By EWAN KENNEDY
22 December 2008

Right now is a good time to buy a car, indeed a great time to buy just about anything. But beware the messages advising you to do so if they have been issued as press releases by finance organisations, car dealer associations or the like. Therefore they have an ulterior motive. Which is fair enough as long as they disclose their interest in selling more cars.

There's no doubt that there are good deals on new vehicles everywhere at the moment. The three local makers have tens of thousands of cars stored in carparks, even paddocks. The importers are in an even more difficult situation because they have to order cars months in advance and the financial situation midway through this year looked less grim than it does today.

The biggest problem with buying a new car right now is that it’s going to be a significantly older the moment January 1st 2009 appears on your computer screen and calendar. And as soon as a car becomes last year’s model it loses a significant amount of its resale value.

Then again, the falls in the value of the Australian dollar seem certain to see prices increase, probably on January 1st, 2009. But, if buyers refuse to buy these rises may not be as high as the importers would like to introduce.

What will the car market be like in 2011? No-one knows, petrol might cost 59.9 cents per litre, meaning that large cars could be in short supply as people who prefer lots of interior space are queuing up for them. Or petrol might be 259.9 cents and small cars buyers are standing in an altogether different queue.

In these uncertain times no-one knows what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone in 1000 days from now.

There are a couple of things do right now. Firstly try doing nothing, and waiting for the 2009 built cars to come on stream. They may be almost as cheap as the current stock of 2008 cars, then again…

Secondly, get in right now for a real bargain, insisting not only on a low price for the car, but also for accessories or other aftermarket items either free or at a significant discount. The ‘free’ accessories are real price savers because the car maker is giving away items at wholesale prices but you are saving retail money, which is likely to be significantly more.

In the past car makers have been reluctant to do ‘driveaway-no-more-to-pay’ deals, because when they do it can be hard to get away from mindset and back to normal when times eventually come good.

But these days there are some excellent ‘driveaway’ deals on a variety of cars. And there's a feeling that in these unprecedented circumstances it might be relatively easy to return to the regular ‘plus-on-road-costs’ deals.

Don’t just look at the price of cars, finance may be in short supply at the moment, but that situation could settle down fairly soon. In any case finance companies have to lend money because that’s their major source of income. And if you have an excellent credit rating they may well be knocking on your door trying to push a good deal at the right price.

Think carefully before doing a deal that lets you put off the first repayments for a huge length of time. It’s human nature to think that two years down the track you will be sitting pretty from a money point of view. But it might not happen and when that long-forgotten loan on a new car suddenly has to be repaid you may discover you’ve over committed on other loans.

So sit down, have a good think, talk it over with your partner, friends, as many sensible people as you can think of. Then, and only then is it time to lay out your hard-earned on an expensive set of new wheels.

ewan@marque.com.au