Nice people thread part 3- Nice as pie

vivatifosi

PasturesNew wrote: »

05 isn't an old banger!!

I just traded in my "Y", year before the 50, for an 06.

My car's even older than a Y Pastures, I've had it from new and its reliable so I see no point in changing. But my view is if you buy a good 5-6 year old car, you should get a further 5-6 years use out of it if you look after it and the main depreciation has been costed out.

I don't think most cars on the road these days are old bangers, whatever their age, they are mostly reliable. Do you remember when you couldn't drive down the motorways without seeing at least one broken down Austin Princess on the hard shoulder? I once had a car with a starting handle and that was definitely an old banger (ok, it was very old even by then, but ykwim). Although their faults are more complex now, they are way more reliable. When I first started driving I had no idea if my car would start on a winter's morning (yes I'm thinking of you Renault 5).

misskool

errr...having never bought a car in my life, what's the 50? 05? Y? is that how old they are?

i'll have a mooch round autotrader

err...what sort of engine size? petrol? diesel? what is not a lot of mileage?

vivatifosi

misskool wrote: »

errr...having never bought a car in my life, what's the 50? 05? Y? is that how old they are?

i'll have a mooch round autotrader

The cars changed plates in 2001. Prior to this they had a prefix at the beginning (and way back yonder in ye olde 80s etc a suffix at the end). Anyhow.... The old plates went through the alphabet, a V plate is late 99-early 00, then W is early 00 to late 00 then Y was the last plate in the run was Y, which run through to Autumn 01.

In Autumn 01 a new system was brought in, where you have two letters indicating the place of registration, say BR, then two numbers which indicate the date of registration, say 05, then three random letters. The first number in the new system was 51.

The plates change twice a year, once in Spring and once in Autumn. Unless you're buying a very new car, all you need to know for now is that in say, 2002, the Spring plate number was 02, the Autumn plate number was 52 (53 for Autumn 03 and so on)...

The only other thing you need to bear in mind is that the year of registration is not necessarily the same as the year of manufacture, so you can get a 2000 manufactured car on a 2001 plate for example.

vivatifosi

misskool wrote: »

err...what sort of engine size? petrol? diesel? what is not a lot of mileage?

Petrol engines are more ubiquitous in smaller cars but diesel can be cheaper to run. The average mileage in this country IIRC is about 10-12k per annum, so if you had a five year old car with 50,000 miles on the clock, that wouldn't be unusual. What you don't want is a 5 year old small engined car with 90-100,000 miles on the clock.

ETA: a full service history is also definitely something worth having and is often abbreviated in car ads to FSH as it shows that the car has been looked after. Now where's brodders when you need him?

misskool

viva: If you were near me right now, I would be kissing you and showering you with cakes.

What a complex little world cars are. now i know what to look out for

silvercar

Car plates: 02 =March 2002, 03=March 2003,..........09=March 2009, 10=March 2010, 11=March 2011,...

51=Sept 2001, 52=Sept 2002, 53=Sept 2003,........59=Sept 2009, 60=Sept 2010, 61=Sept 2011,.....

Must be of the form AA11 AAA otherwise its older cars of the form A111 AAA or even older AAA 111A

vivatifosi

Why thanks missk. As I mentioned, I've had my current car from new and DH is a fantastic buyer of new cars. However with second hand cars, it is worth having someone with you who knows what they are looking for (who I hasten to add isn't me). For example:
nd
* Have the tyres worn evenly? If not, the tracking may be out or worse, the car may be accident damaged.
* If you look down all the panels in sunlight, are they true, well fitting and without distortion? This can also indicate accident damage.
* Is the driver's seat worn but the car low mileage? This can indicate a car that has been clocked (ie the mileometer turned back or disconnected). This is harder to do with MOTs etc recording mileage, but can happen. Double check that the numbers add up on all the paperwork too.

There's good advice on buying second hand here:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/advice/2010/09/buying/buying-a-used-car
http://www.learnmoney.co.uk/advice/advice-24.html
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_world/consumer_affairs/buying_second_hand_vehicles.htm
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/consumer_affairs/article6295118.ece

SingleSue

PasturesNew wrote: »

05 isn't an old banger!!

I just traded in my "Y", year before the 50, for an 06.

My dream is to get a car which was made this century....even an 01 would be great!

I got lucky with my current car, cost me £461 off Ebay, 3 years ago and although I wouldn't attempt long distance motorway driving in it (no reason why it shouldn't cope, think it is just me), it does me well for the round town school run and our trips to my parents caravan and can reach and stay at 70mph on the bypass no problems.

So far, I have done over 20k miles in it.

Ooopps better tell you what it is....it is an Astra 1.7 TD estate and 17 years old.

lostinrates

Mine was a Y we currently drive a G.Its old and it bangs,but its pretty reliable!

Grrrr.Turns out we need a new join for our burst joint here, and the part is not easy to find because its old black dairy piping to copper, not new blue water piping.

We've had to fill waterers by hand and open up and grit another bit of yard to provide water now.:(

PasturesNew

I bought my "Y" when I was commuting 200 miles, so it needed to be reliable as I didn't want to be alone and broken down on a motorway.

I only changed it earlier this year because it was getting wet in the back, there were big floppy mushrooms that would grow in the rear footwell that I had to keep cutting back... and when I last moved I realised that although I had 1 cubic metre of boot space with the seats dropped down, as it was a hatchback and had sloping sides it really limited how you could stack stuff... so this latest vehicle has 3 cubic metres of straight sided luggage space.... or, enough room to carry everything I own, in one trip... ready for any "moves" I might make. It's also got other uses and does 55mpg instead of the 35mpg I was getting.

If I lived/worked in a local area I'd have an old banger, but my needs are that I might suddenly be driving 100-200 miles daily/weekly at the drop of a hat and instantly need something I can rely on and can cart things about in.

Also, down here in rural-land, everything's so far away - and along tiny/winding narrow roads.... if you break down just round a blind bend and it's getting dark and you have no signal on your phone ... it's not ideal.

I'd never had a newish car until I was doing my 200-mile commutes. I've always had bangers, often having the floor welded back on yearly to drag it through an MoT.