Chris Eastwood Automotive Ltd

The VW Golf – The Best Used Car?

Those of you in car sales jobs in the UK might want to push VW Golfs to your customers, given that the vehicle has just been voted as the best used mid-size car in the Car Dealer magazine annual awards.

It curried favour for its sales appeal over the years, coupled with how good it is as a family car, its dependability, and the wide choice that is available, which makes it a great all-rounder, the Stoke Sentinel reports.

Other winners included the Fiat 500 as the best small car, the Audi A6 as the best executive car, the Porsche 911 as the best sports car and the Land Rover Discovery as the best SUV.

James Baggott of Blackball Media (which publishes the magazine), said: “Mid-sized cars are the bread and butter of so many used car dealerships up and down the UK. Perfect for couples and young families, there is a wealth of choice for buyers in this busy part of the market. This model is a massive success and the fact that it has been around since 1974 in one guise or another tells its own story.”

A recent report from The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), released towards the end of November, revealed that more than 2.1 million used cars were sold in the third quarter of the year, a record for the three-month period between July and September. It seems that alternatively fuelled vehicles are also of increasing interest, with the number of electric vehicles being sold rising by 94.1 per cent between July and September.

With the low emission Euro 6 models coming onto the used car market in increasing numbers this year, it’s perhaps no surprise that interest in such vehicles has grown. And smaller cars were also found to be increasingly popular, with superminis emerging as the best-selling body type, followed by family hatchbacks and saloons.

Chief executive of the SMMT Mike Hawes observed that consumers have never had so much choice in the used car sector before, whether that’s the range of financial packages now available or brand, body style or fuel type. He went on to add that it’s promising to see rising demand for electrical vehicles now filtering down to this market, but noted that “a more widespread commitment to charging infrastructure is needed” if greater take-up is to be encouraged.

As for the near future, Aston Barclay has just predicted that the used car market will finish the year on a high, with buyers keen to purchase stock during the Christmas and new year trading period. Group operations director Martin Potter said that buyers came out in their droves last year between these dates and those in the business are now hoping for a similar situation to 2015. And even if this doesn’t happen, dealers will still be in a good position with plenty of stock at the start of a new year.

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