The British car buying public are putting their faith in used cars with latest figures showing the strongest year since daily data was introduced in 2012.

The figures from Black Book live show that average values have increased by 1.2% since the turn of the year, compared to a drop of 0.7% last year.

“The sectors showing the main areas of pricing strength continued to be city cars, superminis and lower medium-sized cars," Derren Martin at cap hpi told motortrader.com.

"Convertibles are behaving as they normally do at this time of year, leading up to the spring and summer. The increase in demand for smaller vehicles is partly as a result of consumers downsizing but also a desire for petrol vehicles.”

There's good news too for the diesels market, with trade buoyant despite recent negative press.

Martin said: “While smaller diesel cars are generally not as popular as their petrol counterparts, demand for larger models remains healthy. Examples of some diesel models that have increased in value over the last few weeks include the BMW 3-Series, Volkswagen Passat and certain Hyundai i40s.

“There has been a noticeable increase in used car retail activity. While there is still a variety of new car finance offers available, they are not quite as attractive as they once were. The discerning buyer can get a used car deal, either PCP or outright purchase, that more than satisfies their requirements.”

Choose your used car from the thousands on offer at CarSupermarket.com, order it online and get it delivered to your door.

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