Very sad....

Hoof_Hearted

A friend has an old BMW 5 series (W reg) auto which is immaculate and luxurious and drives perfectly. It is still a fantastic car, but is virtually worthless given its age and petrol consumption. £700 is all it seems to be worth. The price of petrol is killing off these old cars and it is sad to see a pretty good car now worth little more than scrap.

McCoy

I can think of sadder things to be honest.

redux

What is sad about it? Very few of us have cars that count as investments and for the first half of any car's life depreciation costs more per mile than fuel. If it it still serviceable then keep it going a bit longer but they all fall apart in the end.

interstellaflyer

Fact of life I'm afraid, unless you are talking about a 1980 W (a good example would be worth some money) then I fail to see what the fuss is about £700 is about right for an old gas guzzler.

Chopper_Read

It's not just petrol costs affecting the value. The car is 13 years old what happens when a piece of technology fails? Mega bucks repair will write it off.

Strider590

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

The price of petrol is killing off these old cars and it is sad to see a pretty good car now worth little more than scrap.

But it means you can pick up a large car, well equipped, in good condition for half the price of a basic same year small hatchback.

Which is exactly what the intelligent buyer will do, it's the fools that go blindly chasing after small cars without doing the maths first. It's a great market for me

My car, a Vauxhall Vectra on an 04 plate cost me £3000, a same year basic Yaris would have cost me £7000. That give me over £4000 to spend on the additional fuel consumption.

Now according to http://www.fuelly.com/car/toyota/yaris and http://www.fuelly.com/car/vauxhall/vectra
My 34mpg Vectra (30 when temps drop below freezing) won't have eaten through that £4000 yet and ive owned it now since 2008.

So even if your friends BMW does just 20mpg, it's still a worthwhile buy for the thinking man (or woman).

Stop feeling sorry, go out and buy a big car

Of course 100's of people will this and simply dismiss what I say, because social influence has been drilled into them that small cars are best for fuel economy and 4x4's are best in the snow, and they will never change their minds no matter what facts/figures you show them.

colino

A W reg e39 is either poverty spec or is a big petrol with overheating problems to be worth so little. They are incredibly easy to bull up and still get very decent prices.

TrickyWicky

Sad? Yes and No.

I have to go with both redux and strider on this. Cars are not investments (unless you're a trader or just get very lucky with an old grannys car for peanuts). To most people they are a loss and thats probably why we're not at the pumps protesting - because most people have accepted that the things will do nothing but cost them more and more money.

Strider also makes a good point. Older large cars are becoming cheaper to buy because so few people want the fuel economy of them. Now if you can put up with that, it means you can find a good bargain car for a lot more than you'd normally be able to. There are some lovely cars out there these days for what seems like silly money.

Another word of advice is that if you have one of these cars and its worthless there isn't much point selling it is there. It's worth nothing on a good day and assuming its fairly reliable and doesn't cost much to maintain it's as good as a free car. In reality nearly all cars need a few hundred quid in maintenance every year by the time they're 10 years old so if you set aside £3-400 a year on maintenance then you're still onto a winner as you're spending less than on another car.

We have a Ka. Our mechie told us to get shot of it by the next MOT as it'll cost at around £300 for welding next year. My partner and I looked at each other and said "only?" in amazement. You could spend that on most cars just having something stupid (but essential) done to it.

motorguy

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

A friend has an old BMW 5 series (W reg) auto which is immaculate and luxurious and drives perfectly. It is still a fantastic car, but is virtually worthless given its age and petrol consumption. £700 is all it seems to be worth. The price of petrol is killing off these old cars and it is sad to see a pretty good car now worth little more than scrap.

Why sell it then? Its down into banger money, maintain it as best he can and drive on. It has only another £500 to depreciate. Ever.

I think thats a lot to celebrate.

Dukesy

Such is life.

Having got utterly fed up of getting car repair bills running into the thousands that have literally meant we have to decide whether to put food on the table or repair the car (house restoration means we have no money to spare whatsoever, and rural location means the cars are essential - no public transport for miles), last time we bought a car, it ended up being a 2 litre petrol Volvo for £500. Not exactly economical, but its a great workhorse and the best factor is that if it goes wrong and costs too much to fix, we don't have to worry about losing too much money! Local scrappies are offering £200 for complete cars, so we'd only lose £300, were it to come to that. Love it!

rev_henry

Strider is spot on. Its sad that people don't want big nice old cars anymore and that they go to scrap, but its good that you can pick them up for peanuts and most people will think it cost about 10x the price of their Yaris.

Lovely car, don't sell it!