Cost of cars to come down; running cost to go up

According to a number of recent publications, including one in today’s Australia Financial Review (a.k.a. ‘the most depressing paper in the world’), it is the opinion of the experts that the purchase price of new cars is likely to come down significantly for new models over the next few years. This will be especially true of imported cars where recent advances in design, testing, and manufacturing technologies plus the falling costs for the materials used in the making of new cars have brought down production costs massively.

It is likely that the cost of the latest models of almost all imported vehicles will drop by as much as five percent, and in some cases more.

For example the entry level version of the sleek new hi-tech Toyota Corolla will be $1,000 cheaper than the previous model and it has more ‘free extras’.

Okay. That’s the upside.

The downside is that the so called running costs are expected to increase significantly. This includes the costs of servicing, routine repairs, registration, insurance, and fuel.

Due to the cost of labour and parts the cost of servicing you new vehicle is likely to increase by up to 15 percent over the next three years.

So, as usual, you win in one area but you lose in another. Typical.