It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Baileys_Babe

My car is an 11 plate and I love it, like saucer I will only be replacing it if something major fails. The other day my 23 year old nephew complimented my car for being new enough to have all the mod cons, (he was very impressed with the programmable seats 😀) but also old enough to mainly use buttons instead of touchscreen for everything. 

BikingBud

saucer said:

cfw1994 said:

There is something strangely satisfying about keeping an older motor running👍

My XC60 is 10 in Sept - owned from new, and highly spec’d, so adaptive cruise, flippy magic headlights (literally night and day compared with normal lights!), heated everything, etc 💪 
Gave it a mini-valet the least two days: looks great, inside & out 😎
100k miles - just broken in 🤪 - but we only do around 5k a year in it now, so hoping it will run for a good few more years 🤞

Same attitude here. 16 plate Skoda Superb, 80k, with everything working (isn’t adaptive cruise control great?) and runs like a dream. We’ll be keeping that until something very major fails, which I hope won’t be for quite a few years. Why waste money and resources on replacing for something shiny that we might not enjoy as much?

Beware the "misting" front shock absorbers! Mine failed MOT with quoted repair of £1200 

That kind of hits you straight in the pocket and could displace your planning somewhat. Otherwise great car.

michaels

BikingBud said:

saucer said:

cfw1994 said:

There is something strangely satisfying about keeping an older motor running👍

My XC60 is 10 in Sept - owned from new, and highly spec’d, so adaptive cruise, flippy magic headlights (literally night and day compared with normal lights!), heated everything, etc 💪 
Gave it a mini-valet the least two days: looks great, inside & out 😎
100k miles - just broken in 🤪 - but we only do around 5k a year in it now, so hoping it will run for a good few more years 🤞

Same attitude here. 16 plate Skoda Superb, 80k, with everything working (isn’t adaptive cruise control great?) and runs like a dream. We’ll be keeping that until something very major fails, which I hope won’t be for quite a few years. Why waste money and resources on replacing for something shiny that we might not enjoy as much?

Beware the "misting" front shock absorbers! Mine failed MOT with quoted repair of £1200 

That kind of hits you straight in the pocket and could displace your planning somewhat. Otherwise great car.

Or buy pattern parts and get a mobile mechanic to fit for quarter the price

Pat38493

cfw1994 said:

There is something strangely satisfying about keeping an older motor running👍

My XC60 is 10 in Sept - owned from new, and highly spec’d, so adaptive cruise, flippy magic headlights (literally night and day compared with normal lights!), heated everything, etc 💪 
Gave it a mini-valet the least two days: looks great, inside & out 😎
100k miles - just broken in 🤪 - but we only do around 5k a year in it now, so hoping it will run for a good few more years 🤞

Funnily enough I am looking at getting an XC60 perhaps - we are thinking of trying out caravanning for a few years so we need a capable tow car, and my car is now 13 years old so it's served a good time already.

saucer

Pat38493 said:

cfw1994 said:

There is something strangely satisfying about keeping an older motor running👍

My XC60 is 10 in Sept - owned from new, and highly spec’d, so adaptive cruise, flippy magic headlights (literally night and day compared with normal lights!), heated everything, etc 💪 
Gave it a mini-valet the least two days: looks great, inside & out 😎
100k miles - just broken in 🤪 - but we only do around 5k a year in it now, so hoping it will run for a good few more years 🤞

Funnily enough I am looking at getting an XC60 perhaps - we are thinking of trying out caravanning for a few years so we need a capable tow car, and my car is now 13 years old so it's served a good time already.

Although our car would be perfect for towing, it’s a motorhome that we’re planning. Us and everyone else :-)

cfw1994

Pat38493 said:

cfw1994 said:

There is something strangely satisfying about keeping an older motor running👍

My XC60 is 10 in Sept - owned from new, and highly spec’d, so adaptive cruise, flippy magic headlights (literally night and day compared with normal lights!), heated everything, etc 💪 
Gave it a mini-valet the least two days: looks great, inside & out 😎
100k miles - just broken in 🤪 - but we only do around 5k a year in it now, so hoping it will run for a good few more years 🤞

Funnily enough I am looking at getting an XC60 perhaps - we are thinking of trying out caravanning for a few years so we need a capable tow car, and my car is now 13 years old so it's served a good time already.

We have the D4 FWD version - very smooth 8-spd auto….but I imagine for towing you might want an AWD one 🤷‍♂️

The newer ones look nice too, but I don’t know too much about their engine/drivetrain options - we will try to keep ours running forever 🤞

Have a good independent specialist in Leicester for reasonably priced servicing and to deal with any issues 💪

We still like camping - tent to stand up in, comfy mattress makes all the difference 🏕️👍

Ibrahim5

I was sat in my caravan the other day watching new arrivals coming onto the campsite. Mainly motorhomes towing small cars. It's utterly bonkers! It just doesn't make sense. What a waste of money. We bought our caravan partially to save money and it's been moneysaving all the way. I read recently someone saying that they lived in a small house because they had spent all their money on a motorhome instead! Our diesel 4x4 is more economical than our small petrol hatchback. It's a great family car. A caravan has a chassis which is cheap and easy to maintain. Just keep it watertight and it'll last for years. Our friends say their motorhome costs £3k a year to keep it on the road after they spent 8x the cost of our caravan on the motorhome. A caravan has no 'running costs'.

Nebulous2

We have camped all our lives and have tried just about everything, small tent, big tent, folding camper, self- built campervan and caravanning. 

We currently have a fairly large caravan with a fixed bed. 

You can get value in anything if you use it regularly. I've been dismayed by the caravan and motorhome club's attitude to pricing. Sites have doubled in price since the pandemic, on the back of the staycation boom. Long-standing members I know who caravanned most weekends are selling and giving up due to costs. 

There are three motorhomes in our wider family and the advantage they have is 'wild camping.' With decent solar panels, an inverter, and uprated leisure batteries they can spend a night just about anywhere and be self-sufficient. So the difference in costs is not as big if you factor that in. 

I certainly know people who have sacrificed a lot to buy their motorhome, but we are all different, and as long as they regard it as worthwhile then I say good luck to them. 

The people that I don't understand are the ones with an expensive motorhome, or caravan, which never moves. I knew people before the pandemic, where I calculated their motorhome was costing over £1000 for each night they used it. 

That has again been skewed as a result of the pandemic. Prices have stayed high, as a result of a lot of demand and limited supplies. Some people were making money on them. I spoke to one man, who retired, bought a motorhome, was offered a lucrative contract and went back to work, meaning he rarely used it. At almost two years old the dealer called him and offered him £7000 more than he paid for it. 

Like many other things, I don't understand where all the money is coming from. I expected the boom in camping to die down after people began flying abroad again. It doesn't appear to be though, partly evidenced by this thread, with people planning to take up caravanning or motor homing.   

It has brought us a huge amount of pleasure over the years. Sitting outside in the sun, with a glass of wine, in the South of France, has a certain kind of magic that I've rarely felt doing anything else. 

Ibrahim5

A couple of months ago we flew with Ryanair to the sun and stayed in an Airbnb. It was a lovely apartment and cheaper than a stay on a caravan club site. The flight was much cheaper than driving a few miles with the caravan. The caravan costs us nothing though and we just have to keep a towcar which hardly costs much more. We would always have a family car anyway.

westv

Camping, caravans and Ryanair sound like like my holiday horrors to me.