How much did you spend on your car

Empty_pockets

I'm always amazed by the amount of flash cars I see and wonder simply how people afford them. I've only ever bought one car on finance and that was under 5K and was for work.
All the rest have been paid in full and in cash and all under £2500.

If I were to buy a new/newer car should my budget would be?

Buying a house you're generally offered 3-4 x annual income.

I know there is no 'official' figure for car loans but what do MSE'ers recommend?

Would you say buy a car thats 10% of income, 50%, maybe even 100%?

Personally my car cost me just under 4%. Could afford more but my car suits my needs.


Just for clartiy, I want to measure total purchace cost, inc interest, over full term of loan against 1 year annual salary.

Gavin83

My car cost me about 12% of my salary at the time of purchase. I could have spent more but didn't really feel the need to, it suited my needs and I had other things I wanted to spend my money on.

Some people consider their cars extremely important however and will consider it a priority over everything else, spending what they can on it. I know people who spend pretty much all their disposable income on their cars. Might explain why you see so many flash cars around.

Hammyman

I spent £5.5k on my car. I've had it 4 years, its probably worth £1k when I come to sell it if that. I've done 70k in it though so its actually worked out quite cheap on a cost per mile basis even if I scrapped it today.

Also cars are a lot better built today so, stonechips aside, mine looks the same as it did at 3 years old. You may be surprised at the age and starship mileage on some of those "flash" cars

Rolandtheroadie

Mines cost me a little less than 1%.

I dont care what my car is/looks like as long as it starts and stops.

It's also run it on veg oil/bio diesel so average around 30-35p a litre for fuel.

I've just put a years MOT on it (£100 all in) it's probably still worth what I paid for it.

Empty_pockets

Gavin,

Agree on some folk cherishing their cars, though i don't see anything wrong with that and have done it myself. My car gets detailed regulaly and serviced probably 4 or 5 times a year. Best parts I can afford. thats still a small fraction of my salary.

Compare that to say someone on average income, say £25K buying a small basic car, say a Vauxhall Corsa you're still looking at £14-15K thats well over 50% of income.

Now more that margin to an Audi A4 or maybe the new Mini and maybe you can see my issue.

Is it really that common for folk to spend so much on a car? I Guess the folk I'm talking about are unlikley to be on MSE!

rodenal

Haven't had a car on finance for several years but have just taken one recently.

If you take the total purchase cost including finance but excluding any running / maintenance cost divided back up over a single year it works out at 7.25% of my salary. (i.e not including my partners) - If my (cash) contribution to the car is removed it works out at about 5.25%. Taking both our salaries into account it's about 4.6% and 3.3% respectively.

If you are looking at it solely from a window price of the car perspective with the relevant amount of interest for the first year added it's 25% of my salary or 17% taking my deposit into account.

Agree with the post above r.e small, new cars being such a large percentage of salary - though I would say that you shouldn't take the total cost of the car from a single year figure (unless of course it's bought outright) and that I don't believe that there are that many people under the age of say 25 (who must be the biggest percentage buyer of these cars) who are on even £25k - I'm certainly not on a massive amount more than that even now and I'm 27.

Gloomendoom

Not all 'flash' cars are bought on finance. Some people save up and pay cash.

mikey72

Gavin83 wrote: »

My car cost me about 12% of my salary at the time of purchase. I could have spent more but didn't really feel the need to, it suited my needs and I had other things I wanted to spend my money on.

Some people consider their cars extremely important however and will consider it a priority over everything else, spending what they can on it. I know people who spend pretty much all their disposable income on their cars. Might explain why you see so many flash cars around.

One of our neighbours must spend more each year on cleaning his car than I spent when I bought ours.

nickj_2

buying a brand new car must be about the worst investment ever

Gloomendoom

nickj wrote: »

buying a brand new car must be about the worst investment ever

Not many people buy cars as investments.

wba31

Have never spent more than £5k on a car, and the one car i spent £5k on was a 5 year old 2.2 Diesel Honda Accord.

my spending/car history

1987 Nissan Micra - £100 - blew engine
1988 Micra - £150 - blew engine
1987 Micra - £150 - blew engine
then had 2 cars on lease
2001 VW Bora - £4000 - wrote off in accident
2004 Honda Accord - £5000 - sold after 1 year for £5000 as too big for my wife to drive, high insurance cost
2004 Honda Civic - £4000 - current car