Second hand or new (+ Are new car warranties worth it?)...

hanvyj

I've been running a Morris Minor for the last three/four years and I'm getting tired of the stress of turning the key in the morning and not knowing for sure whether it will turn on... It's not that unreliable, but I want to keep it as a hobby and get a more reliable car.

Also, with the expectation of kids in a couple of years, a safer, quieter and more practical car would be ideal.

Now, I never thought I'd even bother looking at new cars. My family have never gone non-second hand. Depreciation etc made it seem like a stupid decision.

However, I went for a test drive with that Dacia Sandero. With all the sensible extras (spare wheel etc) it comes to about £7700 with a seven year warranty. The car seemed fine to me, gearbox was a little sloppy and it was somewhat unrefined but for the price that's things I could live with. Hell, compared to my current daily drive it's luxury!

What really catches my eye is the 7 year 100k mile warranty. 7 years of stress free, risk free motoring really appeals to me. Has anyone had experience with these warranties? Are they actually worth it?

We checked out some second hand cars, but for the same price nothing really stood out. There were some nice ones, but they were either expensive to run, or had quite high milage/were a lot smaller - if I was going to spend near 8k I'd probably go for the new one.

So my choices come down to, getting a new car and paying a loan off for 4/5 years. Or, getting a 'banger', i.e. a cheaper £1000 car that may well last two or three years before the engine falls out - but when that happened we'd just buy a new one. We wouldn't be committed to a loan, but there would inevitably be more stress of having an older car.

We could easily afford a loan currently, and probably still keep overpaying our mortgage each month.

Opinions? Any first hand experience with 'x year warranties' on new cars?

BeenThroughItAll

I wouldn't spend nearly 8 grand on what is basically a Renault built even more cheaply. Renaults are bad enough without making them worse*. Your new Dacia may sound appealing, but bearing in mind the fact that five minutes after leaving the showroom it'll be worth as much as a bag of pork scratchings (and have limited appeal as no matter what Dacia/Renault would have us believe, most people want a bit more than "no frills" motoring) it may not be a great choice.


Personal preferences/discriminations aside, however, you could buy a perfectly decent, reliable, well equipped second hand car for 1-3K which would save you a fortune on interest and depreciation. My advice, based on my own experience, would be save a few quid more and buy a decent secondhand car.




*based on running a fleet of 10 Renaults (not my choice) which cost us over a quarter of a million pounds in downtime over 12 months. Replaced them with Skodas and downtime was cut by 80%.

mardiemare2008

My 2012 Vauxhall Corsa has a 100,000mile Lifetime warranty, which I have had to use today.... A fault has been found with the Turbo, and it is getting repaired for free because of the warranty

hanvyj

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

I wouldn't spend nearly 8 grand on what is basically a Renault built even more cheaply. Renaults are bad enough without making them worse*. Your new Dacia may sound appealing, but bearing in mind the fact that five minutes after leaving the showroom it'll be worth as much as a bag of pork scratchings (and have limited appeal as no matter what Dacia/Renault would have us believe, most people want a bit more than "no frills" motoring) it may not be a great choice.

Personal preferences/discriminations aside, however, you could buy a perfectly decent, reliable, well equipped second hand car for 1-3K which would save you a fortune on interest and depreciation. My advice, based on my own experience, would be save a few quid more and buy a decent secondhand car.

*based on running a fleet of 10 Renaults (not my choice) which cost us over a quarter of a million pounds in downtime over 12 months. Replaced them with Skodas and downtime was cut by 80%.

Thanks for the opinion. Yeah, I'm not a fan of Renaults either but the engine seems like what half the cars are using these days. Equipment wise, all it didn't have was aircon, which wasn't working in most the second hand cars I've seen anyway! Europe seems to suggest depreciation wouldn't be too bad and if I'm keeping it for 10 years...?

Anyway, maybe you are right. Do you have any suggestions for a decent second hand car for about a 2k budget?

BeenThroughItAll

hanvyj wrote: »

Thanks for the opinion. Yeah, I'm not a fan of Renaults either but the engine seems like what half the cars are using these days. Equipment wise, all it didn't have was aircon, which wasn't working in most the second hand cars I've seen anyway! Europe seems to suggest depreciation wouldn't be too bad and if I'm keeping it for 10 years...?

