Should I downgrade my cars?

Lubo27

At the moment I have a renault Scenic 55 plate £30,000 32.5 mpg petrol. Road tax £170, will increase to £180 with new tax schemes. Being offered £3,500 trade value.

Also have T reg Peugot 106 petrol that has 80,000 miles and has seen better days. Not sure if it will pass MOT next month. Road tax £120.

Monthly/annual income is about to drop so was thinking about buying a diesel peugot 206/207 estate (need to fit 3 children in back of car)tax band being £120 this year & then £110 or £90 next year. Would also get more mpg.

Also buying a Peugot 106 which is only £35 road tax & more mpg.

Could pay outright for cars/ wouldn't want brand new. A year or 2 old. Would then keep cars until knackered.

Am I wasting money? Advice on whether my thinking is good/bad pls.

MX5huggy

Firstly I presume the scenic has 30,000 miles on it and is some diamond encrusted special edition worth £30,000!

What matters how many miles per year you are doing in each car do you need 2 cars?

Basicly you won't really svae money if you take in to acount depreaciation of the new car.

You seem quite addicted to french cars! they are not known for reliability!

Lubo27

Yes you are correct - 30,000 miles - if only I could have diamond encrusted anything!

We are doing about 7,000 in Scenic & Peugot doing about 10,000. We do need two cars, hubby is about to work away during week ( he would take smaller car). I need car as we have 3 small children. We would look at cars that are 05/06 as well.

If there are any suggestions in terms of better cars that fit our requirements I would be grateful for recommendations. Cheers

harveybobbles

If you're only doing that low mileage then I'm not sure if deisel is the way forwards. They work best with the more miles you do and thats when they start to pay for themselves.

Not many 206/207 SW things about. For the main reason: if you want an estate you'd buy a propper one lol.

Armengar

I was in the same quandry, I was looking at an SMax and couldnt decide between petrol or diesel. for the extra costs weighing in fuel costs, mpg, tax differences over 3 years basically I came to the conclusion that <9000 miles petrol was cheaper and above 9000 diesel was cheaper. Emissions difference was between 159 and 194 for the tax calculations.

vikingaero

harveybobbles wrote: »

If you're only doing that low mileage then I'm not sure if deisel is the way forwards. They work best with the more miles you do and thats when they start to pay for themselves.

Not many 206/207 SW things about. For the main reason: if you want an estate you'd buy a propper one lol.

Mileage is not the only reason to buy a smoker. If you have an MPV and load it up with the brats and luggage/camping gear etc then the extra torque of a diesel may be better. Even for urban driving a torquey diesel is better than a weedy petrol engine of the same capacity.

AdrianHi

It looks like your are doing less than 10,000 miles a year on the Scenic, so my first observations are, your are not going to save a huge amount on fuel costs and you'll be getting rid of something practical enough for your family for something small. Road tax cost differences are too small a part of the total cost of ownership to be worth even counting in the equation.
You've probably taken quite a hit on the Scenic, worth £3500 today it hasn't got a lot more value to loose, need to get your money's worth out of this one.

I would replace these cars as they become "knackered", sounds like the old 106 needs to go soon so plan for replacing that with a 1 to 2 year old similar car.