Morris Minor Owners Club

I read today of the idea of giving people a couple of thousand quid to get rid of their old banger if they bought a new car. Should help get rid of a few minors, especially as many are worth much less on the open market!

hmmmm, I'm sure most classic owners wouldn't dream of it.

However, if someone wants to give me a couple of grand for a beaten up 130,000 mile N reg fiesta.....

However, if someone wants to give me a couple of grand for a beaten up 130,000 mile N reg fiesta.....

You may soon get the offer, the catch seems to be having to buy new.
From what I hear it's an idea to help the ailing car industry.

Well, if someone wants to give me 2 grand for a car that doubles in value when I fill it up in exchange for buying a new car, thats fine by me (as long as I can get suitable finance) buy a smallish car new and run it into the ground.

Problem is, its likely to be offered on a deal to buy some nasty low emissions car that will be dull dull dull, they could half the price of these types of vehicle and it would be of no interest to me.

Subsidy on a new car will be eaten up by dealerships bumping the price to account for the extra money. Cynic? Me?

I think they were talking about an 'old banger' being anything over 9 years' old.

If it was about the environment there would be an intelligent push to put eco-engines in existing bodies. As they did with the Routemaster buses.

Vauxhall are doing it - I think £1000 is on offer.

not worth it, for a Vauxhall! *spits*

Blue oval or VAG for me (when it comes to moderns.....)

A couple of weeks ago I heard Vauxhall were offering some of their models at close to half price. One they quoted was a Zafira reduced from 19 to 10 grand.
19 grand for a Zafira is just ridiculous.

Reminds me of those half price offers at retailers - where the law says the full price only has to be for two weeks of the year

A new Fiesta is 9k. Seems like crazy money to me.

(my first post was made before I looked at new car prices btw, was expecting to see 7k odd for a saloon.... - no wonder the car market is up the creek....)

I'll stick with my cheap bangers.

An insider told me Vauhall sold 40 cars last month!! (Feb 09) and they have the capacity for producing 50 an hour.

Dan_Harris wrote:A new Fiesta is 9k. Seems like crazy money to me.

I enquired about a new Fiesta auto and with paying cash with no PX dealer offered £2000 off list price without me asking
We've now found a source of ex Mobility cars at 3 years old for a fraction of the normal secondhand list price so are now going for one of those rather than brand new.
Luckilly the familly / £450 / R reg Mondeo just passed an MOT without any work needed so we'll hang onto that a little longer as pointless changing yet.

Paul H

Can't be many people running 9 year old car who'd be trading up to brand new..... and I thought that most new cars were company cars anyway.

From the UK taxpayer's point of view this would be a very stupid waste of our money as the large majority of bribes would only benefit foreign-based manufacturers!

The ONLY way that we, the public, will spend money is if we HAVE money to spend! The Govt has already wasted Billions of our money on bailing out the fraudsters at the banks and conned us with a VAT reduction which only benefits retailers (no VAT savings passed on to consumers in general terms). The first bail out of Northern Rock cost £50 billion - That works out to approx £800,000 each per head of population. If he had given that money to us and let the bank go to the wall you would all have £800k in the bank now and you would be spending by now, wouldn't you......?

I always thought they should have given people highstreet vouchers if they wanted to stimulate the economy, can't put them in the bank so you have to go out and spend them!

One of the guys on Retro-Rides, did some calculations on this eco-scam.
Assuming that you were handing in something that does 35mpg (e.g. an Astra), then by using some figures arrived at by proper scientific methods, you'll have to drive the new Corsa ecomental car some 85000 miles in order to actually make a reduction to the net CO2 emitted by the time you include the emisions produced in the production of the new Corsa eco-mentalist wagon.

The guy in question is actually working in a relevant scientific field, so I'd take his calculations as accurate.

If I ever win the lottery, I'm gonna buy a Prius and chop that in. That way they'll give you the £2.5k, and then spend the same on recycling costs for the batteries!

There was a survey done last year (by Chrysler, admittedly) which said that the most eco-friendly car on the planet was the Jeep Wrangler, in terms of whole-life impact, given that the thing is infinitely rebuildable. I would have been more positively inclined towards the survey if it hadn't mysteriously left out the LR Defender for some reason, hmm. The Prius – good car, had one for a year – was IIRC the worst on this basis.

The first bail out of Northern Rock cost £50 billion - That works out to approx £800,000 each per head of population

Sorry but these numbers don't add up. £50 billion divided by 60 million is £800 pounds per person . Not 800K.

Still a lot of money to me and I'd rather have that in my bank then someone elses.

Re the £2k for my 11 year old Escort.
I will have to probably change this sometime this year so I did spend some time looking at new cars but was amazed how much even so called very cheap cars actually are, Kia Ceed estate is £13k so goodness knows what the modern equivalent of my Escort estate is

I'm not ever likely to need to know what a billion is anyways