- The older the car, the more percentage lost of the second hand-price, because the car is not likely to be in such good condition if it is old. For this I will use the information that was given to me. The information is at the end of this coursework.
- My second hypothesis is that, the higher the engine capacity, the less percentage lost of the car’s value, because the higher the capacity, the faster the car. I will get the information from ‘Parker’s Prices’, a price guide on second hand cars.
HYPOTHESIS 1
For Hypothesis 1, which is the older the car, the more percentage lost of the second- hand price, I will be displaying the information in a table. The table will have the following headings:
Car Number: This heading will show what number the car is in the sheet that was given to me (Appendix A, Page 1 of 4). The first 25 cars on the sheet are picked out at random, making it a fair test.
Age Of Car (Years): This will be showing the age of the car in years. The higher the age is, the less second-hand selling price the car is likely to be.
Price When New (£): The price when new is going to show how much the car was when it was first purchased.
Price When Second-Hand (£): The price when second-hand will display the price of the car when it is second-hand. This will show how much the car is when it is second-hand.
Loss (%): This heading will show the percentage of the price which car has lost when it was sold second-hand. I think that the percentage of the car’s price is likely to be low depending on the age.
After I have completed the table I will be drawing a scatter diagram, to see if there is any correlation between the age of the car and the percentage lost of the car’s value.
The X-axis will show the age of the car in years and the Y-axis will show the percentage that the car’s value has lost.
After I have done the scatter diagram, I will draw a cumulative frequency chart to find out the median and quartile ranges. I will be doing both to find out what the quarter and median ranges are of the price that the car has lost.
HYPOTHESIS 2
My second hypothesis is the higher the engine capacity, the less percentage lost of the car’s value
To show this I will be investigating the percentage that the car has lost, sorted by the engine capacity.
I am going to make this a fair by investigating cars from Parker’s Price at random. I will investigate four cars of each engine capacity from 1.0 – 2.0
I will be also investigating the price when new, when second hand, and the percentage lost of the car’s second-hand price.
HYPOTHESIS 1
To start off my first hypothesis, I will draw a table to show what factors I will be investigating. I am investigating the first 25 cars of Appendix A, page 1 of 4, which are picked at random.
Now that I have done the table, I will now know where to plot the second hand prices and the age of the car on the scatter diagram.
Before I do the scatter diagram I predict that there will be a positive correlation. This is because I think that the older the car, the more value of money it has lost.
The scatter diagram is on the next page.
After doing the scatter diagram, I noticed that there was a positive correlation. This shows that the older the car, the more percentage lost of the second-hand price, but the age did not affect all of the cars.
I noticed that there were one or two exceptions on my scatter diagram. The second hand prices of these cars may have been affected by something else. Car number two (as shown in the table) may have been affected by the engine size. Car number twenty-four had a low price when it was brought new, so this may be the main factor of why it has only lost a little of its value.
These results match my hypothesis, because I predicted that the older the car, the more percentage lost of the second hand-price. The scatter diagram showed that a positive correlation which means that the older the car, more the percentage lost of the value.
I am now going to draw a cumulative frequency table to find out the median and quartile ranges. The data I will use is the data I am investigating in the first part of the investigation (the first 25 cars of Appendix A, page 1 of 4).
Before I start the graph, I predict that the median range will be between 45%-50% of the cumulative frequency. This is because I received a positive correlation in the scatter diagram. The quartile range is likely to be 12.5 because it is 50% of 25.
The chart and graph for the cumulative frequency is on the next page.
After finishing off the cumulative frequency graph, I noticed that my prediction was right.
The median range was 48%, which is nearly half way of 25.
The quartile range was 12, which is nearly a quarter of 25.
It agreed with my hypothesis because I predicted the older the car, the more percentage lost of the second hand-price.
Hypothesis 2
For my second hypothesis, I am investigating the engine capacities.
I think that the higher the engine capacity, the less percentage lost of the car’s value.
I am going to investigate four cars of the same engine capacity from 1.0 – 2.0 to make it a fair test.
I am using the information from Parker’s Prices, a guide on used car sales.
The information is on the next page.
Something that occurred to me when I finished investigating the engine capacities was that the cars lost a certain amount of their second-price. Nearly all cars lost around 50% – 70% of their second-hand price, but three cars only lost 45% - 50% of their price. They are likely to have lost a little amount of their price because they were all less than a year old. This shows that the cars were in good condition before they were brought second-hand.
The engine capacities did not affect any of the cars, which lost around 45% - 50% of its second-hand price. Two of the cars had an engine capacity of 1.1 and the other one had an engine capacity of 1.9.
The car with an engine capacity of 1.9 lost the most percentage of its second-hand price (47.63%) out of the other two.
After I noticed those three exceptions, I had a look at the book, ‘Parker’s Prices’, to see what the differences were between those three exceptions and the rest of the cars I investigated. I noticed that all the cars had a condition rating. The cars, which lost around 45% - 50% of its second-hand price, had a condition rating over 4 and a half stars out of 5.
To find this out if the condition ratings were the cause, I added another column to the table and wrote down what the rating was of the condition of each car. The cars I investigated, which lost 50% - 70%, had a rating of 2 – 4 stars out of 5.
This conclusion shows me that the engine capacity does not always affect the second-hand price of the cars.
The condition of the car is also likely to affect the second-hand price, as cars in good condition are likely to attract a buyer.
After completing my coursework, I have found out the following things after investigating two hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1-
- The older the car, the more percentage lost of the second hand-price.
- Not all cars are affected by the age. They may be affected by different factors.
Hypothesis 2 –
- A car loses a certain amount of its value due to the engine capacity. (Around 50% - 70%)
- If they lose less, it is likely to be because of the condition of the car. If the condition of the car is very good, then it is likely to lose less value of its second-hand price.
