Anyone worried about depreciation on their A3?

Y bother worryin, out of our control at the end of the day, just enjoy what you've got!
 
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I bought an Alfa 156 in year 2000,imported from ireland,for £13500 brand new.
I sold it a year later for £10000.
Suddenly,the 'depreciation' doesn't look so bad now,does it ?

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26% in 1 year? Bargain...
 
AndyMac

Fortuniately I paid off my mortgage many years ago and as you so rightly say, someone has to buy the new cars otherwise there would be no second-hand cars available. I have only purchased one second-hand car in the last 30 years and that was one of my A3s and it was to the spec I wanted at the time. But with the current A3 there are more choices and more options to be had so I think it may be more difficult to get exactly what I want now. 90% of current A3s seem to be Sports in black or dark grey with a black interior. Fine if that is what you want but it's not my choice.
 
my first decent car was a Golf GTi convertible, bought it for £3750, sold it for £3,250 3 years and 50k miles later - beat that.
Everyone's got a story....
 
My first 'decent' car was a Golf GL in black with a green interior which I bought for new for £2935 in 1976. I had for 4 years followed by 3 Golf GTis. Lovely cars. I had about 3 new Britsh cars before that and they were all rubbish. The Golfs restored my faith and enjoyment of cars.
 
I had typed a long reply to bowfers comments but then had to answer the phone and do some work all at the same time and closed internet explorer.../ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

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26% in 1 year? Bargain...

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I think this covers it for me, I'd bet that for any given period of time the alfa will loose more money than a similar Audi / BMW. You do realise you're trying to justify buying an Alfa as financial common sense don't you?

Just think that guy that bought your car was probably thinking you lost £8k+ in one year and what an idiot you were, but you wern't an idiot because you ONLY lost £3.5k, I don't think I will have lost 3.5K on my S3 and i've done 60,000+ miles and had it 2.5 years so no your idea of depretiation still isn't making sense to me, you can't compare one off bargains (or even the norm for a given manufacrurer) in surveys or your just making stuff up.

Still think you should buy an Aygo... you'll be a much happier man. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/goofy.gif
 
"Fine if that is what you want but it's not my choice"

So you chose silver, wow you mad thing you!
 
I happen to like Silver - much more than Black - in the same way as I prefer a light coloured interior to dark one. I've had all sorts of colours over the years, probably more Red than any other, but to me Audis always look best in Silver.

Obviously my own opinion and chose. Others will prefer other colours. The world would be very dull if we all like the same - we would be back in the days when you could only get cars in one colour - Black
 
I wasn't having a pop at your choice, I simply meant you chose the most popular car colour in the world after banging on about the difficulty in finding a secondhand car in the right colour.
Just made me chuckly.
But yes if you're already mortgage free then why not? Unfortunately I'm guessing most people (including me) do not enjoy the freedom that allows you. That said, why such a conservative choice of vehicle, shouldn't you be hammering around in a Cerbera at your time of life?
 
It's not normally the exterior colour that I have a problem with. It's the interior colour, prefering a light colour to black and preferring an SE to a Sport and wanting the options of DSG, DIS, CD autochanger, acoustic parking system, front fog lights, auto-dimming but not folding door mirrors and no-smoking pack. On my next A3 I will probably have electric front seats as well as they set according to which remote is used to open the car, mine or my wifes. At the moment she has her own car but as we will both be retired by then we may stick with just the one car.

As for the conservative choice of car, I've have no real wish to own anything more exotic. I'm not keen on large cars and the A3 does everything I want from a car. A friend has a Boxster but there is no way he could use that to go on holiday as it cannot carry the luggage so either he has to fly or hire a different car. I enjoy the drive to and around Austria and Switzerland in my own car. I would not enjoy it any like as much in a hire car.
 
"auto-dimming but not folding door mirrors" now I know you're having a laugh

Just leather & cruise for me, anything else is a bonus/waste of money.
But I see where you're coming from, the presence of an ashtray is a real show stopper for me as well.
 
I'm not actually. Auto dimming is very useful as it stops headlights behind from blinding in the same way as the auto dimming interior mirror. But I don't like the folding options as a) you have to remember to un-fold them again once they have been folded and the dealer warned me at the time they had been having a lot of trouble getting the mirrors to always un-fold to the correct position. So therefore "auto-dimming but not folding"

Probably not many A3s, apart from mine, with that combination.
 
How would you cope without them?
Surely the auto folding mirrors unfold when you start the car up?
Otherwise what's the point in having them.
Personally I can't even remember the last time I manually dimmed my rearview mirror let alone was blinded by my door mirrors, but I can see how such a vital feature would be worth the extra £8k you'd need to spend over the equivalent 3 year old model.
 