Anyway, maybe you are right. Do you have any suggestions for a decent second hand car for about a 2k budget?

The rest of Europe has a very different used car market to the UK; they also have a very different attitude to cars in many countries.


In the UK, we tend to buy cars for spec, whereas in a lot of Europe cars are bought purely as tools for a job without any emotion.


It's not fair to say Renault engines are in everything - Renault do have a big stake in Nissan, for example but there are also Nissan built/designed engines being used; and it's not all about the engine, don't forget the rest of the car is just as likely to be rubbish as the engine.


For 2K, I'd buy a petrol engined Skoda Fabia. economical, cheap to insure, cheap to run, a VW Polo underneath, and well equipped.

Netwizard

I really like the Dacia range of cars. I love the whole "no frills" thing. Its back to basics motoring! If you are planning to keep a Sandero 10 years or so, then it makes sense. Depreciation doesn't matter too much when you are going to buy new, and just run into the ground I would imaging if you are running a Morris Minor, then you aren't really fussed about added extra's such as Bluetooth, heated seats, heated mirrors, windscreen etc.

There are thousands of these throughout Europe, so they can't be that bad. I assume you would be buying in Access trim then just adding the 7 year warranty for the £7700 price. Its a fair buy for a new car if you plan on keeping it long enough so that depreciation doesn't matter. If you kept it 10 years, it would cost you £64 a month (plus any interest etc) but when you take into account buying a used car, and all the potential pitfalls that can come with, the new Dacia starts to make sense.

That said, I've always run bangers (Old Volvos mainly) and had very few problems outside of regular servicing and things like tyres and brakes (which any car will need anyway) so I guess it just comes down to which you prefer.

The suggestion of a Skoda Fabia is a good one. They are nice cars, and you wont have the burden of a loan.

Idiophreak

I do new cars....I like a hassle free life.

My wife's car's a good example - she's got a little aygo, costs £115/month on PCP...She keeps it for 3 years - total cost is around 5k including the deposit. On current estimation she could make around 1k of that back from buying (at GFV) then selling (at market price) the thing at the end of the deal. So total cost is something like £110/month. For that, she drives a brand new car for three years.

No tax (low emissions), no MOTs (because it's new), no breakdown cover (included in the deal) and the thing's under warranty for the whole term - so you can happily expect to get through the three years paying little more than tyres and servicing. It's also more fuel efficient than a lot of older cars we might otherwise have looked at (manage around 60mpg).

We did all the maths and it worked out at something like £20/month to drive a brand new car instead of a 3 year old one - and it's worth that much never to have to worry about what will need fixing at the next MOT...

kfw_2

Maybe a Hyundai i10? All come with 5 year top level rac 5 year warranty. Have had new drop links, dash, and it was plain sailing claiming no delays or queries from jead office. 1.2 engine is chain driven too, all models have air con and a space saver spare. This is with ref. to the older model i10's pre 2014..

hanvyj

kfw wrote: »

Maybe a Hyundai i10? All come with 5 year top level rac 5 year warranty. Have had new drop links, dash, and it was plain sailing claiming no delays or queries from jead office. 1.2 engine is chain driven too, all models have air con and a space saver spare. This is with ref. to the older model i10's pre 2014..

I had an i30 as a hire car and loved it, and I did look at the i10. They do seem very tiny though. If I was going to buy a new car I'd want to keep it for a long time. Having kids in the back might be a bit of a squeeze.

Maybe I should book a test drive and see.

Ralph-y

a Dacia Uk forum if you want to ask owners anything ........ just goggle if you want to find it.

I have been thinking of getting a Duster for a while and the forum is quite good for positive as well as negative comments

Ralph:cool:

gilbert_and_sullivan

I suspect you don't really want the loan aspect and rightly so.

I don't think you'll get cheaper motoring than the less than £1000 used car, espcially if you go for one of the less fashionable makes, often bought by older drivers who have looked after them and not too many miles on the clock.

As for peace of mind, my idea of it is not owing anyone a bean, true liberation.