May head straight to the muppet forum for this but.....

Is it right there is a strict quota on the Scoobies that are sold via UK dealers? When I purchased mine the dealer started sprouting that residuals would be solid as there would only be a small amount of UK cars ever available at one time. He seemed to suggest that only 5000 or so WRX's were sold each year via the UK dealer network.

Is this flannel or is it true?

G

There used to be restrictions on the number of cars each Japanese manufacturer could bring into the country.

These restrictions have now been lifted.

Cheers,

Ian.

With the new and MUCH more expensive SVA there should be much fewer Grey MY01s that should help residuals.
Andy

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Originally posted by Andy W:
<B>With the new and MUCH more expensive SVA there should be much fewer Grey MY01s that should help residuals.
Andy[/quote]

IMHO The biggest cause of poor residual values is not the grey imports (ie Jap), which will become more expensive to import, but only a by a small amount (compared to many other makes). The biggest cause is being able to get an EU import (full uk spec!) delivered to your door for £16k (before you all jump, that is genunine price available from a several more reasonably priced importers), bigger savings are available by importing the car your self. It doesn't take much time to work that a £5.5k + saving on the new price makes people reluctant to buy 2 year old cars for £16k +(as was happening 2/3 years ago). Even dealers have had to respond with some selling (or advertising) ex-demo cars for £19k (often with extras)

Also a new model always affects residual values of the older cars. It may be true that 5000 cars are sold each year, but this is not limited by supply anymore but by demand.

Jon