The balance of stocking diesel, petrol, hybrid and alternative fuel used cars is set to become a more important issue for dealers over the course of 2018, says the Vehicle Remarketing Association.
The trade body, which represents members that are involved in the remarketing of more than 1.5m vehicles per year in total, says that the process is likely to be relatively measured but also unavoidable.
Chair Glenn Sturley said, “Despite all of the negative publicity surrounding diesels, the fact is that crucial measures such as their average value and stocking days barely changed, although it was possible to detect a slight decline.
“However, dealers that we speak to are very sure that the sentiment of customers is changing and we are certainly at the leading edge of a long term decline in diesel, something that we expect to see continue as a trend in 2018.
“What this is likely to mean is that the old, blunt logic of the used car market – petrol or diesel for superminis and smaller, diesel for everything bigger, plus the newer fuels for a handful of other sales – is starting to become undone.”
Instead, Glenn said, dealers were increasingly looking towards a mix of fuels across their stock to meet a range of customer preferences.
“We are moving towards a subtler approach where dealers may want to offer a choice of fuels for the more popular models that they sell and there may even be an increased awareness of the benefits and otherwise of particular engines in particular models.
“The main constriction when it comes to adopting this way of thinking is simply going to be availability of stock – the market has been dominated by diesel for so long that it will unavoidably dominate the used car sector for some years to come.
