New Car Advice Please

moohound

On some of the car supermarket sites you can search by year and by emissions, I was doing his the other day as my mum wants an automatic city car with minimal road tax.

I think Top Gear/what car magazines only gives the info on new models

meer53

I'm with the buy what you can afford brigade once you've sold your car. I don't think you'd pass the credit check for the lease.

I have a Toyota Aygo Ice, no tax, cheap to insure and cheap to run. If there's only 2 of you, buy the smallest most economical car you can find.

Newyorkdreams

Hi Everyone - just wanted to say thanks for your replies. The overwhelming response I'm getting is to sell my current car and buy a cheaper, smaller car with higher mpg than I am currently getting and ditch the idea to go for the brand new car on the lease. This makes sense to me and I agree with the fact that we would unlikely to get past the credit check. It also makes sense that we lower our bar given our current levels of debt (which is probably the biggest personal hurdle we will have). I don't mind people being harsh, it's what I need to hear as long as I can see the logic in what people are saying. Buying a new car on car payments is not a bad thing to do but I can appreciate that at this point of my life with debts the size that I have that this would be the wrong decision.

I am really wary/nervous about buying used cars because I have heard/witnessed stories of being ripped off big time. Could another alternative be to keep the car I have but try and modify our driving to increase the mpg that we are getting? I know this sounds like the easy way out but it feels safe as the car is 6 years old in September and we have been the only owners with full service history so I know that we have looked after it. Once we are on the motorway we get about 48 mpg but we do tend to 'kick the !!!! out of it' as the saying goes so this could increase and at least we 'know' rather than 'think' that we are getting this mpg.

Any views on this alternative?

Thanks again

NYD

closed

if you can get 48 out of it, it's not much difference to the official figures of the proposed one. changing cars costs money.

Newyorkdreams

closed wrote: »

if you can get 48 out of it, it's not much difference to the official figures of the proposed one. changing cars costs money.

Hi - the combined 'official' figure for the diesel mokka is 68 so I thought that was fairly substantial increase? Even if it is 10mpg less, then I'm not sure if this is a substantial difference as I don't know much about cars?

NYD

closed

to do any comparison, you need to compare the official figures of both cars, and then knock a significant percentage off both to get a realistic optimum mpg.

prettyplease

Hi NYD,
Im with you on the "knowing your car". I have a really old car which is costing me a fortune in tax and petrol and would really like to change it however like you its a bit better the devil you know. I know almost nothing about cars and dont really want to get ripped off so will stick with the one I have until it starts to need repairs etc.
I have started to drive more economically though, not sure if this is making a difference but I guess its doing no harm!

moohound

I think your lightbulb went out for a bit NYD, mine gets a bit dim from time to time as well, it is too easy to want nice nice shiny things that cost a lot and then try to justify it.

Last week I really NEEDED a flash new phone rather than my sim only relic, but the feeling passed eventually. That is what this site does for many, keeps us on track to a life without debt.

Trajal

Ok sorry to come across a bit gobsmacked but with your level of debts, your expenses, the fact that you are about to lose one of your incomes and suddenly you want to get a new car because you think it will be CHEAPER?!

Trust me, it will not. Let's see, if you can sell the current car for 7k, you can buy a very decent 1.6 ford focus a few years old for 4k. 1k into the emergency fund, 2k at the highest interest debts.

Cheaper insurance, cheaper petrol consumption, less debt. This is not a difficult choice.

Yes you may have some problems with a second hand car, but the 1k should cover it in the immediate term, just be sure to top it up as and when you can.

We bought a 10 year old ford focus for £1.2k - we've had to spend about £350 in the last year on maintenance and things. It drives cheaply, it's not expensive to repair, insurance is very little and it's a very cute little runaround.

Definitely need to get over this thing about 'new' cars - buying an older car and keeping it patched up is so much cheaper.

Newyorkdreams

Thanks Trajal. Please let me explain my logic because there is some in there...honestly!! I understand that buying a new car is more expensive in the longer term. However, the point I was trying to make was that the £7.5K we would make from the sale of our current car would cover our payments for the first 2 years and therefore we would not be required to pay anything out and therefore it would be cheaper because our tax and insurance would be lower and we would achieve more mpg for no further cost. By this 2 year point, we would have paid off all of our debt (DFD planned for Sept 2015 taking into account one wage coming in) and therefore we could then afford to make the payments at this point. We would need to be focused on using this money to pay it back. The other thing is that we will be increasing our mileage from 100 miles a week to 250 miles a week which creates pressure on older cars.

Can you see my logic or am I missing something quite important?

NYD