Spain: used cars are seven years and two months old on average

Is the Spanish car fleet much older than the European average? It is true, but as long as families struggling with the recession remain the common denominator of the Spanish middle class, the data I am about to present will keep following the same upward trend.

Fewer new cars are being sold, we already know that. But what about used ones? Well, more of them are being sold. Age limits or no age limits, people are buying cars, but second-hand ones. Cars that cost up to 1,500 euros have increased their sales by 6.6% this year 2011. We are talking about models from roughly 1998 to 2003.

Some further data on this from AutoScout Spain: the supply of cars priced below 300 euros has fallen by 40.8% due to high demand, while the age of the used cars for sale has risen by 27.5%, to an average of seven years and two months. The average mileage of the fleet has also soared by 24.5%, to 95,870 kilometres.

These cars, little more than scrap according to some, can be a temporary solution to the crisis (as long as you manage to pass the MOT, carrying out some repairs yourself instead of going to a garage), while we wait for one of two things to happen: either the crisis passes on its own without us bothering it (it will pass someday, of course) or clear rules begin to appear to make the crisis pass more quickly.

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