How do people afford £30k-£60k cars with normal jobs?

motorguy

Stoke wrote: »

True that. Glad it's not my money

Indeed. Each to their own. I wouldnt drive a Fiat 500 and i've driven and owned worse than a Mazda Demio....

Stoke

motorguy wrote: »

Indeed. Each to their own. I wouldnt drive a Fiat 500 and i've driven and owned worse than a Mazda Demio....

Perhaps the A1 is a better example of what I was talking about

motorguy

Stoke wrote: »

Perhaps the A1 is a better example of what I was talking about

Life of Brian springs to mind - "we should be united against the common enemy!"

scd3scd4

I think driving a nice car is not just about being practical for many people. Its worth what its worth to making them feel good. They know that most depreciation is done in the first 3 years but they love they smell, the look of a new car and all the new modern gadgets.


Others see a car as a work house.............that's how I see my commuting bike. Others treat their bikes like members of their family and spend thousands.

qwert_yuiop

There was a pretty funny item on BBC world service one night about status symbols. A hundred years ago, everyone wore a hat, and your hat indicated your position in society. Labourers wore flat caps, tradesmen had a trilby, wealthy farmers and business owners wore bowlers, while the elite - judges, MPs, factory owners were never without their topper. These days, the status measure is your car. They didn't explain why my neighbour in his yellow fiesta with silly stripes wears a baseball cap.

Iceweasel

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

There was a pretty funny item on BBC world service one night about status symbols. A hundred years ago, everyone wore a hat, and your hat indicated your position in society. Labourers wore flat caps, tradesmen had a trilby, wealthy farmers and business owners wore bowlers, while the elite - judges, MPs, factory owners were never without their topper. These days, the status measure is your car. They didn't explain why my neighbour in his yellow fiesta with silly stripes wears a baseball cap.

Ah, but is his cap on backwards?

qwert_yuiop

Iceweasel wrote: »

Ah, but is his cap on backwards?

Does that indicate some kind of negative status? What a rebel, sticking it to the man, man.

I've a seven year old mondeo diesel in pretty good order, which is probably worth very little indeed due to it breaking the 222,222 barrier last week. The one thing that makes me think it's time to auction it is some failure in the seat adjustment, where I'm sitting with my knees up, and I can't find what's wrong. Otherwise there's nothing wrong with it - keep changing the oil, and hope for 300,000 - and a back ache.

n217970

motorguy wrote: »

If your current car is doing the job, then i'd stick with it. Unless you need a diesel, i'd be buying a petrol next time.

Just for info, i've a 2016 Passat, bought with 15K miles from a VW dealer back in April as an Approved Used car. Its been back in three times with an engine management light on relating to the DPF, the dealer couldnt work out what was wrong with it so they had to escalate it to VW themselves. They diagnosed it as need a new emissions module - catalytic converter, DPF and some other bits for that - total cost would have been in excess of £2,200 had it not been under warranty. :eek:

And thats a year old diesel car with a mere 15,000 miles at the time - the VW dealer couldnt even diagnose the fault.

Suspect the VW emission "fix" is the cause of the problem, if I were looking to buy a VW now my first question would be if VW had "fixed" it. If the answer were yes I would be walking away.

buglawton

qwert_yuiop wrote: »

There was a pretty funny item on BBC world service one night about status symbols. A hundred years ago, everyone wore a hat, and your hat indicated your position in society. Labourers wore flat caps, tradesmen had a trilby, wealthy farmers and business owners wore bowlers, while the elite - judges, MPs, factory owners were never without their topper. These days, the status measure is your car. They didn't explain why my neighbour in his yellow fiesta with silly stripes wears a baseball cap.

Funnily enough I'd brought up the hat/car analogy around half a year ago in an MSE car thread. To get perspective, look at old photos or paintings, the tallest toppers look ridiculous and even downright inconvenient for their owners. A real parallel with people taking a kid to school or doing a small shop in a huge 4x4.

scd3scd4

AS me old dad use to say...............On the never never..........