quoted trade price increases by around 7%. Whilst there are a lot of factors that will affect the trade price in 3 years, if all other things being equal, taking the car in December could be quite an expensive Xmas present.

[Olio]

If you consider the annual depreciation and average that over 12 months, it means that a car bought at month N will lose several hundred pounds in value from a car bought at month N+1.

e.g. In N your (new) car is worth 32k (for argument's sake, 40k -20%). Say it loses the equivalent of 6k a year for the first 3 years. In month N+1 it's worth £32k - £500.

So a more recent car will always be worth that little bit more. As for the difference between 2 calendar years, I'm not sure it will be worth writing about in 3 or more years.

Audi prefer selling 2014 pre-reg instead of 2013 ones, that makes sense since psychologically buyers would prefer buying a car "of the year". This is not true for car several years down the line where mileage become a lot more important.

[Andrew@DTUK]

I've been looking into this as i have an RS4 on order, and the difference between and 12/62 and 13/62 according to Glass's guide is £1500.00

So rest assured I'm prepared to wait 3 weeks to take delivery,