When to sell car

kev2009

Hi All,

Not sure there is a answer to this but.. is there any guide as to when is the best time to sell a car so you get a reasonable amount back for it to put towards a replacement car of equivalent type? Also is there any long term depreciation calculators around? I've not found one that goes beyond 3 years...

My car is now 3 years old and my original plan was to keep it until car was 10 years old (i didn't buy it from new) and then look to sell it thinking the car would retain it's value fairly well but I've done a recent quote on parkers listing the options i could as not all are listed on parkers to hard to get accurate price and its already lost a fair amount so i'm wondering is that gonna be the worst and the remaining will be slower depreciation or am I going to end up getting say 3k at best by time its 10 years old..

Thanks

Kev

kinger101

Depreciation on a car isn't straight line. Unless you like shiny new things, the sensible thing is to keep it going until annual repairs and maintenance means it's no longer economically sensible. It will mean the car would be worth less than a grand by the time you sell it, but if you're only getting a car every 7-10 years (and then not brand new), you should have had plenty of time to save up when you need to buy again.

This sounds very similar to what you've set out, but if it's still going well at 10 years, hold onto it. Similarly, if you get a repair estimate of £2k in year 8, it has to be scrapped.

kev2009

hi, thanks.

I was looking at it from point of view if i could get x back for car, i only need y to buy a newer one meaning i've not got as much to find... so could always put x towards each car after X years and only find a small amount.

But yeah maybe if i just put x aside each month specifically for a replacement car, maybe i'd have enough to buy a newer one in 10 years and whatever i get for the car would be a bonus effectively.

At present my car has a service plan so its ok, my concern is after the service plan as it could be very expensive and it's know whee to draw the line as i'd then be like hmm 2k repair vs 15k or whatever for a newer car.. 2k is easier to find but i see what you mean, i'll have to do some calculations and see what i can afford to put aside each month for a replacement car whenever the time comes.

Kev

forgotmyname

Buy at 5 years old and sell at 10 years old. Sometimes i keep them a bit longer, But by 5 years i usually feel like a change anyway.

What colour/spec Mondeo should i buy next?

Rolandtheroadie

When you buy new or nearly new, there will come a time you may have hard choices to make with regards to repair or change.

If you go for older, hopefully someone else has taken the hit for the expensive work. If they havent, you'll have bought it so cheap it'll be easier to throw it away.

Current car was £450 7 months ago, spent £600 getting a years ticket, but replaced more than I had to so that I was confident it would last at least the year. It's 15 years old and has a FSH, timing belts due in about a year, I'll run it till it snaps.

If it breaks tomorrow, I'm £150 a month down. I'd say thats not too bad.

Time to sell is when its completely broke.

andy111

Eh? £150 a month on a banger? Insanity. That should be per year.


At £1800 pa you could be buying and selling one year old or two year old cars, shifting within a year with no grief and still within warranty.

loskie

Kev2009
the options will have little effect on the resale from standard.
You don't say what car and mileage.
Buying at new and selling at 3 is the most expensive way (albeit it should be least problematic) than buyng at 3 and selling at 8.
my present car I bought new and have lost a huge amount of money. The previous two were 4 yrs old with about 50000m and £4k I put an additional 130000m on each and had them both about 5 years. The last one I worked out cost me 20ppm to run inclusive of everything including writing off all the value in the car. One was a 1999 Octavia the previous a 1992 Golf

Rolandtheroadie

andy111 wrote: »

Eh? £150 a month on a banger? Insanity. That should be per year.


At £1800 pa you could be buying and selling one year old or two year old cars, shifting within a year with no grief and still within warranty.

Thats costs to date, just spent £600 on discs and pads all round and replacing not just what failed the MOT, but all the upper and lower suspension arms and trackrod ends.

Unless there's a major catastrophy, that'll see me through the next 11 months with ease averaging it out to £68 per month in the first 18 months. What I replaced there should make the next MOT a walk in the park.

How much do you lose on a 1 or 2 year old motor driving it off the forecourt?

GoldenShadow

Varies on the car. My OH paid £5,500 for a car that was 5.5 years old with 48,000 on the clock. He had it 2.5 years, added 16,000 miles, it had 11 advisories on the MOT, oxidised alloys, almost needed two new tyres and had two scratches from being keyed. Got £4,500 for it.

I bought mine for £4,750 at 3 years old and 28,000 miles. I had it five years, added 18,000 miles and traded it in for 2K.

I find its cars with a higher spec that hold value better. Mine was very basic OH's a bit of a specialist market type of car. My replacement is a fiesta titanium that is 5 years old. I could have bought a 2 year old Zetec for the same price but like my previous car I feel the lower spec ones lose their value quicker. I know a lot of people who prefer a nicer spec, older car than a new very basic one. Equally I know others at the other end of the spectrum, but I would never buy a new car on lease etc like most Essex folk round here. So I imagine it varies on exactly what kind of car we're talking about. OH needs a replacement, just a normal car this time and I think he should go for a 3-5 year old that he can get rid of in another 3-5 without too much hassle. Sellability of his old car was a problem due to it being specialist. My new car was quite hard to get because the colour and spec mean they don't usually sit around for sale for very long, so not much of a worry if I want shot quickly.

Hoof_Hearted

depreciation-calculator/

This takes you to 4 years. After that the curve flattens. For older cars, judge on condition rather than age.

I think the general MSE message is that if you have a good car, keep it.

kev2009

Hi,

Thanks for replies.

I bought my car when it was roughly 1.5 years old as personally i've always been brought up with not buying high mileage cars. Mine only had 2.6k on the clock when i bought it and although was quiet expensive, for the options it has it was a reasonable price I felt at the time for what I got. It's most expensive car i've ever bought so spent a bit of time debating could i afford it and was it worth it etc but now on reflection i'm glad I have as it is a very nice car to drive and has options that are nice. I'm not keen on the effectively leasing option i.e pay x a month for 3 years then either keep it or get another new car and keep paying, I do prefer to buy the car to keep it. When I bought this car, I traded in my Focus which was fairly new (2011) as I had loads of issues with it and after a year of constant problems and warranty about to run out I decided to trade it in for my current car so i got a fair bit for that car, I then added some savings to it and then got a loan for the remainder of which I have around 2 years left to pay before I own the car, the time has gone quick considering I took the loan over 4 years. The car is a 2012 BMW 320d, it was one of the cars they used for the olympics and after that they had around 4000 cars to get rid of so the prices were tempting and the cars were speced up a bit from the standard models due to them wanting to show off the features etc to the olympians etc. My car has only done approx 16,000 miles.

I had heard the same that options don't make much difference when you trade it in but for my are on parkers, which I had to manually select the make/model etc as they have the model wrong for my registration, it shows a part exchange difference of approx £4.2k when comparing the free quote and the quote after i pay to include options/mileage so clearly the options do add a fair bit to the price and some of the options I have I cannot specify which is why it's hard to determine true value.

I think I will either keep getting a quote each year to determine the value as best I can or as someone said start saving x each month and then use that to purchase a newer car when the repairs etc get too price.

Thanks

Kev