New vs. Used vs banger

wit40iwtwan

Hi all

OH and I need to get rid of our car. It is costing a fortune in diesel and we seldom use it long distance. we want to go for something smaller but our ideal car we cannot really afford right now.

So - we can get around £1200 for the current 02 Reg Estate and either

a - buy a small cheap second hand car for max £4000 or £80p.m. whichever is cheaper

or

b - buy a banger of sorts cash with the £1200, save up the £80 p.m. and get closer to our dreamm car...

OR

c - buy the car of our dreams (£10K) and be in debt for a few years more...

What would you do??

OH works local so if car broke down could always cycle to work (which he does in summer) - we use it most weekends during rugby season but overall usage is very light - around 1000 miles a year!

Other thing to bear in mind is we have 18YO, 16YO and 15YO who may one day want to drive....

We have a good budget with more than the £80p.m (probably up to £200) to spend on a car if we wanted...

boyse7en

I'd keep the car you've got.

You say you don't do long distances, so it will take ages to re-coup the extra expenditure for the used option in Diesel savings.
Buying 'banger' probably won't get you anything much better than you have already got, and may require expensive repairs (assuming you know that your current car is in good condition is isn't likely to need a fortune spending on it)

In my opinion it is daft to go into debt to buy a rapidly-depreciating new car.

If you buy a smaller car (whether new, used or banger), will there be enough space to put five people, plus assorted rugby kit?

ariba10

Stick with what you have and save as much as you can, for as long as you can, is my advice.

Idiophreak

wit40iwtwan wrote: »

Hi all

OH and I need to get rid of our car. It is costing a fortune in diesel... overall usage is very light - around 1000 miles a year!

Bit confused, even at say, 30mpg, which isn't ambitious for a diesel, you'd be spending something like £200/year in gas - something like £16/month - doesn't sound like a fortune to me??

Are there any other reasons you want to get a different car?

I've just bought a brand new car on PCP and am very glad to have done so - I now have 3 years of hassle-free motoring ahead of me...no MOTs to worry about, a couple of services, maybe a couple of tyres, but (fingers crossed) that should be about it...At the end of the three years, I'll most likely get another new car.

Sure, doing this I'll be paying out around £200 a month (ours is quite a high spec little car) indefinitely, but I was budgeting around £100/month toward car maintenance previously, which has now dropped down, I was spending about £50/month more on fuel (get more mpgs now...) and I was constantly worried the thing was going to break down. Paid more road tax, breakdown assistance (now included in PCP), higher insurance. So, overall, it's not costing me a great deal...and a few quid a month for an easy life and a shiney new car to drive around in is good value if you ask me...

What's your ideal car?

[Deleted User]

Is this one of those spend thousands of pounds to save a few pound posts?

AdrianHi

To answer this we really need to know how many miles you do, exactly what car you have now so we know what the fuel consumption is like, then we can come up with some useful advice.
If you really are doing only 1000 miles a year fuel consumption is practically irrelevant and you might just be better off renting a car for the odd occasion you actually use one.

Hintza

AdrianHi wrote: »

If you really are doing only 1000 miles a year fuel consumption is practically irrelevant and you might just be better off renting a car for the odd occasion you actually use one.

That would be about 160 litres for my car. And 80 litres on a fuel efficient one.

So as Adrian says fuel is irrelevant really.

Do yo mean 10,000 miles/year?

wit40iwtwan

I am being a bit of a muppet - I think I got the amount wrong - being used to Km's I quoted incorrectly - it is 10 000 miles a year or less...

The main reason for getting rid of big estate is it passed MOT on a wing and a prayer last July and is likely to be quite costly this year - tyres need changing and every so often things just stop working - so essentially it is falling to bits and will end up costing more to fix than what it is worth! It is costly to fill up and not economical at all... the need to use it for all 5 of us happens maybe once a year if we need to get to an airport in which case we could get a taxi but then again it is likely the 18YO will no longer want to come on family hols!



I quite like the Seat cars but only if new... I also like Hyundai and Kia but OH is 6ft 4 and I am 5ft 11 so need a bit of room in the car...

ahillsy

How about the Skoda Octavia? If you wanted to buy new, then now is a good time (until the end of the month) as there is discount off the price equivalent to the VAT amount. Plus room for haggling down a bit further. Combined with 0% finance for 2 years (50% deposit) or a very low rate finance (1.5% flat rate, per year) deal over up to 3 years, it's a good choice at the moment.

For second hand, plenty of them around, I'd say just look for one a few years old (not nearly new) - at the moment, you can get a new one for the same price, sometimes cheaper than a nearly new one.

gilbert_and_sullivan

You've had good advice and i can't see that buying a set of tyres or fixing the occasional thing that goes wrong is anything unusual.
What car is it by the way, a Diesel that drink's juice doesn't sound right unless it's a whacking great 4x4.

If you want a new car then get one, nothing wrong with it but i believe it's by far the most expensive option for you, and as for another used car...better the devil you know.

AdrianHi

We still don't have enough information to go on if financial consideration is the only thing that motivate a change.
Obtaining the £10K car so long as you are sure of being able to keep up any loan payments could represent breaking even or even money saving in the long run if you
1. Spend £10K on a car with say 2+ years warranty left on it giving assurance of no big repair bilss
and
2. The old Renaults repair bills are high enough to be more than the cost of finance charges (which are not that big for £10K) and depreciation (approx. £1000 or less a year for most 1 year old cars costing £10,000)

You need to do the sums but one things for sure is broken down as an average monthly expense in the long term there will not be much difference between old Renault and nearly new £10K car. What changes is you spend money on depreciation instead of repairs with the newer car which is my preference.