Ask LH: When’s The Cheapest Time To Buy A Car?

Hi Lifehacker, I’m in the market to buy a new car, and I’m wondering which months have the best deals? Does when you buy make a difference? Thanks, Show Me The Money

[credit provider=”Shutterstock” url=”http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-162744716/stock-photo-for-sale-sign-on-a-car.html”]

Dear SMTM,

As a general rule of thumb, the best time to buy a new car is during the end-of-financial-year period (June). This is when car dealerships are pushing to reach their sales targets, which results in lots of big sales.

You can also find good deals at the end of the calendar year (December) when dealerships are trying to get rid of old stock to make way for new models. Cars also tend to receive discounts at the end of each month rather than at the beginning. This is because dealers often haven’t sold enough vehicles to meet their monthly targets and are therefore eager to make a sale.

If you have your eye on a specific car model, it pays to hold off until the next model refresh. Whenever a car receives an update, its predecessor experiences a sharp drop in value. In other words, wait for the car to get a face-lift and you can expect to take advantage of some run-out deals.

On a side note, if you’re looking to save money, the best deals are to be found in the second-hand market. Even very recent models that are still in excellent condition suffer from significant depreciation. (Is that “new car” smell really worth thousands of dollars?) Keep an eye out for popular fleet models — these tend to be kept in decent nick and are quite cheap due to their proliferation in the market.

If any readers have any additional car-buying tips, let SMTM know in the comments section below.

Cheers
Lifehacker

Got your own question you want to put to Lifehacker? Send it using our [contact text=”contact form”].


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

Here are the cheapest plans available for Australia’s most popular NBN speed tier.

At Lifehacker, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


7 responses to “Ask LH: When’s The Cheapest Time To Buy A Car?”