Which car?

CKhalvashi

Hey all,

I'm just popping this onto MSE for debate, as we've had the same discussion in the office this afternoon and can't decide between us. It's my PA looking for a new car at the moment.

For £15000, would you rather have this, or this?

She's 23, married, no kids, drives about 10k a year, and believe it or not, the Merc is only £180 more expensive to insure! The car in question will be replacing an '03' Polo TDi.

Looking at this from a depreciation and overall running costs angle, I'm thinking the Merc could be cheaper to run overall! (she wants it for 3-4 years), and she's decided in the end to go for the Merc.

So, what do you guys think?

CK

worried_jim

I love the Merc and you only live once!

Hackman_2

The smart money would go on the passat, however does she need an estate.

What were 2006 Merces like for build quality its done over 80k?

CKhalvashi

worried_jim wrote: »

I love the Merc and you only live once!

So do I, but I unfortunately need something a little bigger as we have kids.

Even looking at this from a purely financial perspective, the Merc is some £5000 cheaper over 3 years in the circumstances given.

CK

oliverr

The Mercedes. It's the bottom spec Passat, and for the same money you could have a lot more fun with the Mercedes. The Merc has also lost most of its value already.

If you went with the VW I reckon you would wish you had chosen the Mercedes...

agrinnall

I wouldn't buy either myself, the VW is very dull and the Merc will have high running costs and runs a risk of huge bills. The cars are so different that it seems she hasn't taken any time to work out what her priorities are, do that then take another look at what's available, which for £15K will be a pretty wide range.

steve-L

agrinnall wrote: »

I wouldn't buy either myself, the VW is very dull and the Merc will have high running costs and runs a risk of huge bills. The cars are so different that it seems she hasn't taken any time to work out what her priorities are, do that then take another look at what's available, which for £15K will be a pretty wide range.

Or ... spend less than 10k?

As an only car do you really want a cabriolet? (extra things that often go wrong not only limited use in UK weather)... strangely just got out of a friends AC (5l) Cab... he bought months ago (2nd car) and he said he's hardly had a chance to run it with the roof down....we talked about this as we manually had to put the roof back up!


Plenty of nice Coupe's available with similar milage and sub 10k....
e.g. 330D Coupe (8-9k max for a 2006* leaves 6-7k for the possibility of a child coming later)

*Don't get the pre-2006 or you only get 200 bhp or so..... the engine upgrade changed in 2006 to 240 factory but stage 1 takes it easily to 275 bhp and a lot more torque than a small planet

Or you can pick up a S2000 for way way less....
Or.... (plenty of Sub 10k options for an exciting car!)

Still.... Nice Merc but I'd have to really have a lot of spare cash and nothing sensible to invest it in to consider spending 15k on a car!

This probably comes of not being 23 and no kids! When you get older and have them it suddenly seems like all those extravagances of younger life were all a bit like something you'd love to be able to go back, invest the money and buy something cheaper!

CKhalvashi

I think it also goes to prove the point of there's a lot out there for the money, without looking too hard.

I've sold stuff to other employees before now, including an '02' Lexus SC430 (paid c.£40k, sold for c.£5k), '05' BMW M5 (paid c.£30k, sold for c.£10k), and had we bought a little older, we could probably have put the cash away somewhere.

Low-mileage, ex-management cars are easy to find at 7-8 years old, and on a depreciation end are so much better/occasionally more fun than a newer, smaller vehicle.

She wasn't just looking at those two cars, she'd test driven Mondeos, the new 508, Skoda Superb, Passat's etc, and it was because I mentioned 'would it not be cheaper to.......' that it came into her head.

Purely on financials, I think it's a good choice, and also from a 'how much fun can we have with this?' There's a '62' plate one with same spec (just red leather) in a dealership for over £70k at the moment, which again proves my point!

CK

Contessa

Both of those seem a big step up from an old Polo!
How times have changed-at that age I was still driving around in my beloved A40.

mcjordi

Neither tbh.
id keep the polo unless its going wrong a lot.

bodgerx

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Hey all,

I'm just popping this onto MSE for debate, as we've had the same discussion in the office this afternoon and can't decide between us. It's my PA looking for a new car at the moment.

For £15000, would you rather have this?

She's 23, married, no kids, drives about 10k a year, and believe it or not, the Merc is only £180 more expensive to insure! The car in question will be replacing an '03' Polo TDi.

Looking at this from a depreciation and overall running costs angle, I'm thinking the Merc could be cheaper to run overall! (she wants it for 3-4 years), and she's decided in the end to go for the Merc.

So, what do you guys think?

CK

Buy a Mazda MX-5 instead. A more involving drive than either car. Cheaper to run and more fun to drive.

This for example:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201212064526845/

Both of these cars are complicated German cars out of warranty with decent mileages under their belts. You better have deep pockets, particularly if she will be visting the main dealers.

The yearly tax alone on the Mercedes is £475 a year. Crazy.