Cheap run around or newer car-best for MSE?

Tracymae

I have a bit of a dilema. In 2010 my husband was made redundant, we used part (almost half) of his redundancy pay on a newish car (5 years old) thinking it would give us hassle free motoring without high repair cost for the next few years. We were wrong.
The car has needed another set of new brake pads despite having brand new ones when we got it, the handbrakes replaced, rear calipers replace etc, etc. It seems buying newer may have been a false economy. The car has depreciated in value by about 2/3rds in the 2 and a half years we have had it.

We have decided to change the car but do we upgrade to something newer or just go for a cheap runaround?

On one hand I'm thinking we were maybe just unlucky and that logically we should have less problems with a newer car. On the other hand we have lost around £4000 between the repair costs and depreciation. That is a lot for 2.5 years of onwership. If we get a cheap car at say £1000 and it lasts a year, then surely we are winning?
Any advice apreciated

StrongWork

Tracymae wrote: »

I have a bit of a dilema. In 2010 my husband was made redundant, we used part (almost half) of his redundancy pay on a newish car (5 years old) thinking it would give us hassle free motoring without high repair cost for the next few years. We were wrong.
The car has needed another set of new brake pads despite having brand new ones when we got it, the handbrakes replaced, rear calipers replace etc, etc. It seems buying newer may have been a false economy. The car has depreciated in value by about 2/3rds in the 2 and a half years we have had it.

We have decided to change the car but do we upgrade to something newer or just go for a cheap runaround?

On one hand I'm thinking we were maybe just unlucky and that logically we should have less problems with a newer car. On the other hand we have lost around £4000 between the repair costs and depreciation. That is a lot for 2.5 years of onwership. If we get a cheap car at say £1000 and it lasts a year, then surely we are winning?
Any advice apreciated

What type of car are we talking about?

I think you are unrealistic regarding your expectations for car running costs.

Brake pads will need to be replaced every so often (frequency depending on driving style) as they are consumable items. Every couple of years doesn't sound too outrageous (esp if you do a lot of town driving).

Perhaps you have been unlucky to need the calipers changed (bit odd?) but to me it doesn't sound like you've had major expenses. What other issues have you had?

What do you expect for a car getting on for 7-8 years now. Do you think on buying a 1k car the bills will stop or be fewer?

Cars cost money. Maintaining cars to a proper standard costs money. The alternative is the bus.

Tracymae

StrongWork wrote: »

What type of car are we talking about?

I think you are unrealistic regarding your expectations for car running costs.

Brake pads will need to be replaced every so often (frequency depending on driving style) as they are consumable items. Every couple of years doesn't sound too outrageous (esp if you do a lot of town driving).

Perhaps you have been unlucky to need the calipers changed (bit odd?) but to me it doesn't sound like you've had major expenses. What other issues have you had?

What do you expect for a car getting on for 7-8 years now. Do you think on buying a 1k car the bills will stop or be fewer?

Cars cost money. Maintaining cars to a proper standard costs money. The alternative is the bus.

Our current car is a 55 plate Picasso, the brake pads needed replaced within the first year (seems harsh to me but I am no mechanic). The handbrake cost £200 to replace and then it failed the MOT on the handbrake 5 weeks later (same garage) thats when they said the caliper was the problem. The handbrake still isn't right.

Of course I don't expect the repair bills to stop, my point is- if I buy a 1k car with a years MOT and it lasts til it's next MOT then even if we only get scrap value then it has cost us less than owning the Picasso, but is this realistic?

I have had older cars in the past without any major problems.

jaydeeuk1

Tracymae wrote: »

It seems buying newer may have been a false economy. The car has depreciated in value by about 2/3rds in the 2 and a half years we have had it.

This should be stickied, in red flashing size 24 font to the top of every post where someone is asking whether to spend £200 repairing their old banger, or spend £15k on a diesel Vectra.

And 5 years isn't newish, its midlife for a computerised complicated vehicle nowadays where an expensive job can be just round the corner.

closed

past faults and depreciation is less relevant than the likely future depreciation and costs. A banger could cost you nothing in repairs or it could cost a lot.

Idiophreak

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

And 5 years isn't newish, its midlife for a computerised complicated vehicle nowadays where an expensive job can be just round the corner.

