New research by Vanarama in the UK, shows that the costs of second hand cars in Britain has risen by almost 25% in the past five years. This price inflation outstrips even heavily taxed elements of household expenditure, such as alcohol and tobacco. 

The reduction in new car sales was partly down to chip shortages and COVID lockdowns, but also die to a reduction in mileage during the pandemic, leading to higher vehicle valuations. 

The survey also looked at used car cost as a percentage of the average UK salary over five years, finding this went up from 41.5% in 2017, to 47.2% in 2021. 

The rise in used car costs in the UK has come together with increased duties and added administration difficulties, to make importing vehicles from the UK to Ireland, a far less attractive option. Latest CSO figures show that 68,042 used cars were registered in Ireland in 2021 (Including UK and Japanese imports), compared to 101,853 new registrations. Pre-Covid, the used registration figure was 108,895 in 2019. In 2020 used cars registrations were 78,541 and new registrations were 84,309. This means used vehicle registrations were down 10,499 or 13% in 2021 and were dramatically down in comparison to new car sales. However, what this figures does not show is that import registrations were actually running at 50% up year on year in June and have been declining rapidly since in the last six months. While Covid anomalies will account for some of this drop, it does show that used UK imports are no longer so economically attractive for either dealers or private buyers.