Vehicle information provider Glass’s has warned that car registration figures for September could be misleading, even if they show year-on-year growth.
Monthly car registrations have seen year-on-year growth for 40 consecutive months as of July, and Glass’s predicted this pattern would continue in August and September.
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However, it warned these figures are increasingly complicated by record levels of pre-registrations, and that other factors could soon come into play.
Rupert Pontin, head of valuations at Glass’s, noted that the volume of sub-one-year-old cars was up by 43% year-on-year in 2015, indicating a huge rise in dealer and manufacturer pre-registrations.
He said: "Pre-regs are not a bad thing in themselves, but they do create a growing distortion in the market. Customers need to see a sensible pricing difference between new cars, nearly new pre-regs and older vehicles. The flood of pre-regs creates substantial downward pressure on older vehicle values, which are falling.
"The more pre-regs that enter the market, the stronger these distortions become, especially bearing in mind that many new vehicles are currently being sold at nowhere near their official list price in the first place."
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By GlobalDataPontin added that, at some point, the market would reach saturation for PCP deals, which have seen an explosion in popularity over the past few years.
He said: "At some point, we will reach a situation where no matter how much manufacturers provide support in terms finance, customers will stop signing new leases. How will manufacturers then cope with huge volumes of cars leaving their factories?"
