Changing a car ever 3 years

mattrgee

When I get a new car I plan on keeping it for as long as I can and getting my moneys worth. However, people are constantly telling me that you need to change your car ever 3 years because it will start 'costing you money'.

This seems just plain stupid.

If you were to trade in a 3 year old car for the latest model it would probably cost you £4000 (for arguments sake) having considered the part ex price etc...

If you were to keep your car it would cost say, £100 for 3yrs MOT, £200 for a set of tyres and £600 for possible repairs. Call it a round £1000 to cover all possibilities over the 3 years.

Well £1000 is a dam sight less than £4000!!! It seems to me that the idea of changing your car every 3 years is just another way for car dealers to scare customers into spending more money.

I'm ignoring the fact that people may want ot change their car from a 'fashion' point-of-view and looking more at the financial.

Agree/disagree?

chalky_bertie

Agree. I bought a car 7 years ago on Ford Options. The one were you pay a monthly fee and then at the end of the 2 years you can either give it back, pay the mgfv or use any amount over the mgfv for a deposit on a new car. What a bloody con!
Went back after 2 years and after a bit of deliberation they said I had a deposit of £10 - yep a bloody tenner! Thanks. Thought for a bit that if I was going to put a tenner down as deposit my monthly payments for the new car (lesser model) would be even more that what I was paying now for a decent model. Kept Car.
We have 2 cars (6 & 7 years old) and are planning to run them as far as they can go until it becomes financially stupid to keep repairing them, your car must allways be worth something when you trade it in (even if it's £100) it's better than nowt and you have had years of running in YOUR car.

grumbler

mattrgee wrote:

It seems to me that the idea of changing your car every 3 years is just another way for car dealers to scare customers into spending more money....

...or self-delusion when somebody is looking for some reasons to justify buying a new car just because he/she wants it. It is well-known fact that the first few years of running a new car are the most expensive because of the highest depreciation.

Dee123_2

Errrm.....I run an absolute old banger which is 14 years old. I have owned outright for nine years or so (I am the third owner). It costs me less than £150 a year in fully comp insurance, I pay no interest on a car loan and quite frankly because its so old there are a hundred less "gadgets" to go wrong that might need to be fixed. £500 a year in repairs would be a really bad one.

Silly me! I must go immediately to a dealership, get a 30% APR loan with tie in and redemption, fork out five digits and drive off with something a little bit shinier. :rolleyes:

I paid £4k for it nine years ago, and I would still get £500 for it. That's £3.5k depreciation. You could lose that much just keeping some mid-range new cars for one year.

(PS I posted this, then realised maybe the original thread was about avoiding financial loss with NEW cars. Sorry if I hijacked it. Forgive me, I have flu!!)

Al_Mac

I've been keeping my cars longer each time, did have a new one once, crashed 4 months later, xmas eve, sober. last one I have for about six years and got rid when things started going wrong in a niggly way. The one I've got now will keep for as long as I can.

:beer:

andy88_2

I bought this car 4 years old on 24,000 miles for £4500. It had already cost the first 2 owners about £12,000 depreciation; that's 50p per mile.

I've done 52,000 miles in it and it's worth about £2500 - depreciation 4p per mile. Total servicing and repairs 4 oilchanges £100, 4 tyres £250, wing mirror £180, 2 windscreen excesses £100, big service £300. None of these is unique to the age. Now it needs suspension spheres about £200 and the alternator bearing is noisy £100.

With road tax insurance and fuel I reckon it costs about 15p per mile. Don't struggle too hard to persuade your friends to change their minds, but this is when the car starts to save money.

hermit-crab

I always buy a two year old car. To me it seems ridiculous to pay new prices. Well worth looking around for cars aged 1 to 2 years old as the savings are amazing. I usually keep the car for two more years. My mileage is low, so I usually sell at only a moderate loss. I would certainly never consider buying a new car.

YorkshireBoy

hermit-crab wrote:

I would certainly never consider buying a new car.

Bargains do come along every once in a while though!!!! Here's a view from the "other side".

I've always bought cars between 18 months and 3 years old. I then ran them for anywhere between 4 and 6.5 years. Therefore my cars have cost me very little per annum to run over the years.

