Skidding Off The Forecourt

The UK new car market has continued to fall throughout 2018, with a decline in sales driven by a near total collapse in diesel sales; however, petrol sales actually rose by 0.5% year on year.¹

Read Upside - Autumn 2018

As with any business, cash flow is king, and recent months have delivered a mixed picture for the industry. The bad weather in early 2018—including the “Beast from the East”—inevitably reduced footfall on dealer forecourts. Easter coming earlier this year did not help, since it tends to be a family-focused time of year as opposed to an opportunity for car buying. There will be some dealers with large numbers of new vehicles on their stocking plans. These will become due for payment unless the dealers can negotiate further lines of finance from their manufacturer partners, who will have to continue to support them if new car sales continue to falter.