By Yeo Ghim Lay & Ben Nadarjan 

THE global financial crisis appears to have put the brakes on sales of second-hand cars, which had been motoring along nicely since the beginning of the year.

A check with 10 used-car dealers found that potential buyers were shying away from showrooms, and sales had dropped by as much as half last month.

"Customers are taking a wait-and-see attitude. It's like everyone is on hold since the financial crisis started," said Mr Jerry Ong, owner of Auto Inn.

He used to sell 15 to 25 cars every month, but saw fewer than eight roll off the showroom floor last month.

The owner of a used-car dealership at Turf City, who declined to be named, said sales had dropped by half.

He expects even less business this month.

Hardest hit are the sales of big cars, like luxury sedans and sport utility vehicles, which consume more petrol than smaller models.

Mr Neo Nam Heng, president of the Singapore Vehicle Traders Association, said that while the market was still moving, sales were "quite slow" during the last two weeks of last month. Official figures for the month are not yet available.

The slowdown marks a change from previous months, when car buyers made their way to second-hand dealers as consumers tightened their belts amid high prices for petrol, electricity and rice.

Land Transport Authority statistics show that used-car sales from July to September averaged 2,538 a month ? a jump of 20 per cent from the same quarter last year.

More than 23,800 used cars were sold last year, up from about 20,800 in 2006.

But the global financial crisis appears to have changed all that. The failure of some of the world's biggest banks, gyrating stock markets and the drying up of credit have left potential car buyers jittery.

The trend is especially pronounced in the luxury car market, where one agent said that buyers were unwilling to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a car.

The agent recently advised a client to pull his Maserati off the market as no buyer was willing to meet the selling price of more than $200,000.

A check on popular car website www.sgcarmart.com showed that there were 34 luxury cars available last month, compared to seven in September and just one in August.

They include a two-year-old Lamborghini Gallardo going for $620,000.

Meanwhile, dealers are slashing prices to get more people behind the wheel.

Mr Glen Wong, a senior sales executive at Hua Yang Credit, said prices had been lowered by $1,000 to $2,000 per car three weeks ago.

At Lake View Credit, a two-year-old Toyota Corolla Altis is going for about $42,000 now, down from $48,000 three months ago.

Said managing director Tan Ah Chiew: "New cars are now cheaper, so used-car prices must come down too. And with the current state of the economy, customers will be paying more attention to prices."

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Nov 6, 2008.

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