However, when I was looking around at 3 & 4 year old Ford Galaxy's in summer 2003 I found that brand new Ford Mondeo 1.8LX's could be had for only £11,500 (list then was £14,500). These were 3 month old models (verified by VIN plate) that had been standing on the "air-fields" since manufacture. Ford were desperate to move these BRAND NEW unregistered cars prior to the 2004 year model coming out in September 2003 so they were offering them for 35% (£4K) down & 3 years 0% credit on the £7.5K balance.

The above offer was financed by Ford and, as I was ordering 3rd week in June (half year/end of month targets etc), I managed to negotiate the following with the dealer:

Free metallic paint upgrade - £300
Free alloys (from the Zetec model) - £600 *Probably wouldn't have bought these though!
Free mats & flaps - £100
Free 12 months road tax - £160
Free tank of petrol - £45
2 years free servicing - £240
Total value - £1,445

The icing on the cake is the interest I'm making on the repayments before I make them.

As I normally keep my cars many years I reckon this deal will lose me only £1,500 per annum. I'm happy with that over 6 years.
==========================
Just to close, I bought my son an eleven year old Fiesta for his 17th birthday 3 years ago and gave it him for 12 months only (he was a student). Paid £450, he drove 14,000 miles in it!!!!! Running costs (exc insurance!!!! and petrol) as follows:

2 oil changes - £20
2 tyres - £42
MOT - £39
Tax - £105
Total - £206

Sold it 12 months later for £450 - the same as I paid for it.

Xbigman

I can see the arguments both ways but its not always a clear choice.

I considered buying a new Daewoo Matiz. £6000 (trade in plus balance in cash, finance is a no no on cars for me). Free servicing for three years, low milage (11 - 12K) and trade in after 3 years or sell privately depending on circumstances at the time. I'd expect around 4500 for the car after 3 years so I buy a new one again. Cost of deprciation £1500 but there's no MOT, brakes, clutch, etc costs. Probably a new set of front tyres but thats true of anything you drive. Free servicing alone is worth over £900. Actual running cost of car plus depreciation (not inc tax, ins or petrol) is minimal, a few hundred per year depending on what you do or don't include as a cost.
Thats better than running an old banger.

Now what I actually did was...

Needed a new car earlier than expected (18 year old Scirroco I'd had 7 years needed work and was running on LRP which everyone where I live stopped selling) but I didn't have the money on hand and refused to borrow. I decided I could go 3K on a replacement car. Looked around for a Matiz and found one about an hour later! Trade sale but from a small independent who hadn't done a service/valet. Beat them down to £1995 and dumped now worthless Scirroco on them for £150, so paid 1845 in cash.

After service (Qwik fit), valet, tax, new spare key and wing mirror cost was £2222 for 4 year old, 25,000 miles, very good condition car with new MOT and service. I was well pleased especially as I transfered £800 back into my savings as a head start saving for next car. I'll run this car for 3 or 4 years now. Minimal (self) service, keep it clean and sell with under 40K on the clock for around £1500.

Whats my point? Well I've been wandering in and out making dinner whilst typing this and I've forgotten what the point was. I'm sure there was one and I'm sure I was right, but what it was, who knows.
Regards



X

margaretclare

Hi

The idea of changing your car every 3 years 'just because', is a very 'last-century' idea.

When I did jobs which required a car (1970s/1980s) everyone around me seemed to be doing that. I don't think cars were quite as reliable then as they are now.

When I think of what I paid out in car loans those years, I shudder!!

FWIW we have an 'M' reg Ford Fiesta, got it November 2001 when the 'F' reg Ford Sierra couldn't pass its MOT. We plan to keep it another 2 years, and the car we get then will probably be a couple of years old because it might be our last.

Aunty Margaret

grumbler

Xbigman wrote:

I considered buying a new Daewoo Matiz. £6000 ... and trade in after 3 years or sell privately depending on circumstances at the time. I'd expect around 4500 for the car after 3 years so I buy a new one again.

Is not it too optimistic? :think: Example (from http://www.autotrader.co.uk/):

2002 DAEWOO MATIZ SE, 02 reg. 27000 miles, fsh, ... , pas, r/cassette, airbags, one owner, MoT Feb 06, main dealer service history, just serviced, ready to go, px, . . . . (trade) £2,295