The average car sold at auction for £7,244 in October, 5% less than a year ago

The average used car sold at BCA's auctions fetched £7,244 in October, 1% less than in September and 5% less than a year earlier (AM Online, 6 November). The monthly move is small enough to pass as noise. The number underneath it is the one the trade watches, because cars sold 2.5% further below the published guide price than they had been doing, and more buyers turned up to bid than in any month BCA has recorded.

The average carries the mix with it

BCA's monthly figure is total proceeds divided by cars sold, so it moves when the stock changes as well as when prices change. September's average was £7,317, up £353 or 4.8% on August, a month in which performance against guide price expectations improved (Fleet News, 8 October). October's figure sits about £73 below that, roughly the 1% monthly decline the company reported.

That makes the headline a blunt instrument. A month in which more cheap, older part-exchanges reach the block will show a lower average even if every car held its value, and BCA said the bigger pricing moves were on older vehicles rather than clean three and four-year-old stock.

The guide measure strips some of that out, because each car is judged against a book value rather than against the rest of the sale. On that measure the month was weaker. BCA said performance against guide price expectations fell 2.5%, so hammer prices drifted further below the book.

The guides found a similar month

Solera cap hpi, which publishes the guide values that much of the trade buys and sells against, put the October fall at 1.7% for a car at three years and 60,000 miles, about £350. That was worse than the 1.4% seasonal average for the month (Fleet News, 29 October).

The two datasets answer different questions. cap hpi tracks a fixed point on a fixed car, so its number is a like-for-like read on values. BCA tracks what actually sold, across every age and condition that crosses its blocks. When both point the same way, the direction is not in doubt, and our report on the cap hpi figures sets out the fuel-type split behind it.

Retail asking prices have been stickier. Cazoo's average listed car was £17,432 in October, down 0.3% on September and 2.3% on a year earlier, with cars taking 40.2 days to sell (Cazoo, 4 November). When retail holds and trade falls, the difference comes out of the dealer's margin.

The buyers turned up and paid less

BCA's monthly buyer numbers went above 10,800 for the first time, which is a strange thing to set alongside falling prices. Attendance at an auction is not the same as demand at the guide price. More bidders than ever, paying further below the book, points to supply growing faster than the number of people willing to pay the asking rate.

Stuart Pearson, BCA's chief operating officer, described October as one of the toughest markets for some time. He cited cost-of-living pressure, record-high fuel prices, school holidays and the Budget among the drags on retail demand, and then the competition from the new car side. "Exceptional new car deals offer motorists a compelling alternative with very affordable monthly payment plans and long warranty periods," he said.

The consequence he drew was about supply rather than demand. "We're seeing increased volumes of lower-value part-exchanges reach the market," he said. Those cars arrive at auction because somebody bought a new one, and they arrive at the cheaper end of the market, which pulls the average down and puts pressure on anything similar already in stock.

Diesel is doing the falling

The fuel-type split is where the market is separating. Indicata's October report found diesel with the highest market day's supply of any powertrain at 56 days, while accounting for 21.2% of used car sales against 25.1% of industry stock. Battery electric cars sat at the other end, with the lowest supply at 38 days and 10.0% of sales against 7.75% of stock (Motor Trader, 4 November).

BCA reported the same pattern from the block. Its diesel guide performance continued to erode, in its words dramatically, while the company recorded its highest sold volume week for electric cars and found plug-in hybrids in demand. That is a market repricing fuel types rather than a market falling uniformly, a pattern that has been building for months and that our September read of the values data tracked through the summer.

What it means if you are selling

Condition decided October more than age did. Pearson's warning to sellers was about expectations at the point of sale. "Expecting a 'clean' price for an average or poor condition vehicle will inevitably lead to stock build and buyers will quickly turn to sellers that are more pro-active and take a more pragmatic view of the market," he said.

In practice the guide price is a starting point rather than a valuation. A car with a clean history, matching tyres, a full service record and no warning lights will find the upper end of the guide. The same model with kerbed alloys, a patchy service history and a scuffed bumper will not, and the gap between the two has widened while stock has built up.

There is a timing point for anyone selling into the trade before Christmas. Pearson said the operators doing well are buying now for the new year, to get ahead of preparation delays and have stock ready for early 2027. A clean car has a better chance of a sensible bid in November than in the last week of December.

What it means if you are buying

The room to negotiate is concentrated in the stock nobody else wants. Older cars, higher-mileage cars and diesels are where the guide price and the sale price have separated most, and where a buyer who is not fussy about fuel type can do well. A three or four-year-old car in clean condition is still selling strongly, so the discount there is thinner.

Electric cars are the exception in both directions. Supply is rising, with battery electric disposal volumes so far this year already 13% past the whole of 2025 (Fleet News, 29 October), and values have nonetheless held or improved as retail demand has kept pace. The risk to that sits in the new car market. Indicata estimated that at the end of September the UK was around 265,000 battery electric registrations short of the 33% share the ZEV Mandate requires for the year, and warned that heavy year-end discounting to close that gap could work its way into used prices.

"We don't want to get to a stage where residual values foot the bill for the industry chasing the ZEV Mandate targets," said Dean Merritt, Indicata's national retail strategy manager.

Finance costs are the other moving part. Bank Rate rose to 4% on 5 November, the first increase since 2023, and used car finance has already been shrinking while new car finance grows (our report on the rate rise). Higher borrowing costs trim what a buyer can pay monthly, which feeds back into what a dealer can bid. October's prices were set before that decision, so the next two months of auction data will show whether it changes the bidding.