Fellow MSE advice on car decision please

Gru14

Hi all

Just after some advice to help me make a decision..
in 2014 we bought a new fiesta. Mainly because we got a hugely knocked down tax free plus bartering price and we needed the security of warranty and reliability.
Anyway the car is great and we love it however the warranty is coming to an end next year and it's had a little failure (currently in getting repaired) and it's shaken my confidence in its solidness a little.
Next year we will get a little company car for work horse duties and because we will need a second bigger car due to a rural move and family expansion.
My question is this - what would best option be for long term value , to a) sell little fiesta (just valued at only £3k under what we initial paid such was the good deal we got) and get a brand new bigger car on finance. sell fiesta and get a used (2 or so years old) bigger car with the cash plus a little bit or c) keep fiesta and continue to save cash for bigger car and I'm being paranoid about it breaking down as soon as warranty expires?

We are currently totally debt free. We own our property outright and have no credit owed to anyone because I hate the idea of not owning everything we have properly but everyone these days seems to have cars on finance and my husband wants an Audi or something nice and mega pricey - am I too old fashioned in my views on finance being a total no no ?

sorry if this is a stupid question but I just keep going back and forth on it.

AnotherJoe

I recall someone else had a similar type question a few months back, and like you they were looking at buying a new car, with all the certain and expensive depreciation that involves, to avoid possible / theoretical repairs on their current car, that under no circumstances would match the depreciation losses.

eg, making some numbers up, you might be looking at spending £20k on a car that in 3 years time will be worth £12k, to avoid repairs on a car worth only £3k.The maths doesn't add up and I suspect its just a neat way people have of "justifying" to themselves buying a new car.

By all means buy one, just don't use avoiding repair cost as the excuse

neilmcl

What was this "little failure" and how many miles have you on the Fiesta?

Also what engine/model is it?

gabitzul

It's a two year old Fiesta and they are generally reliable.

There are no "bad" engines in the Fiesta (known to be more troublesome than the average).

Keep it and contribute instead into your SIPP or something similar, that's a MSE way to deal with this.

fiish

It may be that the little failure you're getting repaired will be the last problem you have for the next 5 years, or it may not. It's not easy to tell. But it seems from what I've read around when shopping for my own cars in the past that Fiestas are generally quite a reliable model.

I would say, as long as the Fiesta keeps running well and meets your needs, keep it.

When your family expansion happens and it no longer has enough space, then look for another car then.

I'm in the same 'no finance' camp as you which has meant generally buying used or nearly new (to avoid the huge year 1 depreciation hit), while saving up and hoping my current car won't get any sufficiently expensive problems to force me to sell it.