Financing a new car(used not brand new!)

noclaf

Hoping the good folk here can make suggestions on how I finance my next car, not in a rush since I only drive on weekends and annually cover about ~3k miles but thought it be sensible to start thinking about it now.

current car, a ford focus worth £1-1.2k max if even that, 13 years old with 60ish k miles on the clock. low miles but its a fairly old and things are starting to go wrong which means £££ being spent each time to get it sorted, likely not helped by constant short trips. Overall its been great, uninspiring at times but very reliable on the whole and 'does the job'

my budget if buying with cash would of been £5-6k however I am keen to minimise the hit to my cash savings since am saving towards a property deposit.

So am stuck in a dilemma: do I lease and then give the car back 2/3 years later, small loan, cc+loan, pcp etc
Just not sure which is the best option however am swaying towards lease option...small deposit then monthly payments but I do not tend to change cars quickly and prefer to 'own' the car.

sorry for the long post guys

[Deleted User]

Pay cash and then rebuild savings, as any additional credit will impact your mortgage borrowing in any case.

SarahP87

Depending on how long off you're looking to get the mortgage ...if its not for the next 12 months , If the Seller takes Credit card you could potentially part pay on 0% interest credit card - if you aim to have it paid off before your mortgage application you get the benefit of showing constant re payments for your credit score whilst retaining some of your own cash in the bank

Jon_B_2

3k miles a year? Just keep spending money on the existing car til it starts to rust. The engine is not even near half life.

Even if you spent £1k on repairs every year, that's still 6 years of motoring for the price of one new car.

noclaf

To be fair the car is in good nick and I have it serviced/MOT'd religiously without fail however was advised at the MOT 2 weeks back, there is slight rust on the sub-frame though I don't believe its an issue at this stage and expected based on cars age. I spent nearly £400 over the last 2 months on having work done including the MOT which it passed without issues, so will be keeping the car for at least the next 6 months.

relatively speaking I have lower financial responsibilities at present, so thought might be a good time to consider changing the car before other commitments such as a mortgage come along - however highly unlikely I will be getting mortgage in the next 12 months but nothing is set in stone. Also, wary of continuing to spend on maintaining which exceeds the value of the car or more specifically if something costly goes wrong.

Below are my releavant finances, this together with cost of maintaining current car will determine if and when I actually make the change.

35 yrs old, living in London. no mortgage but paying all bills such as utilities and taxes for parents house where I am living at present.

£25k+ across current+regular saver accounts (represents my 'savings' to date including emergency funds)
current 'debt' - £2k on a tesco 0% bal tsfr cc, being paid monthly by dd above the minimum repayment amount
I was approved a further tesco 0 % purchase cc today, this will be cleared monthly so should continue to maintain/demonstrate my good credit rating.

This is a very arbitrary plucked out of the air figure but I believe will need at least £40k+ in savings before I can even consider buying a flat in London for example, appreciate there are so many other factors not being considered here but in a nutshell am still quite far off from target savings.
I typically save between 1.2-1.5k per month so within a year, fingers crossed will be closer to that target.

sorry for the even longer reply to original post but feel its all relevant here so I can make an informed decision when the time comes.

thanks for the responses so far

System

Only cover 3000 miles a year? Get a mini-cab/Uber/bus/train everywhere you go, seriously. Static costs and depreciation take away any savings over using public transport

Costs of a typical car:

Tax £60
MOT £60
Insurance £700
Annual Service £200 (and yes you still need to do one even though you only do 3000 miles a year)
Fuel for 3000 miles at 40MPG £400
Depreciation £1000-£1500

Total £2400-£2900

Public transport will probably end up being around a similar amount.

ruperts

You could probably even rent a car for the weekend most weekends of the year and it would still be cheaper than a PCP

Jon_B_2

It would be. £1,900/year for the enterprise "weekend special" for every weekend.