Optimum age/mileage to get rid of a car?

cardinalbiggles

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Optimum reliability: Believe it or not, a well maintained car of this age will be just as relaible as anything modern

Forget my last posting this ranks up there with it as well.

Joe_Horner

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Thats one of the most ludicrous statements I have ever seen on here, honestly, please tell me you don't believe that!

How so? Any car gives "as much safety as you can get by not driving into things" as long as you don't drive into things. And, having owned both moderns and old cars, I can promise you that visibility is FAR better in most old cars because of the thinner pillars.

Safety in a crash is obviously better in a modern, but the general idea is to avoid crashing - or "bing crashed into" - in the first place. Something I've amazingly managed to do for over 25 years since passing my test despite the best attempts of many other drivers to catch me out.

In fact, being in an older car can even help with that because you become far more aware of the likely consequences than when sitting "safely" cocooned with your ABS, air bags and all the other technology that will "save" you (or not, as the case may be).

One of ours doesn't even have wing mirrors (built before they were needed) and, as a result, my observartion skills increased dramatically and I never get caught out by things in my blind spots!

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Forget my last posting this ranks up there with it as well.

You've obviously never driven a well maintained older car, have you? We do all the time and, over the past 4 years of doing so we have an almost 100% reliability record including regular trips of over 700 miles.

The exception to that 100% reliability was a fuel pump failure (my fault, it was on the "to do" list for 8 months but never got round to it) on a trip from Anglesey to the new Forest, which was fixed by the side of the road without any parts needed. In a modern that would almost certainly have entailed waiting for a tow and having a new pump ordered and fitted.

Gra76

We've usually part-ex'd cars when they hit 70-80k miles. After that I always get jittery that things will start going wrong with them, borne out by a call I got from the new owner of a car we part-ex'd earlier this year (with no known faults), who seemed very annoyed that the water pump had failed, the central locking wasn't working properly and the oil temp gauge had stopped working. He'd been quoted quite a few hundred punds to fix it all so I'm glad we part-ex'd it now!

System

this thread isn't really going anywhere!
I don't think the generalisations in the op are useful in the slightest, an 80k car being a ticking timebomb is nonsense as it depends entirely on the servicing/maintenance of it, likewise there are some horror stories with new cars on tiny mileages - it depends entirely on the specific cars, one of my cars is from 1989 has 150k+ miles and has cost me about 40 quid in service parts for two years, my other car, 03 plate, 45k miles has needed two brake calipers and a steering pump in those miles, and it costs a lot more to service - but I'm sure it could easily work the other way around if they were different cars...

forgotmyname

Buy at £2000 and keep it 4 or 5 years, Sell for £1000 and repeat.

Makes £1300 a year depreciation seem not very MSE.

But its only got 160,000 miles on it so i think the engine has bedded in nicely now and at the optimum for reliability.

Anyone wanna give me £2000 for it

Weird_Nev

If you buy a car new or nearly new, then you should maintain it well and keep it as long as possible.

My parents did this with a Ford galaxy - bought new in 1997 at a discounted £16000, run until 170,000 miles until 2010 when it was traded in at £1000 under a guaranteed part exchange scheme. It was the first car they had ever bought new and my dad still said he always regretted it - despite obtaining absolutely maximum value from it over the years.

Golfs and other VW's do hold their value, but then again they are expensive in the first place.

if you like shiny and new, it's worth remembering that cars don't stay shiny and new. YEs, a newer car is safer, but cars have been safe for over a decade now and it's diminishing returns. The same with reliability and economy - there haven't been any major advances since the turn of the millenium and some would argue that things like Dual mass flywheels and diesel particulate filters are a retrograde step in reliability and running costs.

So, your shiny new car is a rapidly depreciating asset, you may get bored, your circumstances may change and you might need more space, better economy, higher towing weight, who knows?!? All of these things put me off having a £12k liability sat on the drive pretending to be an asset.

FWIW, I've never done badly with cars. I've bought older models but still fun cars. The last 4 cars I've owed I've sold for what I paid for them after about 2 years use, because that's when I get bored and fancy a change. It's still a "new" car to me, I get the excitement of owning an unfamiliar vehicle and I've bought good condition cars so they don't feel beaten up. Yes, I've had to make som repairs.

The thing about keeping a car running is this: Some cars really don't need much doing to them. Ok, A cambelt might cost £500. But on a used car evidence of a new cambelt actually increases it's saleability when you move on, and they only need them every 5 years. Meanwhile, a newer car is losing £1300 a year, every year. ANd you do sill ahve to service them -brakes tyres and cambelts along with regular oil servicing on top of the depreciation. these are as likely to need doing (for the first time) on a 40,000 mile car as they are (for the second or third time) on a 100,000 mile car.

I've run everything from 20 year old MR2's (one owner, immacualte, £1700 worth), 15 year old BMW 328i estates (200bhp striahg six, all the toys, all working, 166k miles! £700), Nissan 200SX - old school RWD turbo hilarity for £4k, and A 2005 Impreza WRX PPP, 0-60 in 4.8 seconds which is genuine supercar baiting pace, bought and sold for £5k.

