Swapping car to reduce debt

oligopoly

Hi. I appreciate there won't be a black and white answer here but interested to get people's thoughts. I bought a used Peugeot 308 almost 3 years ago. It's done me very well...

I have £4,300 debt on a 0% credit card (mostly the remaining cost of this car but also an emergency spend too).

I was thinking of selling the Peugeot for around £5,000 and instead buying either a used Honda Accord or BMW 5 Series (2006 / 115k miles sort of figures) for around £2,500-£3,000.

I do around 17k miles per year so I want something economical and reliable.

Reasons for this change are to reduce debt by a couple of grand, worrying that my Peugeot at almost 80k miles will start to fall apart and also just for the sake of having a change.

Reasonable idea or madness?!

AdrianC

Honestly, I'd stick with what you have in this situation. You're looking to free a couple of grand - but with the potential for much bigger bills on an older/larger car - especially something like a 5-series, especially covering decent mileages.

You're worried about 80k on the Pug, but you're looking to swap to something with the equivalent of two more years of your mileage on it...?

Mercdriver

Big badge cars have big badge pricing no matter how old. The prices for parts don't suddenly go down out of OAC (Old Age Car) sympathy. That could open up a money pit.

I'd be inclined to stick with what you know and trust.

born_again

You might as well toss a coin....

Your car, you know how reliable it is. Mileage does not mean it will fall apart, unless you have not been looking after it.
New car. You have no idea how well it's been looked after or if previous owner got rid due to issues.

Odd thing is you say your car at 80K might start falling apart, yet are looking at cars with 35K more miles....

oligopoly

I was under the impreesion that the Accord and 5 Series were built to do 200k easily - and less so with a Peugeot. Perhaps I have this completely wrong then! I appreciate things can go wrong on any car and there's no way of knowing the future....

Mercdriver

oligopoly wrote: »

I was under the impreesion that the Accord and 5 Series were built to do 200k easily - and less so with a Peugeot. Perhaps I have this completely wrong then! I appreciate things can go wrong on any car and there's no way of knowing the future....

Keep pretty much any modern car well maintained and serviced with regular oil and fuel filter and air filter changes and not ragging it, will go 200k. You don't need a high priced at new marque to do that. I have my car serviced at 75% of the interval.

AdrianC

oligopoly wrote: »

I was under the impreesion that the Accord and 5 Series were built to do 200k easily

Any car will do as many miles as it's properly maintained for.

Your Pug shares platform, mechanicals and electronics with the Dispatch/Expert/Proace/Vivaro and Berlingo/Partner/Combo vans - and who would be surprised at one of them with 200k++ on it...?

oligopoly

Thanks all. Think I'll stick for now.