Getting company car - which of ours to sell?

pinkteapot

MrTeapot is getting a company car, and can choose whatever he wants.

We currently own:

(1) 10-plate Ford Mondeo 2.0 TDCI Zetec, bought for £12.5k in July 2011. Used for days out and UK holidays/breaks (motorway runs). Need a large car for these purposes for various reasons. Also planning on having kids and this will be a family car.
Current private sale value: £9k approx
Costs per year: £950

(2) 52-plate Mk4 Astra, bought for £3k in May 2008. Used to be our only car, now just used around town and for a short commute to work. Need a smallish car for these purposes - the Mondeo's great but it's absolutely not a town car!
Current private sale value: approx £800 (taxed and MOT'd to April 2013!).
Costs per year: £800

We need to sell one of our cars. No need for three cars and couldn't justify spending the money on them.

Do we keep the Mondeo and get a small company car to have as our town car, or keep the old Astra and get a large company car to replace the Mondeo?

I can't get my head around how to evaluate these options. Pros and cons each way:

- Astra is old and while it has lower costs per year (the above includes insurance, tax, MOT/service and breakdown cover) it is more likely to have repair bills than the Mondeo

- But, when the Mondeo has repair bills they are higher than those of the Astra (case in point, got a puncture yesterday and tyres cost twice as much as the Astra's!).

- Realistically, Astra probably has five years left in it before it becomes a money pit so should get rid of it? If MrTeapot leaves his job and we lose the car, surely we're better off with the Mondeo left over than the Astra.

- But, if we sell the Mondeo we can use some of the proceeds to buy a town car for £2-3k as and when the Astra dies and still have money left over

- Our town car is the one most likely to need repairs as it's only used for short runs and at low speeds - terrible for the engine. Makes sense therefore to use the company car for that as they pay the repair bills. Therefore sell the Astra.

And so on and so forth!

Doesn't help that I'm hugely attached to Oscar the Astra. He's a marvellous little car and worth far more than he'll sell for as far as I'm concerned.

I think the Astra would be easier to sell - I'd probably stick it on eBay. The Mondeo would be an expensive car to sell privately so I'm not convinced on how easy that would be, especially in this climate (?).

Any views/suggestions?

JQ.

You want the company car to do as many miles as possible and for that to be your main mode of transport, it therefore pobably needs to be a family sized car.

Personally, I'd get a fuel efficient (low tax) company car and sell both the other cars and replace them with a small efficient modern super-mini - Something like a Toyota Aygo for around £4,000 - cheap to insure, tax, repair and fuel.

sunshinetours

Depending on comapny car budget maybe go for one the super low CO2 models kike 320d BMW EfficientDynamics which will also possibly qualify for the employer possibly a 100% tax write off. Possibly a Prius as its a practical family car aswell and actually a good town car aswell

Then get rid of the Mondeo. A turbo diesel probaboly not cost effective if only doing short runs and local driving (as new company car will be doing longer stuff)
Astra is taxed and insured for another year so use that as depreciation has already hit its worst previously with that one also have a years cheap motoring, and then as JQ says maybe conside re a cheap smallish runaround next year

Mr_Thrifty

Do you have any photos of these cars?

It sounds like you have a very aspirational lifestyle.

pinkteapot

Thanks both. I said that MrTeapot can choose his car. However, he will be limited to the BMWs/Audis/Mercs of this world. Boss wants him to choose a car that could be given to someone else if hubby leaves the job. All their company cars are the premium brands. I've already said I'm going to be embarrassed driving it, especially if it's an Audi or BMW, as people will immediately assume I'm a terrible, aggressive driver.

Boss is however happy if he ends up choosing a small car (e.g. 1-series).

We do need two cars. I don't drive to work (train commute), but (1) hubby goes out for a day each weekend and I need the other car then and (2) I work three days a week and on the two when he's at work I need a car. So we wouldn't sell them both and just have the company car.

We also do need something with a Mondeo-sized boot for all our trips. Hubby is a wildlife photographer in his spare time and with the Mondeo we can just about get our luggage and his camera gear in the boot.

We currently do around 16,000 miles a year in the Mondeo and 2-3,000 (!) in the Astra.

Hubby did come up with another idea this morning... Sell the Astra and get a small town car as a company car. They lease the cars for 4 years and then the lease company sells them. We could then sell the Mondeo in 4 years, buy the small company car we've had (they go cheap and we'll know we haven't thrashed it) and get a large company car then (as his second company car). I thought there was some logic to that(?).

He's bringing home a BMW 3-series estate tomorrow which has been someone else's car. He's having it temporarily until (1) a new hire starts who's having it and (2) he chooses and orders his new car. So I'll get to try a BMW out. Hmmmmmm. Will have to get over my inate hatred of them, based on years of having them sat 3" off my back bumper when travelling at high speed.

AlexisV

It sounds like a smallish premium car would be best then, and sell the Astra.

The new Mercedes A Class looks good, but isn't launched until the autumn/

pinkteapot

Mr_Thrifty wrote: »

Do you have any photos of these cars?

It sounds like you have a very aspirational lifestyle.

If you think I'm trolling, don't waste your time replying to my post and offering advice. I'm not about to take a photo of our driveway to prove to you that we own the cars I said we did.

If I was making it up, I would have invented better cars than a 10 year old Astra and a Mondeo (much as we love them both). :rotfl:

pinkteapot

Thanks Alexis - I saw your original comment about choosing what we like and going from there. We did that when we bought the Mondeo last year. Had the best reviews for that type of car (large family car) and we went with the best-rated engine and best-value trim level. So if we chose the thing we wanted most we'd probably end up asking if we could have a Ford Mondeo 2.0 TDCi Zetec.

DCodd

Not so sure selling Just the Astra is the best idea. If Hubby has a Company car, I assume he will be doing a fair amount of Business mileage? If so would he want to do that in a smaller car than the Mondeo? Also you have said that you don't like driving the Mondeo in town and as your Hubby would have the Company car, when you don't work it will be you driving the Mondeo and possibly in town. So could both of you end up in cars not that well suited to you?

DCodd

pinkteapot wrote: »

Thanks Alexis - I saw your original comment about choosing what we like and going from there. We did that when we bought the Mondeo last year. Had the best reviews for that type of car (large family car) and we went with the best-rated engine and best-value trim level. So if we chose the thing we wanted most we'd probably end up asking if we could have a Ford Mondeo 2.0 TDCi Zetec.

Mercedes C250 CDi it is then!

sunshinetours

If you enjoy driving - you will soon get over your "hatred" of BMW's. Make up your own mind and don't be a sheeple, there are lots of them on the road which si why many BMW (amongst others) get this label )

Financially speaking get a CO2 friendly company car (plenty of family ones about) and let the company take the depreciation hit. Your values already show how much the Mondeo is depreciating (£3k or so in less than a year out your own pocket). Financially its a no brainer to be honest