Reducing motoring costs when driving 20,000 miles per year

motorguy

glothy wrote: »

It costs me 18p/mile. My main concern is that my car is going to be wrecked and worthless after a couple of years as I need to use it for personal use as well.


Maybe it would be best to buy a car with say 40,000 on the clock, run it up to 60,000 and then sell on after the 12 months. That way having minimum depreciation.

If you were to buy at say, auction, and then sell privately after a year, then you *may* be able to minimise costs, but to buy from a dealer, then trade back in after a year would be expensive.

Personally, i'd buy as young a car as you can (without killing yourself to do so), if using finance use a straight HP deal, not a PCP and run the car as long as possible.

I do similar to you, as i do 20,000 miles a year commuting and around 5K over and above that, and i bought a nine month old Golf 1.6 diesel for £12,400, with 13K miles. Plan is to run it to 100,000, have it serviced by VW (due every 18K miles) and see how its going from there. I'd say it will be worth approx £5K at that point, so thats £1850 in depreciation each year, but hopefully reasonably trouble free motoring. I drive it sensibly and at a stead speed and average around 66mpg brim to brim, and road tax is £30 a year. If its not giving me any trouble i will drive on at it for as long as possible after that. Probably fit for 250K if i'm prepared to spend a little on maintenance as and when it needs it, so by that point it will be 10 years old and worth £1000. That will reduce my average depreciation to £1200 a year.

My other considerations were not to get a car too small that it was uncomfortable on long runs and to buy something that could still be sold with high miles for a reasonable return.

Other options worth considering would be KIA - 7 year warranty, and maybe Peugeot's 308 - cheap as chips to buy and i've seen them with star ship miles. Skoda is another good one.

If you're not buying nearly new, i'd be looking for a 1.9TDI Volkswagen / Skoda with a full main dealer service history.

CC-Warrior

The 45/25p a mile isn't going to go very far once the car has reached a certain mileage and things are starting to go wrong from wear and tear etc.

Surely the 45/25p is a tax break and the company should be paying the employee directly for his or her expense, I applied for a job last year which involved a lot of travel, it had a mileage rate (which didn't drop to 25p after 10,000) and also an extra car allowance for wear and tear etc.

motorguy

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

Get a 90K car for peanuts, and run it to 220K and weigh it in would be even better. Don't have to keep going out and looking at used cars :rotfl:

90K diesels can be troublesome. Most start to need floating flywheels at 80K onwards (where fitted), EGR valves, turbos can give trouble from 100K onwards, injectors, pumps, DPFs, etc. All big bills.

Older diesels were fine - the old 406 / 407 2.0HDI, but too many of the early "new generation" smaller engines with DPFs and high pressure turbos give trouble.

Prothet_of_Doom

JC_Derby wrote: »

I'm not feeling much sympathy if you've accepted a job where you knew you were going to be doing a lot of business mileage.
Not sure how you can demand a company car knowing that either!fuel efficiency and sensible driving is the way forward.

Well the 44p isn't so bad only 1p of HMRC rates, but 20P is a weetake and is 5p off HMRC rates.

Over 20K this is £600, and you should be able to claim tax relief

I look at any long term gains as tax free income

:T

LandyAndy

CC-Warrior wrote: »

The 45/25p a mile isn't going to go very far once the car has reached a certain mileage and things are starting to go wrong from wear and tear etc.

Surely the 45/25p is a tax break and the company should be paying the employee directly for his or her expense, I applied for a job last year which involved a lot of travel, it had a mileage rate (which didn't drop to 25p after 10,000) and also an extra car allowance for wear and tear etc.

The company can pay you any rate it likes but if that rate exceeds the HMRC 45/25 rates then the excess is taxed as a BiK.

glothy

JC_Derby - you're assuming I knew. I actually thought I'd be doing half. 10,000 a year I don't have a problem with. It's surprising how many companies don't keep track of the mileage involved.


Great advice from motorguy and Prothet of Doom. Thanks very much.


I think a relatively comfortable newish fuel efficient cheap tax diesel would be best, run it as far as it will go and then start again using any profit from the higher mileage rate for a deposit.

Ultrasonic

motorguy wrote: »

Other options worth considering would be KIA - 7 year warranty,

It's probably worth pointing out that this is 7 years OR 100,000 miles, whichever comes first.

If you're not buying nearly new, i'd be looking for a 1.9TDI Volkswagen / Skoda with a full main dealer service history.

I don't think any nearly new 1.9 TDi engined cars exist, they stopped selling them a good while ago didn't they?

I think the good news for glothy though is that cars are capable of covering MUCH larger distances than most people seem to think. Take the car in this thread for example:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4925584

As well as running costs, a key factor for me in choosing a car to cover 20,000 miles per year in would be how comfortable it is to drive. A second factor would be how good the sound system is.

jc808

Prothet_of_Doom wrote: »

The trick here is to find a nice old 'sh!tter' --- a bargain banger that is throw away money. Or is it? .

Be aware some employers stipulate the maximum age of the vehicle i believe

knightstyle

Have a look at an older car with LPG conversion. Half the cost of petrol plus the engines last longer.

ian103

I'd look at a Toyota - dull, boring etc but a great manufacturer and most dealers are easy to deal with. I think either a deal or and ex demo diesel.

Mine did highish mileage over 2.5 years never missed a beat.

OH had Audi 2.0d which returned late 50s per gallon but not the most reliable and everything seemed expensive.