Future bleak for usei
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• The battering hauliers are receiving from higher fuel tax and foreign competition is denting the confidence of used truck buyers, says Martin Rhodes, general manager of used operations at Renault VI.
"Everything seems to be against the haulier. He just doesn't have a chance," Rhodes states.
"The transport industry isn't operating on a level playing field, and it's suffering. As a consequence there's not much confidence in the second-hand market. It's a hard market, and I don't think it will ever be easy again."
But it's not all doom and gloom, Rhodes concedes. "Late-registered Magnum 430 tractors are selling well. The 17-tonners we offer are being well received, and we're getting exceptionally good money for late-registered Midliners.
If anything, the launch of Midlum seems to have strengthened them.
"We're holding our own across the range—and that includes Premium, of course—and we've done some exceptional deals. But it's never enough."
A big problem for Rhodes, and for everybody selling late-registered second-hand trucks, is underwriting the part-exchange values of older vehicles. "They're worth next to nothing," he says. The bad news here is that if the buyer cannot get what he feels is a reasonable offer for his old truck he will not be able to afford to replace
it.
Rhodes has been making one or two forays into the export market, but with limited success. But Premiums have found buyers in Sri Lanka, Cyprus and Malaysia.
"Unfortunately, we often find that we are L3-4,000 more expensive than the vehicles offered by other manufacturers," he says. "Frankly, they're giving them away.
"In some cases our competitors are sending them to the Ritchie Brothers auctions on the Continent in the hope that nobody in the UK will notice how little they are being sold for.
"Unfortunately for them, it's a small world, and people over here soon get to know which manufacturers have taken a pasting. They might just as well put them into auctions in Britain."