Values of diesel cars fell by less than petrol cars in October despite the scandal surrounding Volkswagen and its diesel emissions cheating software.
This was the finding of CAP Black Book Live, which monitors price movements on an ongoing basis.
It said where particular VW diesels dropped in price, the prices had been dropping prior to the crisis.
And where VW prices had been affected by more than the market norm, this was probably due to high volumes, in particular the 1.6TDi 105ps engine, which takes up 75% of all Golf Diesel trade data received by CAP.
Derren Martin, senior editor at CAP Black Book said: “The emissions scandal is likely to remain a hot topic. With plenty of stock around there is still potential for some values to be affected, at least in the short to medium term.
“Longer term, there is no reason to reflect any changes in CAPs Gold Book values, although much depends on how the affected manufacturer reacts to the issues.”
Overall the used retail market weakened during October with values falling by 2.2%.
Martin said: “Based on Black Book Live movements in October, this year is following the same trend as last year. Last year saw decreases of over 5% in the winter months, leading to drops of 3.1% for December and 2.2% for January.
“With volumes ahead of where they were a year ago, and only likely to increase, and demand similar, there is little to suggest an improvement on last year’s figures.”
CAP said franchised dealers had high volumes of late-plate, pre-registered vehicles, and will be reluctant to purchase short-cycle, ex-company cars, demonstrators and rental buy-back returns from manufacturers.
This will drive down both wholesale and retail prices on vehicles at this age, as franchised dealers negotiate hard, or manufacturers decide to sell outside the network.
Martin said: “Most volume ranges slipped in value through the month, with many of the drops being little and often. Examples of some mainstream models that dropped in value, by around one to two per cent each time, on around three or four occasions through the month, were the Vauxhall Corsa, Ford Focus and Volkswagen Golf. There was certainly no shortage of vehicles available from these and other high-volume manufacturers.”
All of the main sectors were affected by the downturn, with city cars and convertibles the hardest hit in percentage terms.
