Mitsubishi Scrappage – now on 5 year old cars

Mitsubishi are now offering the Scrappage allowance on cars from 5 years old

Despite our reservations about the Scrappage scheme in the UK, it would seem that it is proving to be a good handle to hang sales publicity on for car makers. Hyundai have told us about their successes and the interesting trade-ins they’ve had on cars sold under the Scrappage scheme, and we reported recently on two guys buying Nissan GT-Rs with the Scrappage allowance.

And now Mitsubishi are using the Scrappage scheme to promote new car sales. Who can blame them? They’ve revealed that since the Scrappage Scheme came in to play 21% of the cars they have sold have been sold with the allowance from the scheme. How many of those are additional sales they don’t say, but we can’t argue that, despite its flaws, the Scrappage Scheme does seem to be getting new buyers in to showrooms.

So Mitsubishi has decided to up the ante, and are now offering the full Scrappage allowance against all cars over 5 years old, rather than the Government 10 year limit. Which is probably not a big deal cost-wise for them, but does give more impetus to the push for new sales. In truth, you could have probably done a very similar (or better) deal with any car maker, but this makes it easy for those who don’t like to haggle to walk in and get a deal they understand.

Sensibly, Mitsubishi are also claiming to have £100 million set aside through Finance Mitsubishi to make a new car purchase easy, with rates from 0% and 10% deposit on periods between 12 and 60 months. Which, assuming their underwriters are using sensible criteria instead of declining finance to all other than those who don’t really need it, is a very clever way to go. One of the main reasons for the lack of car sales, apart from the doom and gloom in the papers, is the mad underwriting criteria that scared-stupid finance houses have been imposing on new loans. This could well help Mitsubishi more than anything else.

So, if you fancy the new Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X FQ-400 that’s just launched, you can take in your 5 year old Evo and get a whole £2,000 off. Whoopee!