I actually kinda agree with this...I can see two ways of owning a car for low cost:
1) Buy old cars (10 year +) and run them til they're uneconomical to repair
2) Buy new cars, or lease, and get rid of them before the warranty runs out.

I'd not really entertain the idea of buying 4-5 years old, seems the worst of both worlds - it's around the age stuff starts to fail on many modern cars, but you still pay quite a lot and take quite a lot of depreciation.

The only other thing to think about is running costs for each car - typically more modern cars are more economical, cheaper to tax and insure.

Personally, of the two options above, I do option 2. One of our cars costs us £120/month to buy, so that's less than you've lost in 2.5 years - it has free tax and does 70+mpg. On paper, for our needs, this was more sensible than buying something older. As well as getting to drive a brand new car every few years, we like the stability of knowing how much we'll spend, not worrying about MOTs or major breakdowns...

UsernameAlreadyExists

StrongWork wrote: »

Cars cost money. Maintaining cars to a proper standard costs money. The alternative is the bus.

They don't always have to.
I once spent £750 on a tatty aubergine mondeo estate with 130K miles on it, and spent precisely nothing on it for 2 years bar petrol/tax/insurance before the head gasket blew at ~150K. No amount of routine service/maintenance would have prevented that. Best (cheapest) car I ever owned.

If I didn't actually enjoy a bit of performance and cars stuffed with luxuries, and was more concerned about not burning money on cars, it'd be a banger every time for me. It's amazing what you can pickup from the local gumtree for barely over scrap value - buy it, use it, bin it, repeat. It's liberating driving a heap around as well because you don't care about knocks/dents/scrapes from the supermarket carpark and you don't care where you leave it parked. No-one will steal it.

forgotmyname

Brakepads last anything from 8000 to 15,000 miles on average. So if you do more miles than that. Then they will need replacing often.

Want to see the service sheet for my car from new? Brakes every 6 months...

Even on a brand new car its not unknown to need new brakes at each years service. So Brakes and tyres still need to be replaced no matter how new the car.

You bought a cheap 5 year old car. This works for me. Just over £2000 on a 5 year old Mondeo. Its cost me £650 in 3 1/4 years MOT's and servicing and parts.

If someone gave me £800 for it now. Then its fairly cheap motoring. £650 a year. Not bad.

The issues are probably.. You paid too much for the car in the 1st place, It either hadnt been serviced as often as i would like or it was due a service soon after. The garage you use say the brakes are worn even when there is 50% left on them?

Old cars need servicing as often as new ones.

westwood68

Tracymae wrote: »

Our current car is a 55 plate Picasso, the brake pads needed replaced within the first year (seems harsh to me but I am no mechanic).

Then it didn't have new pads on when you bought it. Not unless you drive like you're trying to give Lewis Hamilton good run for his money. You certainly can't blame the the car for that.

SailorSam

If we're looking at this from a Mse point of view i think we should all find a night school class and learn how to do at least the run-of-the-mill maintenance on our own cars.

bluesnake

Tracymae, so you bought 5 year old car, and in 2.5 years it has lost 2/3 of the value you paid? Surely you must gave been vastly overcharged and taken to the cleaners in the first place? Unless you are a car dealer, the best way to loose money is to keep changing all the time. A few hundred for brakes in 3 years is not unreasonable.

All cars need maintenance, and every manufacturers seems to produce at least a few lemons (no pun intended), something eventually will go wrong. Everything dies. There is no such thing as free motoring, unless you are a joy rider.

Idiophreak has his "2) Buy new cars, or lease, and get rid of them before the warranty runs out." Is not bad, but can not be done on all cars, unless you wish to bleed money on depreciation or lease payments. You have to be fairly astute to go down this path and do your research. I would guess that Idiophreak bought something small, reliable probably japanese/asian: like a yarris? rather than citroen, alpha, fiat or renault.

The roundabout answer to your question lies in the http://www.reliabilityindex.com
http://www.whatcar.com/car-depreciation-calculator/
http://www.which.co.uk/cars/choosing-a-car/buying-a-car/car-depreciation/calculating-depreciation

If I had to buy a car, it would be a 8-ish year old yarris verso, as they are generally reliable with a few common cheap faults. It is a gamble on what ever you buy. The other reliability favourites on here are Octavia and mondeo