Car price stats attacked

Claims that the cost of new cars in the UK have dropped don't add up, Auto Express can exclusively reveal

Auto Express Car Reviews

By Julie Sinclair

29th August 2006

The Retail Motor Industry (RMI), which represents dealers, says new EU figures show a 2.7 per cent fall. But when we compared the current list prices of 1,706 models with those from 12 months ago, we found three-quarters of them now cost more - some by as much as 11 per cent!

This will be bad news for the 400,000 motorists expected to pour into dealers in September looking for bargains on 56-plate models. Our table above shows the cars with the largest price hikes. We calculated these using figures directly from the manufacturers, or the New Car Prices in the back of our magazine.

We found the biggest climber was the Fiat Stilo 2.4 20v Abarth, which has gone up by £1,601 - a rise of 11 per cent. The Italian firm has just announced price hikes across the board, but other makers such as Volvo blamed facelifts and engine changes for the S80's rise. Recent car tax increases, which are inclu-ded in list prices, are also responsible.

However, it's not all bad news. We found that nine per cent of the models we checked had seen a reduction. The biggest drop was on the VW Phaeton 3.0-litre V6 TDI, which fell by £4,495.