To new car or not to new car?

mrkenneth

Morning all. Currently in the position of having to make the decision as to whether I should buy my car at the end of its three year term or trade it in for another one. This was my first new car and it has surprisingly never let me down. However I am a bit rubbish when it comes to maintaining cars and worry if I buy it that something will go wrong with it hence the temptation to trade in for another new one. The car is a Mazda 2 and according to my dealer I currently have around £1500 equity in the car. My local Seat dealer is currently offering really good deals on the ibiza and my monthly repayments would stay around the same for what I feel would be a step up in car. It would be nice to not have the payment every month but I do enjoy the peace of mind you have with a new car. I guess what I am looking for is justification that this is a "money saving" thing to do!? I could then put the money I have set aside to purchase my current car into savings etc and not have to worry about my third year service/taxing it/first MOT etc. Advice appreciated people!

getmore4less

What are you paying monthly

any other costs
any income (eg business miles)

mileage

Whats it cost total
What would it have cost if you had bought.

mrkenneth

The car is for personal use only, doing about a 1000 miles a month. Current monthly payments of £127. I have the 3.5k saved to purchase my current car but am worried things will start to go wrong and would quite like to put the 3.5k towards my house deposit fund. If I hold onto the car for another six months it will cost me another £1100 and think my equity is at its highest now. Decisions decisions!

RoxRoxBling

Would it work out cheaper if you buy the car? Because you pay interest on the monthly payment, (this will continue if you buy a new car) therefore your overall payment will be higher!

getmore4less

If you can buy the car for £3.5k then thats cheap

3-4y < 40k are going for £6k autotrader.

£127pm 3 years is £4572

Did you have to out anything down up front?

how much would a new one have been(you don't say which model)
new now around £9k

Notmyrealname

mrkenneth wrote: »

The car is for personal use only, doing about a 1000 miles a month. Current monthly payments of £127. I have the 3.5k saved to purchase my current car but am worried things will start to go wrong and would quite like to put the 3.5k towards my house deposit fund. If I hold onto the car for another six months it will cost me another £1100 and think my equity is at its highest now. Decisions decisions!

I recently sold my Mondeo - a 7 year old MK3 with 165k on the clock. I now have a 2 year old Mondeo and I'm wishing I'd kept the old one as I sit here looking out the window and realising how much it costs me just to have it sat there.

If you like having newer cars then go for it. If you're wanting to save money, hang on to it. Even though mine had 165,000 miles on the clock very little went wrong with it and all I did was service it to the manufacturers schedule. In the 4.5 years and 75,000 miles I owned it it cost me less than £500 in repairs, not including wear and tear items such as tyres and brake pads. I sold it to a friend and the only fault it had was a few of the heated windscreen elements don't work.