How to fund £8k for car upgrade

advice_please_2

I prefer to buy an own a car rather than on car finance, as I like to buy used and private

Thinking of an upgrade

What are the options to raise £8k and what would you do?

I'm finishing my student loan payments of around £240 / month so this would equate to £8k loan over 36 months with £650 interest

I could look to borrow more on existing mortgage but with fees of £100 for a 3 yr product repaying £35-40/ month on similar terms to existing mortgage. I could save the difference £200 and make a one off payment to mortgage in 3 yrs time

If the car was trade I could go credit card and hope to find one which would do a balance transfer, but seems a faff

Al1x

I'd get a cheaper car!

Ultrasonic

Al1x wrote: »

I'd get a cheaper car!

Me too .

This may be an old fashioned idea, but save up some money and then buy a car you can actually afford...

If going down the credit route, I don't really understand the absolute aversion to a specific car finance product? They exist for second hand as well as new cars, particularly for ones in the price bracket you are considering. Don't completely rule them out. Dealers get commission on finance packages so you may see a better discount on the asking price going this route.

Strider590

Paid 3k for my Vectra in 2008, hasn't failed an MOT since I bought it.

My next car won't be much over 3k either.

There are good and bad cars, but if your not an idiot you can run any car for years with minimum fuss.

YorkshireBoy

advice_please wrote: »

What are the options to raise £8k and what would you do?

Credit cards would be the cheapest option, costing circa 4% in fees for around 27 months of 0% interest free credit (on the right card!).


As to what would I do?...well, when I bought my current car I bought it with savings (having had the other one for 9 years I'd had plenty of time to save up!).

facade

YorkshireBoy wrote: »

Credit cards would be the cheapest option, costing circa 4% in fees for around 27 months of 0% interest free credit (on the right card!).

Remember you cannot buy anything else whatsoever on that card until you clear the balance transfer, there are very crafty rules about where the repayment money goes and what starts accruing interest if you use the card again.

gilbert_and_sullivan

You asked what would we do, well as above i wouldn't advise borrowing money to buy a depreciating product.

Buy only what car you can afford to buy feed and maintain, if you can afford extra outgoings, up the mortgage payments to pay as much off as you can before the interest rates start to rise.

Not what you wanted to hear, sorry, but there are millions out there who will wish they had done this, remember some of us have seen 15% mortgage rates before and it's entirely possible we may do so again.

advice_please_2

Thanks for all the responses

I guess it is a MSE forum after all and its being savvy with money

smssms

Bangernomics - buy cheap old cars and run them into the ground. You could get 3 ~£1,000 cars to cover the period the £8,000 car would last easily.

I don't usually pay over £1,000 and have had Jaguars, Mercedes, Audis, Saabs, bigger VWs, etc, etc, etc It's way more fun. Get on old high mileage better car that you can afford to bin rather than repair if it gets expensive. Also, you won't be worrying about depreciation, car park scratches, etc. Just enjoy the car for a year or two and scrap it.

£8,000 for a car!!!!!!!!! Makes me shudder.

attila_

I would advise differently.

You can buy a £3 or £4k car and it can depreciate quicker than an £8k car. For example have a look at high mileage bmw and mercs. They hold their value incredibly well with stupidly high miles.

Look at equivalent vauxhall, ford, vw or even audi and the values shoot down as the miles and age increase.

This is quickly evident just looking through autotrader.

£8k gets u a bmw 330d 2007/8 with just under 90k on the clock.

You can put another 100k in 2/3 years and it will still be worth around 5/6k.

Try doing the same with a passat for example...


So going back to ur question. I would save up first (i.e wait until u'v stopped paying student loan) and then buy the car.

attila_

OP the other issue you have here is that the focus in here is to save money over driving quality, performance, looks or build quality of cars.