At Whoops Wheel Fix It we specialise in bodywork and alloy wheel restoration for cars in North London, West London, Hertfordshire and Essex. Our services are aimed at keeping your car in the best condition possible, whether that's repairing chips and scuffs to bodywork, restoring a showroom colour and shine, or refurbishing your alloy wheels.
But, as nice as it is to keep your car looking great, there are actually some good, practical reasons for doing so, that go a lot deeper than just how your car looks.
Alloy Wheel Restoration North London – Click here to find out more about our bodywork, polishing and alloy wheel restoration services in North London.
1. Protect Your Investment
For most people, buying a car is their biggest investment next to buying a house. We all know cars depreciate in value over time, but some depreciate faster than others – and that's not just down to the make and model of the car. If you've sunk thousands of pounds into buying your car, it makes sense to protect that investment by preventing it depreciating faster than it needs to. Anyone familiar with Parker's price guides (or similar publications) will quickly see what the main factors are in affecting the price of a used car: its year of production (its actual age), mileage (which is an estimate of mechanical wear) and condition.
"Condition" simply means the state of the bodywork and interior. While you could dismiss these as being "cosmetic" compared to important things like mechanical wear, a glance at the actual figures are educational.
For instance, let's take an Audi A4 2.0 TDI 4 door saloon, new in 2010, and with a mileage of 30,000. For a private sale, this car in "Good" condition is valued at £13,140. The same car, with the same mileage in "Poor" condition is valued at £11,045. (Source: Parkers online car valuations March 2013). That is a difference of £2,095 and more than 15% of the top price. Who wants to throw away two thousand pounds for the sake of a little TLC?
A full body polish costs from £300 + VAT, and alloy wheel restoration around £50-65 + VAT for a standard finish – all available from our mobile van serving the North London area. Even if your car needs both bodywork and wheel refurbishment, this can still add up to far less than what you stand to lose by trying to sell your car with faded or chipped bodywork and scratched alloys (exact costs and potential improvements to car value will depend on car model).
2. Improve Its Saleability
If you plan to sell your car on in the future, then it makes sense to think about its future saleability. The actual price you can sell it for is one thing (see point 1 above) – the other is how appealing and desirable it is likely to be to a buyer. Initially, these might seem like the same thing, but when it comes to the psychology of car buying, they are very different.
The list value of a car is a non-emotional way of comparing one car with another. But as anyone who has bought a car will tell you, choosing a car involves a lot more than just comparing asking price with list value. We look at colour, we look at shape and we look at shine. Many buyers are willing to pay a little more – or be reluctant to haggle too hard – for the sake of having the car we've fallen in love with because of the way it looks. And when it looks almost like a new car, this will often feel like a bargain to the buyer, even if they have paid top price for it.
When it comes to haggling over the price, a car in tip top condition doesn't give buyers the chance to knock too much off your asking price. As long as you have priced your car fairly according to generally accepted valuations and factored in a little room for manoeuvre (by adding a couple of hundred to the asking price) you can stand your ground with cheeky hagglers, confident in the knowledge that someone else will almost certainly want to buy it.
3. Dress to Impress
Even if you don't want to worry about the value of your car, and you're not think about selling any time soon, your car and the way it looks can say a lot about you. If you chose your car because of the good impression it makes (either to impress yourself, your friends or your clients) then you're already aware of how your car – and the condition it's in – can affect how you are perceived by others.
If you're going on a date, to a job interview or to a client meeting, you will no doubt make some effort to ensure your clothes and your grooming are as good as they can be. So why ruin that impression by travelling in a car which needs a good wash, has faded bodywork and chipped alloys? A clean, "well groomed" car gives people the message that you are organised, successful, have good self-respect and are generally "together" as a person.
4. Defy Your Age
Of course your number plate will always reveal the true age of a car – unless you have a personalised number plate – in which case only the true experts will be able to ascertain the age of your car just by looking at it. For certain premium brands of car, such as Jaguar, Aston Martin or Porsche, the brand itself has the caché, often unaffected – or even enhanced – by it being an older car. But hiding your car's true age with a personalised number plate will be of no avail if your car's paintwork is dull or damaged and your alloys are chipped and scratched. For cars in this category, with the right attention to bodywork and alloys, a 15 year old Jaguar can be just as impressive – even more so – than a brand new car.
5. Doing Your Bit for the Environment
Motoring and environmental consciousness don't always go hand in hand, but there is one major thing that car owners can do to minimise their impact on the environment – and that is simply to use each car you own for longer. Suppose you drive and own cars over a 50 year period and you drive each car for 3 years and 4 months before getting a new one – that's 15 cars over a lifetime. Extend your usage to 5 years and that's 10 cars over a lifetime and 5 cars that didn't need to be built using precious earth resources.
Even if you argue that cars just enter the second hand market and continue to be used that way (which is true), a car which has been well maintained and still looks good will have a much longer life as a second hand car than one which looks faded or where chips have gone untreated and rust damage has taken its toll in the first few years.
Whatever the age or model of your car, keeping it in showroom condition is a sensible investment – in the value of your car and in the positive impression that it can make for you.
Alloy Wheel Restoration North London – Click here to find out more about our bodywork, polishing and alloy wheel restoration services in North London.
