To sell or not to sell?

stingy_rach

Hi guys,

Not going to be necessary for a few months yet but just thinking about the future.

My husband and I have two cars. A Fiat Punto 53 plate which I use for work and a Jeep Grand Cherokee LPG converted 04 plate which my husband uses for work.

I currently do 75 miles a day to get to work and back, my husband 40. It is not possible for us to use public transport due to our location and shifts, we also work in the complete opposite direction! In November, my husband will be transerring to another site which will see his daily mileage go up to 80 miles therefore we are considering selling the Jeep and getting a more economical car.

We have had the Jeep from new, had it converted to LPG and last year had the head gasket fixed. When we bought the car we lived in a rural location and our mileage was paid for by work so it made sense. We also have two very large dogs (Saint Bernards) and have not really found too many cars to accommodate them.

Question is do we just swop and I take the Jeep and spend more on petrol or do we sell and buy something else? The fiat is around 50 mpg and the Jeep around 20mpg which even though LPG is 60 pence per litre still works out more expensive. I guess we could reasonably expect around £5k for the Jeep although it would be sad to see it go!

Any ideas?

Dave_Z

To be honest, i wouldn't sell the Jeep for 2 reasons. Firstly, if it was only converted last year then i doubt you will have made up for the expenditure with the reduced fuel costs yet. Secondly, it will be costing the same to run as a normal petrol car which does 40mpg. If you want or need a car that size then you won't find many others which would achieve that mpg. Not without laying out a large slab of cash. Even the 04 diesel Grand Cherokee only does 29mpg.

If you have or could put together a little cash, then you could trade the Punto in on a swappage deal for one of these new 'eco' models that are doing the rounds. For under £5k (plus the Punto) you could probably pick up some sort of Fiat/Hyundai type thing which costs f all to run.

If it was me though, i'd keep them both and see how it works out.

Kilty_2

Since I'm only seeing 40MPG from a 1.6 Astra I'd say just keep it - you know it's history inside out etc which is a great thing