Used cars are more expensive than ever

Created: 12/29/2021 Updated: 12/29/2021, 8:15 AM

The price increase for used cars is 5 to 15 percent.

© Sebastian Kahnert / dpa

Anyone who wants to buy a car currently has to dig deep into their pockets.

The prices for used vehicles in particular have risen sharply.

Ostfildern / Bonn - car buyers have painfully felt the consequences of the past two years.

"Used cars are currently more expensive than ever before - also in relation to their new prices," says Martin Weiss from market watcher DAT.

“The price increase is often 5 to 15 percent.

In individual cases it can be significantly more.

It's crazy what you see there. "

DAT - the abbreviation stands for Deutsche Automobil Treuhand - has been monitoring used car prices in Germany for 90 years.

Sober numbers and data are their daily bread - if you talk about "crazy" there, the situation has to be extraordinary.

The drivers of this development are - once again - the corona crisis and a shortage of chips.

But they hit the used car market in two ways: on the one hand, because of the long delivery times, more and more new car customers are turning to used ones, on the other hand, the range is significantly thinner than usual.

"There are just a lot fewer cars on the market," says Thomas Peckruhn, Vice President of the Central Association of the German Motor Vehicle Industry (ZDK). "For the second year in a row, there are no new registrations of company cars, daily registrations, rental cars, which normally come onto the market relatively quickly as young used vehicles," he explains the mechanism. The result: "At the moment we have fewer used cars than customers."

Peckruhn also sees a significant increase in the price of used vehicles, even if he estimates it to be slightly lower at 5 to 10 percent.

“Right now is not the time for used car bargains,” he says.

However, it depends heavily on the equipment.

"In some cases, there are currently even cases in very popular vehicles where young used vehicles cost more than a corresponding new vehicle, but which would only be available with a long delivery time."

New cars have also become more expensive.

“We are moving from a time of vehicle overproduction to a time of vehicle shortage.

That means prices go up - there are currently fewer discounts on new cars too, ”says DAT expert Weiss.

And Peckruhn emphasizes: “Even new cars are still in short supply due to the semiconductor crisis.

In some months the dealers only got half of them as many vehicles as normal. "

A quick relaxation is therefore not in sight.

If only because the missing new cars from today will be missing from the used market in the future.

“We will also have the high used car prices in 2022,” says Peckruhn and adds: “For the retail sector, you have to say: Thank God.

Because the semiconductor crisis hits us harder than Corona. "

Weiss also does not expect the market to normalize until 2023 at the earliest.

“Good for those who are happy and satisfied with their vehicle and are currently not dependent on a change,” is how he sums up the current situation.

However, not all areas of the used car sector are equally affected.

"We are not seeing these increases in electric cars - used car prices are still under pressure here," says Weiss.

"On the one hand, this is due to the high level of funding for new cars, and on the other hand because the technology has developed further and customers tend to have the feeling that they are buying an outdated product." However, e-cars are still a niche product in the used car market.

more on the subject

Half a year waiting for the new car

Long waiting times and hardly any used cars: Semiconductor shortages and delivery bottlenecks are now also affecting customers

Bottlenecks: Waiting six months for the new car

Plug-in hybrids have not risen as much either.

The diesel, on the other hand, is completely different - these vehicles are sold at a significantly higher price than in the first few years after the diesel scandal, says Weiss.

"Also because fewer and fewer vehicles from them have come onto the market since then."

In contrast, the high fuel prices hardly play a role in the used car market, as Weiss explains.

"At the moment we do not see that particularly economical used cars are in greater demand because of the high fuel prices." Dpa