They obviously cost me money to run, but they lost nothing in depreciation. If I'd bought a golf when I bought the first one of those, for £12k Now worth what? £3k? tops? So I'd have lost £9k and I wouldn't have experienced any of that diverse range of cars.

If you're buying new or nearly new, keep it forever.
If you're not keeping it forever, let someone else take the depreciation hit and buy at at LEAST 3, and preferably 5-8 years old and you'll be sitting pretty(er).

Lum

Joe_Horner wrote: »

Optimum reliability: Believe it or not, a well maintained car of this age will be just as relaible as anything modern, and far more likely to be repairable quickly if there is a problem. Less to go wrong generally means less going wrong.

Personally I'd say that 90s and Japanese is the peak point for reliability. this is the point just before things started to get really silly with non-user-maintainable parts and so on.

My beloved Nissan will be celebrating it's 20th birthday in August

worried_jim

Lum wrote: »

Personally I'd say that 90s and Japanese is the peak point for reliability. this is the point just before things started to get really silly with non-user-maintainable parts and so on.

My beloved Nissan will be celebrating it's 20th birthday in August

Lum- when you decide to sell let me know- I've seen the pics and it looks very interesting!

cardinalbiggles

Joe_Horner wrote: »

How so? Any car gives "as much safety as you can get by not driving into things" as long as you don't drive into things. And, having owned both moderns and old cars, I can promise you that visibility is FAR better in most old cars because of the thinner pillars.

Safety in a crash is obviously better in a modern, but the general idea is to avoid crashing - or "bing crashed into" - in the first place. Something I've amazingly managed to do for over 25 years since passing my test despite the best attempts of many other drivers to catch me out.

In fact, being in an older car can even help with that because you become far more aware of the likely consequences than when sitting "safely" cocooned with your ABS, air bags and all the other technology that will "save" you (or not, as the case may be).

One of ours doesn't even have wing mirrors (built before they were needed) and, as a result, my observartion skills increased dramatically and I never get caught out by things in my blind spots!



You've obviously never driven a well maintained older car, have you? We do all the time and, over the past 4 years of doing so we have an almost 100% reliability record including regular trips of over 700 miles.

The exception to that 100% reliability was a fuel pump failure (my fault, it was on the "to do" list for 8 months but never got round to it) on a trip from Anglesey to the new Forest, which was fixed by the side of the road without any parts needed. In a modern that would almost certainly have entailed waiting for a tow and having a new pump ordered and fitted.

Firstly thanks for not getting defensive, my comments made me sound like a !!!! and for that I apologise.

However, there is no way older cars are safer. They just are nothing like as safe as modern ones. You may think you are a safe driver but all it takes is one second of madness, or someone doing something out of your control and your dead. I would rather take my chance in a new Fiat 500 than a 20 year old any car. You cant possibly argue that ABS is not a worthwhile safety feature, its mandatory in all cars now, its a life saver.

As for the driven a well maintained older car, well I have and its all rose tinted specs I'm afraid.

Joe_Horner

cardinalbiggles wrote: »

Firstly thanks for not getting defensive, my comments made me sound like a !!!! and for that I apologise.

However, there is no way older cars are safer. They just are nothing like as safe as modern ones. You may think you are a safe driver but all it takes is one second of madness, or someone doing something out of your control and your dead. I would rather take my chance in a new Fiat 500 than a 20 year old any car. You cant possibly argue that ABS is not a worthwhile safety feature, its mandatory in all cars now, its a life saver.

As for the driven a well maintained older car, well I have and its all rose tinted specs I'm afraid.

I don't take offence easily - it's only t'internet after all

I totally agree that new cars are safer in a crash, but that in itself can be a safety risk.

In any inherently risky pursuit, whether driving / sky-diving / climbing mountains /whatever, becoming innured to the risk greatly increases the risk itself. Controlling a ton or more of metal at up to 70 miles an hour is an inherently risky pursuit.

In a modern car it's very easy indeed to lose any sense of risk as you sit in a perfectly stable environment with the speedo needle being really the only clue you have to how fast you're going - how many people complain that keeping to limits requires continuously monitoring the speedo?

Adding to that the knowledge that, if something happens, all those safety devices will (probably) prevent you dying and that insurers will pay for any financial costs can, and does, breed some degree of complacency about the actual risks involved.

On the other hand:

Sitting at 70 mph on a motorway in a 1966 Daf 32 (yes you can as long as it's reasonably flat!), where the only safety device is a retro-fitted (static) seat belt, the (non-laminated) windscreen is literally 2 inches from where your hands sit on the (non-collapsible, non-power assisted) wheel, and your stopping power consists of (non-servo) drum brakes all roound gives a real sense of just how real the risk is if you fail to stop someone else's mistake from causing an accident.

Most drivers put in that situation would be surprised just how much they can do to avoid the "unavoidable". And the others would be off the road in short order, making it safer for everyone

As for ABS, it undoubtedly makes driving safer for the less-than-competent but good driving should mean that you never, ever, find yourself triggering it. Allowing that, as you say, everyone makes mistakes, if you do trigger the ABS, you should be thinking about why it happened and how to avoid doing it again. The ABS then becomes redundant!