I was looking at a 15 plate Hilux Invincible on a forecourt yesterday, £19,100 plus vat. I paid £21,000 plus vat 6 years ago...
The 'Toyota Tax' that I hear mentioned on a lot of Aussie forums definitely seems to be 'a thing'. Used to be if you couldn't afford a Land Cruiser, you'd look at a Hilux as a cheapo alternative. Now people are asking 6, 7 grand for 20 year old Hiluxes. I don't know whether to blame Top Gear or [as I've theorised before] older, and especially pre-2000 reg vehicles are shooting up in value because people are worried about how hard they're going to be clobbered in so-called 'green taxes' on newer motors, over the coming years.
I've seen the same thing happening in VW-van-land. The prices for the 'splitties' have been going through the roof since forever and, over the past few years, that's started trickling down into the bay window ones, which are now approaching prices the splitties were going for a few years back. I've had a couple of the old style LT35s, in the past. The first of which I bought for £350 about 10 years ago. The second of which I paid £3000 for, with only 30000 miles on the clock, about 7 years ago. Now, even non-runners of those are going as 'projects' for 2 or 3 grand.
Ditto the T25s. I had a Syncro version of one of those, with twin difflocks, which I sold about 2 years ago, for £7500 with a few week's MOT left on it. I've regretted it ever since as people are now asking 15, 16 grand for those in LHD [and mine was a UK RHD model too].
As well as the stupid prices, if I was in the market for a vehicle at the moment, I'd be hanging fire til the dust had settled, following this
Glasgow Climate Change Conference. Because you can bet that there'll be lots of 'look how green we are' announcements afterwards, that will basically amount to Joe Public being charged more for his fuel, road tax, leccy, gas, etc.
Of course, if the government really wanted us all to move to electric vehicles, they could subsidise them heavily and allow us money for trading in our old ICE motors. But much easier to just keep piling on the taxes until only the rich can afford to drive and then -Hey! Presto!- reduced numbers of ICE cars on the road and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Whoops! --Sorry. Got a bit sidetracked into a rantlet there!
what do you buy that hasnt also gone up? Even my Skoda Octavia is worth more on WBAC than 2 years ago.
Difficulty is in deciding if this is a permanent increase, or a blip. I'd like a bigger overland vehicle, but they are proper crazy money.
I've been looking at other older 4x4s and there definitely does seem to be more to be had for less £££ with some of the less iconic ones. eg. Isuzu Troopers and Mitsu Shoguns. Even the Nissan Pathfinders seem to be relatively cheap, compared to Nissan Patrols or Toyota 4x4s of any kind. On the contrary the Mitsu L200s and Isuzu D-Maxes seem to hold their value. I don't know how much of it is down to perceived reliability and ruggedness and how much is down to fashion, ie. the fact that some of the guys on channels like
4WD 24/7 have started using those alongside their usual Land Cruisers and Patrols. [I personally can't pass an Isuzu D-Max these days, without remarking
"There's the old D-Max, mate!" in a mock Aussie accent].