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Here we have two more Motability Quarterly Price Guides, the first from Q2 2011 – to quote from it:
Link to Q2 2011 price guide:
https://forum.whichmobilitycar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2011-Q2-CPG.pdf
The second guide, from Q1 2012, was after a small article was published in the media:
Link:
https://forum.whichmobilitycar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2012-Q1-CPG.pdf
Again, with thanks to WMC for his technical skills and for hosting them.
I hope they will provide some interest to forum members and promote some interesting and respectful debate, as well as giving a sense of nostalgia from Motability times past!
Dave
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Hi WMC,
Yes, it is interesting to see some of the manufacturers that are no longer in existence, or do not market their cars in the UK anymore.
Such as from the 2011 guide, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Perodua, Proton etc and as you pointed out, Saab.
Some may not have been the best of cars, but they did add an element of choice.
I think in the fullness of time, we will be adding Mitsubishi to this list sadly.
Ah, the Seat Leon 1.6tdi SE Copa auto @ 399 ap was the car I got in 2012. I loved this car and I still think it’s the best looking Leon. I also got a surprise when I picked it up as it came with xenon headlights which weren’t standard and weren’t even available on that model. The dealer told me there had been a problem at the factory with the standard lights so they had to fit xennons. Not sure if that was true or not but I loved them.
over 4000 cars available on motability that was great
Damn some of those cars, wish we had the same choice now
Another great selection. Dave. Thanks a mill’ – even though it does make one want to weep: at least ten drop-tops opposed to the one, rpt one, on current list. That’s the small engined Mini, I don’t count the Fiat 500, that’s just a sunroof on steroids!
I think the second price list was around when we joined the scheme – just after the top end cars had been culled ? As with the previous price lists published the other day, some of the AP’s for very run of the mill cars were very high yet there were some cracking bargains on some very nice ones. As well as the Land Rover Discovery and Range Rover Sport, the 2011 list contained the E Class Mercedes and yet again some incredible bargains from Volvo including £2,199 for an XC70. I know that the price lists only show a tiny number of the cars available, but of those shown I would have been very tempted with the Volvo XC90 at £5,499. That’s a hell of a bargain for a massive and expensive SUV. And, as others have said, over 4,000 cars versus just 1,597 today. That’s a reduction of 60%. Wow!
This is painful to go back to that period then compare it to now, the scheme has just dropped off a cliff in terms of number of vehicles on the scheme and selection. I was lucky to have ordered the g21 touring 320i last year before it was purged off the scheme.
This time, a couple more, both ‘pre’ and ‘post’ the 2011 scheme changes:
Q3 2011 (which may have been the last one prior to the ‘Daily Mail’ changes to the scheme in late 2011):
https://forum.whichmobilitycar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2011-Q3-CPG.pdf
Also the Quarterly Price guide from Q1 2013:
https://forum.whichmobilitycar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2013-Q1-CPG.pdf
Again with many thanks to wmc for hosting them.
I think this fully exhausts my stash of old price guides, which have all now been posted on this and the other two threads.
Dave.
According to some of us here, we should be grateful for what we have today. That we are just moaners who want to race around in appropriate vehicles.
Yet here we have evidence of what the scheme offered to people willing to sacrifice their benefits and personal income. And the it all hit the fan… and we have been shafted. Anybody who believes otherwise is fooling themselves.
Fascinating BigDave. Just 4 quarters between those 2 price lists and the choice had dropped from 4,000 cars to 2,000 all thanks to a knee jerk reaction to an inaccurate press article. As we know, it has dropped even further since to less than 1,700. Very sad.
If I was the new CEO of Motability Operations I would be massively increasing the choice and then going after the two-thirds of disabled people who are eligible to join the scheme but choose not to. A proportion of those must surely be going down the private route as they cannot get the cars that they want through the scheme. We are in very PC times now and even the Daily Mail may now think twice about bashing disabled people.
Yet here we have evidence of what the scheme offered to people willing to sacrifice their benefits and personal income. And the it all hit the fan… and we have been shafted. Anybody who believes otherwise is fooling themselves.
Although it was a massive shame that the arbitrary £3k price cap meant the loss of Lexus, Jaguar, Land Rover from the scheme as well as some higher end cars, I don’t think that there is such evidence between these two price lists.
