How do I sell my car & fund a scooter

maccp

Ladies & gentlemen I am beating my head against the wall and would very much appreciate your advice on the following conundrum. Currently we are running two cars but need to cut down to one car. However as we live out in the wilds and both myself and my wife must travel to work we still need two vehicles. Unfortunately its too far to cycle and no buses or trains are available nearby. The only solution would be for me to swap my car for a scooter as I have a full motorcycle license I can jump on anything. Fuel economy, tax, insurance would be far better than running the second car.

So far so good all makes sense I think but it gets complicated because we must find the best way to pay for the scooter. The Audi I drive is 12yrs old with 135,000mls and worth about £1500 but has had a lot of money spent on it. My wife`s Fiesta 1.2 has 77,000mls and is worth about £1000. I need approx £2500 to fund the scooter but we already have a personal loan with 2yrs to run and 2.5k to pay. It makes more sense I think to keep the Audi as it would make the better family car although it uses more fuel than the Fiesta. So by selling this car I still need to find £1500 but im going round in circles trying to find out if I will save any money bearing in mind I will have to take out additional finance for the £1500.


The road tax on the Fiesta = £165 per year
The road tax on the Audi = £215 per year


Insurance for the Audi is around £300 and around £300 for the Fiesta


We have been doing our best to keep down the fuel spend to around £100 per month on fuel for the Audi and around £80 for the Fiesta.



The current loan repayments are approx £125 per mth.


The scooter will use (approx) £30 per mth in fuel, insurance will be £70 and £35 per year for road tax. But a loan of £1500 over 3yrs would be about £50 per mth.


Of course none of these figures include additional costs for servicing & maintenance.


Im sure all the facts are here but can anyone with better skills than I help to unravel them ?


Many thanks in advance

paddedjohn

The only thing I would advise about buying a scooter is not to forget the depreciation, with most makes you will not get any where near your money back when you are ready to sell.I run an 82 Vespa px125 and it only costs £16 tax, £70 ins and I get about 90 mpg, it's worth more now than what I paid for it 6 yrs ago. Buy a Honda/Yamaha or a Chinese import and you won't get any where near your outlay back.

Lizling

£2,500 sounds like you're buying the scooter new, but a quick look on eBay says £1,000 should get you a perfectly good 2nd hand one, which you'd be able to fund directly from the sale of a car.

maccp

Lizling wrote: »

£2,500 sounds like you're buying the scooter new, but a quick look on eBay says £1,000 should get you a perfectly good 2nd hand one, which you'd be able to fund directly from the sale of a car.

Makes good sense to be honest I think what I was trying to do was justify the spend on the scooter I really want rather than just looking at what I have and only spending that.

no_more_cards_for_me

Fuel is only going one way unfortunately

If its too far the cycle then what about cycling to the nearest train station ?

Personally speaking I wouldn't want to take on more debt and would use the money from the sale of the car to fund the scooter. Otherwise you might as well just keep the car, as your substituting finance cost for fuel cost.

Either pick a mode of transport that will not cost anything - walk, cycle etc or minimise your costs. Decent 2nd hand bike or scooter should be easy to find for £1k.

Good luck

maccp

Thanks all for the help the answer is obvious in the end isnt it. The total value of one of the cars must fund the scooter. Thankyou all for the input its much appreciated.

Billy-no-Money

I wouldn't spend £2500 on a scooter to save money - it'll depreciate like a brick. Spend £1000 on a reputable make, and if it doesn't work out you can sell it on. Personally I'd be going for a geared bike, or something with bigger wheels like the Honda Innova.

Do you have all the kit you need? Helmet, gloves, jacket, waterproofs, lock etc? That little lot can easily be £500 or more if you don't have it already.

Also - be frank with yourself - is this about saving money or do you simply hanker after a bike? You haven't said why you need to get rid of a car.

Scooters / Bikes don't save you money unless you're running a 125cc, and/or would save on parking or congestion charging.

On the other hand - bikes are great!!

[EDIT: Took me so long to post, think I'm a bit late]

Joe_Horner

no_more_cards_for_me wrote: »

Fuel is only going one way unfortunately

If its too far the cycle then what about cycling to the nearest train station ?

Possibly because if his "out in the sticks" is anything like ours, the nearest train station is about 15 miles away?

To the OP, if you're looking at this as a way to save money then sell the Audi - unless you have a HUGE family - and buy a decent second hand scooter. Roughly, on the figures you've given, that would put an extra £110 a month in your pocket (plus the savings from servicing etc compared to the Audi) so would almost pay your existing loan for you!

s_b

your audi is probably unsaleable for the very reasons you wish to sell
too big too guzzly and expensive insurance for most people
the fiesta is probably saleable but these depend on condition

its a situation i see all the time and your situation is not helped by living in the middle of zod

reappraise would be my advice