That's an interesting point about PCP; just thinking whether it sounded the death knell for a lot of car forums and the modding scene given that it appears 98% or thereabouts of all new cars are purchased on PCP deals most young driver's don't seem to buy their first banger it's straight in with a new car on something like a 'just add petrol deal'. Would follow and stats show younger people (renting) brand new more powerful OE spec cars under strict warranty and service plans etc that negates big tuning and modding. Anything goes wrong it's back to the Main Dealer, not onto a website forum to see how to fix it
It had a massive effect. The tuning scene of the 90s and 00s was huge. A large proportion of it was very normal cars and most of them quite a few years old. The forums I used at that time were really busy. Log in after a few hours and there was pages of new posts. There was always loads of great project threads running. The off topic part of the forums were busy and fun, but there was loads of serious car stuff. Then it died a really quick death.
Hardly any young people had premium brand cars back then. They were disliked on the car forums back then too. The stereotypes were all the same then. As soon as the brands they hated were available on an affordable monthly payment they all jumped ship. As per always whatever car someone owns at that time it's the best ever.
I have never understood the rivalry people build up between car brands where they have to hate the rivals.
Many forums now are nothing like they were for fun cars before. Far too many threads on the forums are dedicated to matters of finance. So many people trying to work out how they can afford to PCP expensive cars. Then all too often there was threads about financial issues. People who had never bought cars of this value couldn't understand the losses involved. They couldn't grasp why they found themselves in deep negative equity and couldn't afford to change car, or were sinking deeper into debt rolling finance on to the next deal.It really got tough reading about finance all the time and seeing the difficulties people were getting themselves in.
Young guys were moaning about not being able to afford to get on the housing market, but getting a brand new car every 2 or 3 years. I voiced my opinion that young people living with their parents shouldn't be allowed huge car finance. That went down like a lead balloon.
There is still some modifying going on. They are trying to discretely hide the tuning they have done and don't care they are breaching their finance deals. There was a few guys pulled up by the finance companies and asked to pay for the car in full.They still expected their warranty to be honoured and still expected to hand the car back. A lot of people lacked care of responsibility.
I just don't get the debt people put themselves in and the amount of risks they are willing to take with that debt. It certainly doesn't make the forums sound as interesting as they used to be.
an no one bothered trying to get the better of it only M3s an the like but I find the RCZ R is like a red rag to a bull it’s like it’s a Peugeot an I’m going to have that piece of shit in my Vauxhall corsa of what ever there driving