You just don't get the point do you. I like and can afford to buy a new car every 3 years and have exactly what I want. To me saving 8K and having a 3 year old one that may not be exactly want is just not worth it.

Why should I spend 3 years driving a 3 year old car when I can afford to spend 3 years driving a brand new car.

If your happy with a second-hand car then so be it. Personally I prefer a new one. Luckily for you some of us still like new cars otherwise there would be no second-hand ones available.

With regard to the mirrors, perhaps you don't have as many silly idiots who drive all the time with Xenons and fog lights on or perhaps your eyes are are a lot less sensitive to bright lights. I wear photochromic glasses and still have to put clip-on sunglasses in normal sunlight to be able to see comfortable for any length of time.

Another interesting point. The only second-hand I have purchased in the last 30 years was A3 1.8T Sport. That car was worth 56% on the price I paid for it after 2.3 years. Most of the cars that I have purchased new have been worth around 52-55% after 3 years so not a big difference.
 
I have to say I do like the autodimming rear view mirror in my S3 and it does make you realise how nice it would be to have auto dimming side mirrors at night on the motorway because of the difference in brightness.

I also liked ordering a brand new car (although it was a renault) until they told me at the PDI there was a fault after waiting for the ****** thing for 6 months. I did however like having climate control and the right colour paint. But my main reason for getting a clio and a new car was the £3,500 worth of free insurance as it made the car a total bargain.

All that said I still won't be buying another new car, unless one of two things happen 1. I have more money than sense - which wouldn't take too much money to be honest or 2. I want a brand new car (first of a new model) too much to resist which I doubt will happen unless some of these car companies start getting a bit more imaginative.
 
Fair enough, knew we'd get there in the end.
It's not that I prefer secondhand cars, I just see £20k spent on a middle of the road A3, or £20k on a 5 year old RS4, or 3 year old S4.
Maybe 15 years of having horrible (but new) company cars has put me off the whole "new car" thing. I still don't get it and probably never will.
 
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How would you cope without them?
Surely the auto folding mirrors unfold when you start the car up?
Otherwise what's the point in having them.
Personally I can't even remember the last time I manually dimmed my rearview mirror let alone was blinded by my door mirrors, but I can see how such a vital feature would be worth the extra £8k you'd need to spend over the equivalent 3 year old model.

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Well your wrong - you have to flick the switch to fold them in and then again to fold them out. For someone like me that has to fold both of them in to get up the drive, they are a must and I had them on the last car and all future cars while at this house. And they are crap and stick closed or one sticks closed, both have been replaced once by the dealers already. Instead of Audi adding a /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/swear.gif sun blind to the parcel shelf they should spend 50p more on upgraded the Scaletrix motors in their poxy mirrors /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
 
Sorry I took it that Auto folding meant they fold automatically. I've got manual electric folding mirrors on my B6, so why on earth don't they link them to the central locking?
I guess if they're as unreliable as you say then they wouldn't be able to cope with the folding mileage. I'll have to stop my 3 year old playing with them from now on.
 
AndyMac. Thats is exactly where we're different. I would much prefer to spent £20k on a new A3 than on any 5 or 3 year old car whatever the make or model.

It takes all sorts I know. As long as we both get enjoyment out of our particular Audis whatever age they are.
 
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Sorry I took it that Auto folding meant they fold automatically. I've got manual electric folding mirrors on my B6, so why on earth don't they link them to the central locking?
I guess if they're as unreliable as you say then they wouldn't be able to cope with the folding mileage. I'll have to stop my 3 year old playing with them from now on.

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I think the problem when linked to CL is if you need to fold the mirrors in order to park in a garage then them automatically unfolding would be a pain in the ar5s everytime you wanted to reverse out

However you could always have a manual override I guess
 
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I bought an Alfa 156 in year 2000,imported from ireland,for £13500 brand new.
I sold it a year later for £10000.
Suddenly,the 'depreciation' doesn't look so bad now,does it ?

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26% in 1 year? Bargain...

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What do you think your Audi lost in it's first year ?

Hmmmmm....?
 
Well, based on offer I got last week (though I'm not selling), my depreciation over these 2,5 years is 20%. 2,0FSIs are keeping their value pretty well, when for example 1,6s are losing it a lot faster. Diesels aren't very popular here either due to taxing.

So there. I'm not overly worried about losing 20% of value since I've had the car for 2,5 years. Then again, color means a lot, black is easier to sell. Note, the offer was from a dealer, I have no idea how much private buyer would pay.

What's with the new forum software converting usernames to lowercase? Looks stupid, and I didn't find any place to change it from the profile :(

- Yak
 
Bowfer - I've not been on for a while - what's the story with the A3. I takeit you've had some 'problems' ?
 

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