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There are more used car bargains now than at any point in 2010 -making it a great time to buy a used car. The Used Car Price Index, by pricing experts CAP, says average used car values are lower than the same point last year for the first time.

'Upper medium' cars, such as the Ford Mondeo and 'small executive' models including the BMW 3 Series have joined the list of car types which now cost less than they did a year ago.

Smaller cars have seen the largest year-on-year reductions in value. Typical 3-year old city cars, such as a Ford Ka or a supermini, like a Vauxhall Corsa, are now almost 10 per cent cheaper than the equivalent vehicle in August 2009.

CAP's Mike Hind said: "Taking the used car market as a whole, values are now on average almost 3 per cent lower than in August 2009. It is the first time this year that average values have been lower than 12 months previously. But it does mean that this is a better time to buy a used car - especially a small or medium family car - than we have seen for a couple of years."

While the more common types of car have seen their values fall, more specialist models have increased in price since 2009.

Incredibly, 4x4s are the models which have seen the biggest increase and are now a massive 11.1 per cent more than they were at this time last year.

The oft-recession-proof supercar market, which includes cars such as the Audi R8 has risen by 4.3 per cent while the popular "luxury executive" market which counts the BMW 5-Series and the BMW 7-Series among its number has risen by 2.8 per cent.

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