An example of a very popular vehicle, the BMW X1 1.8 SE S drive;
Q3 2011 AP £5299
Q1 2013 AP £1999 £3300 cheaper than it was before the cap!I don’t think Motorbility is faultless, but they can only offer the cars the manufacturers want to sell to them. I think part of the reason we have so few cars available currently is down to the simple fact of new vehicle emissions rules and trends in what type of car is acceptable in the future.
Most diesels have been stopped, many 2ltr Petrol engines are being cut, and with the current upturn in the need to develop EV, many manufactures are cutting their ranges, this isn’t something that just effects Motability, is everywhere.
I’m sure as the cars become available they will come on the scheme, but you just need to accept that the new norm will be 1.5ltr or less, many only 3 cylinders and the inevitable rise to the top of EV’s. Motorbility need to address the HP caps (Which they seem to be doing) and the AP caps (which again seem to be being relaxed) It’s all going to take time though, which isn’t great when you are due to change, but neither is COVID, and thats had an even bigger effect on all of us!
Previous Motability Cars
2006 - 2009 Skoda Superb VR6 2.0tdi
2009 - 2012 Citroen C5 2.0tdi VTR Nav
2012 - 2015 Nissan Qashqai 1.5dci tekna
2015 - 2018 Ford Kuga 2.0tdi Titanium X
2018 - 2021 BMW 220d X drive 2 Series Active Luxury
2021 - 2023 Hyundai Kona Electric Premium SE
2023 - Hyundai Kona Electric UltimateWhilst understanding some of the points that you are making Intranicity, I very much doubt that many manufacturers want to restrict the number of models that they supply Motability, especially in the current climate. The restrictions are far more likely to be down to the arbitrary ‘caps’ that Motability imposes in order to restrict choice to customers. Also, whilst engine sizes are generally getting smaller, as you say, there are still plenty of others available that, yet again, we are prevented from choosing. We can only choose from a proportion of what is available in the wider market and I am absolutely convinced that the cars that we are ‘not allowed’ are determined by Motability and not the manufacturers.
You miss my point Intranicity- our choice has been been decimated; I wasn’t referring to the AP values.
You appear to be in denial; our choice has mostly changed because of lies in the Daily Mail and Motability’s knee jerk reaction. Rather you cite other excuses.
I think you have to put the scheme changes into context of what was also happening around the time of the ‘car cull’ in 2011.
Remember that the UK was in a period of ‘austerity’ post the financial crisis. The coalition government, and in particular the then Chancellor (Gideon Osborne) was cutting back all public services, benefits and anything else he could possibly cut to reduce government borrowing (the deficit).
There was a perception (and to some extent still is) amongst some people that disabled people get their Motability cars ‘free’ (Yes, readers hereabouts know differently, but many non-disabled people don’t, or do not want to know).
Thus, at the time it could have been viewed that to permit people ‘on benefits’ to drive round in a ‘free’ Range Rover whilst others were struggling (or had lost jobs post the financial crisis etc), was politically unacceptable.
After the DM article shone a torch on the subject, who knows what political pressure was put on Motability? We may have to wait until papers are published under the 30-year rule (so circa 2041) to find out. That is if they are in fact released then.
The government did not even have to say or do anything publicly at the time, but were apparently content to let the DM and its readership openly do the dirty for them. However, no doubt ‘wheels within wheels’ were moving in the background.
I also think Motability had a portent that change was coming before the DM article was published. In earlier price guides actual AP’s for expensive vehicles were promulgated. But then, circa early 2011 (before the Daily Mail article), it changed to any vehicle with an AP over £10k becoming ‘POA’ in the quarterly price guides! A portent of things to come?
In the more ‘diversity aware’ times we are currently in, one would like to think pressure would not again be put on Motability to restrict choice. But in saying that, with the Covid borrowings the government has taken on totally dwarfing the financial crisis borrowings, who knows what is around the corner?
Oh, an odd straggler I found – The full Ford Motability price list from Q4 2011:
https://forum.whichmobilitycar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2011-Q4-Ford.pdf
Damn some of those cars, wish we had the same choice now.
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