Depreciation is to cars what compound interest is to us: it bites sooner and deeper than you think. In March 2006 my sister-in-law paid a main dealer £8,000 for a 2002 Renault Laguna Sports Tourer Dynamique, an 1,800cc estate equipped with air-conditioning, sunroof (the UK market is apparently the only one that demands both), alloys, CD player, and so on. It was a one-owner car with a full main-dealer service history throughout its 25,500 miles.
In August this year, 17 months and 15,500 miles later, she sought to part-exchange it for a 2004 Mazda MX5. The Mazda main dealer offered her £2,000 for the Renault (What Car? gives £3,500 as the trade price). After protests he offered an extra £100 as ‘goodwill’. My sister-in-law did the sensible thing and walked away.
All right, she paid over the top in the first place for a four-year-old 1,800cc, especially now with Trade-Sales of Slough offering brand-new two-litre models for £11,999. The Mazda dealer was lazy and complacent because MX5s sell easily, particularly in the summer. He hadn’t even bothered to wipe the bird droppings off the seat. Finally, Renaults as a breed don’t have a very good reputation for reliability. An independent garage owner told me that he repairs more broken Renaults than anything else — though the little Modus 1.5 dCi is said to be better than the rest and my sister-in-law has had no trouble at all with her Laguna. (Fords, according to the garage owner, break least often.)
Nonetheless, 75 per cent depreciation over 17 months for a car that should already have taken its major hit feels pretty swingeing to the owner. But she could do worse. She could pay the list price of £22,370 for a new Citroën C5 3.0
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