Fredxxx wrote
Rod Speed wrote
alan_m wrote
Rod Speed wrote

But why are they selling a nearly new car ? I can see why a car dealer
would do that with a demo, but why would anyone else do that ?

Hire car companies get offered deals on car that are not shifting and
then they in turn get rid of them before any servicing is required.

I don’t believe that they are actually silly enough to
buy a new car just to avoid paying for the first service.

You know little about the motor trade.

We'll see...

If a manufacturer wants to promote its car sales, like a newly released
car, it will typically offload these into the non-domestic / non-fleet
market to get numbers up. Namely to hire car companies and lease
companies.

If that was common you'd see lots of newly released
cars available for car hire, and you don’t.

Lease companys lease what end users choose to buy car wise.

Whether a hire company sells a car or not is down to pure economics,

Yes. But they arent going to sell a hardly used car before
the first service to avoid paying for the first service.

they may even make a profit on a sale at an auction on a 6 month old car.

But would make more profit if they kept the car for longer
because they wouldn’t have to buy a replacement.

We did in fact see the work cars turned over at a fairly high rate,
usually after 2-3 years, because they were a govt operation that
didn’t have to pay the sales tax on the new vehicles and so could
sell them for more than they paid for them to buyers who did
have to pay the sales tax on the transaction, but they didn’t
turn them over say every 3 months because of the paperwork
involved in turning the cars over at such a high rate.

Harry's story is more plausible, fools who find that they can
no longer make the payments. Not necessarily just fools either
with those who lose their job just after signing up for a new car.

Yes those as well. Also lemons that a hire company can ill afford to keep.

But those last are certainly not worth buying instead of a new car.

I did come across someone who had to sell the car without
that many miles on it, just because the wife hated it.

My back neighbour has just sold her quite new car just because she
decided she feels safer in what the yanks call the small SUVs. Mad IMO
but that did provide a very good value car for someone else I know just
as well.

They are the exceptions rather than the rule.

There is no rule with almost new cars being sold with few miles on them.