Opportunity amid chaos: 10 big discounts on 10 big-selling cars

Manufacturers are also putting their shoulder to the wheel with supporting offers. For example, towards the end of August Volkswagen began its Epic Sale, offering £750 off most models in addition to any existing offers and discounts, while Vauxhall offered £500 off all of its models.

"Discounts are as high as they have ever been," says Jonathan Lawless, sales director at Carfile, a car broker. "In particular, there are some very good deals on petrol and diesel models that are ending production. For example, we've been giving a 7.5% discount on Audi Q2 S Line autos with [optional] Technology Packs, plus a further £4750 towards the customer's finance deposit. When ordered before August, there was an additional £500 from Audi too. Ironically, there are also monumental discounts on EVs the cars these outgoing petrol and diesel cars are being replaced by."

Lawless negotiates his discounts with dealers but says he can't do so with those that operate under the agency model, whereby they only display and present cars, leaving the car makers to manage sales. Here prices are non-negotiable although, depending on market conditions, they may be reduced across the dealer network.

According to Autotrader, in August last year the value of these reductions offered by the agency brands Mini, Mercedes-Benz, Polestar and Volvo averaged 4.6%. Although much lower than the discounts offered by traditional dealers, in common with the rest of the motor trade, 12 months later they had risen, albeit only to 5.3%.

What do all these discounts, reductions and offers mean for future residual values? "The best way to look at it is to compare the effective purchase price of the new car with the price of its nearly new equivalent with delivery mileage," answers Dylan Setterfield, head of forecast strategy at automotive data provider Cap HPI. "If the new car is cheaper than the used one, it's going to be extremely difficult to sell used cars at existing prices and used values will almost certainly reduce. However, in many cases, different finance deals can confuse the issue, as many buyers base their purchase decision on monthly payments, rather than the vehicle's purchase price."

Regarding EVs, Setterfield says the massive discounts on new ones are unlikely to depress the values of used ones which have already fallen a long way: "But we now have the further complication of the new government Electric Car Grant. The Ford Puma Gen-E is among the first vehicles attracting the maximum £3750 level of the grant. We have flagged it for re-forecast, as we expect that this will result in used retail values being more expensive than the new car price, although we are waiting to see whether the grant is absorbed into existing discounts."*

Peugeot 2008

Model: 1.2 Puretech Allure

Discount: 30.6% (from £29,540 to £20,490)

Nissan Qashqai

Model: 1.3 DIG-T Mild Hybrid Acenta Premium

Discount: 20.0% (from £30,615 to £24,490)

Volkswagen Golf

Model: 1.5 TSI Life

Discount: 18.7% (from £28,655 to £23,305)

Vauxhall Corsa

Model: 1.2 turbo Yes

Discount: 18.3% (from £20,560 to £16,790)

Hyundai Tucson

Model: 1.6 T-GDi Advance