CAR buyers can look forward to yet lower prices - and more for their money - in 2003 as dealers seek to counteract waning consumer confidence.

The latest figures from the Alliance & Leicester Car Price Index, produced in association with What Car?, show that the two-year trend in falling car prices in the UK is continuing despite consecutive record sales over the same period.

Year-on-year falls in 2002 ranged from a high of 2.8 per cent in June to a modest 1.3 per cent in December - the smallest drop seen all last year.

However, that December figure looks set to fall further in 2003 as car buyers are offered increasingly better deals.

Andy Bayes, head of motor finance at Alliance & Leicesters, said: “It has been interesting to see that even though consumers flocked to showrooms in record numbers in 2001 and 2002, the prices of new cars hardly stopped falling.

“'This year looks set to be a tough one for car dealers. They will have to work increasingly hard and discount prices to keep cars moving off the forecourt at the rate they did last year.”

Douglas McWilliams of the Centre for Economics and Business Research said: “Slower growth in house prices, an increase in taxes and another forecasted tax rise in April, means there will be a tougher market for all consumer goods including cars.”