The best MoneySaving way to have a car

Mickey666

fred246 said:

You're very young to go down the "I only drive automatics" route. I personally wouldn't recommend it. There are lots more small automatics than there used to be but it's very restrictive when you are shopping. Hiring a car you'll always want automatic. Automatics are fine when they are working well but can need expensive repairs when they aren't.

I've had a manual licence for over 40 years but much prefer driving automatics and always have done.  Modern auto boxes are pretty slick these days (current one is 7-speed) and a manual gearbox is a right pain in towns and slow-moving traffic.  There's a persistent myth that an automatic isn't 'real driving' - whatever that means - though I suspect that's mainly a boy racer mentality that has no place on public roads.  I've also run automatics up to 140k miles with no gearbox problems at all whereas one of my only two manual cars had clutch problems, so make of that what you will.

Personally, I couldn't live without a car but if I was in the OPs position of only needing one for occasional weekends then I'd seriously consider hiring one as needed.  Fact is, owning a car is expensive and risky, so be financially prepared.  Buy new/nearly new and hope for reliability or go the 'banger' route and be prepared to pay for repairs or try something in between.  There is no clear cut 'best' option otherwise everyone would be choosing the same thing - and the same car come to that.   Basically, it's all down to personal choice.

One thing to remember though.  The taxman allows 45p per mile as the cost of running a private car and in my experience that's about right, as someone who tends to buy 2-ish year old cars around 20-30k miles, keeps them for around 10 years and up to 150k miles and is a bit of an 'anorak' when it comes to recording every penny spent on them.  As I said, cars are expensive - even though they are better than almost all alternatives!

noclaf

I've been driving manuals for 15 years ...auto next 100%. It's just tiresome on longer runs esp across London where the vast majority of my driving is concentrated. Manuals can be fun to some extent but not day in day out.
Op - good to do the research and due diligence but sometimes luck plays a role too.
I bought my last car on a whim albeit from a main dealer 10 years back ..it's been a fantastic workhorse and is now coming to 16 years old with no major issues(touch wood). In 10 years was left stranded twice and needing to call out roadside assistance but one was the alternator needing replacing...£120 to replace at local indie so overall not bad.
I doubt IL get the same level of reliability or cheap running costs from a newer/shinier and more complex newer car.....

[Deleted User]

Waste of money paying £99 x 2 to check over 2 cars. Just buy from a reputable well established trader and you should be fine.

nottsphil

What about semi-automatics, or 'dualogical' (if not the same thing)? 

sheslookinhot

mgfvvc said:

sheslookinhot said:

Sounds like a case of overthinking things. Buying a car should be a simple, pleasurable experience.

This is a  money saving site and people here are expected to think seriously about their spending.

Buying a car without thinking it through might be pleasurable in the short term, but the long term consequences of getting it wrong can be expensive and stressful.

I never advocated not thinking it through. 

yksi

I get that you want to get this right, but yeah I think there's a lot of overthinking too. If you keep the spend low, and plan to keep it several years (which sounds right for a "weekend only" vehicle as you're thinking) then the depreciation is not going to be a huge issue for it. Spend £1500-2000 on a runabout with 95K miles on it - which at a guess will probably get you a 7yo Focus? The demand for cars falls dramatically just before the magic 100k mark, but with a vehicle that has been well-maintained you can take advantage of that psychological fear factor. In five years' time it will probably have only lost half its value which is nothing when you started with a fairly low budget. And you can get a good sense of whether it has been well-maintained just by looking at the MOT history.

fred246

I've not got anything against automatics but around 80% of used Focus's are manual. So by restricting yourself to automatics the search for a good one becomes more difficult. If you go to the dealers and they have a row of 10 Ford Focus's in stock you would only be able to look at 2 of them. If you were looking for a good Rolls Royce it would be different. They are all automatic. So if you are older and know that you can always drive big automatics that's fine but I wouldn't restrict myself to automatics in my twenties.

Chris4

Grumpy_chap said:

You've not given any indication of likely budget to buy, desired age of vehicle or likely mileage (though I suspect this will be towards the lower end given the car is an optional item for you).

That's because I'm flexible, I just want it to be cost effective. Hyperthetically speaking if I bought a £10k car and all the costs were low, high mpg, and it hardly depreciated, I'd have a high return on investment. If I spent £2k on a car that had high costs, high mpg, and it was worth nothing at the end, then I've spent much more. Or a low cost car thats scrapped after some years might work out cheaper, I'm not sure! So when I ask what the best Money Saving way of having a car, I really mean it. 

Petriix said:
It absolutely depends on how many miles you want to do. 

I've never had a car so hard to estimate, but the average is 10k so as its just for weekends probably nearer 5k.

knightstyle said:

Focus is a good choice, ask at local ford dealer, tell them what you want and get them to source one, we go for 3-4 year old ex-motability automatics. 

Thanks I'll look to speak with a Ford dealer

Petriix said:

We're trading up and buying a new EV at great expense. Not the best money saving plan as depreciation will be massive, but running costs will be very low and emissions will be zero. Seriously look at whether an EV would work for you.

That's I'll look at the costs with an EV

fred246 said:

You're very young to go down the "I only drive automatics" route. I personally wouldn't recommend it. There are lots more small automatics than there used to be but it's very restrictive when you are shopping. Hiring a car you'll always want automatic. Automatics are fine when they are working well but can need expensive repairs when they aren't.

fred246 said:

I've not got anything against automatics but around 80% of used Focus's are manual. So by restricting yourself to automatics the search for a good one becomes more difficult. If you go to the dealers and they have a row of 10 Ford Focus's in stock you would only be able to look at 2 of them. If you were looking for a good Rolls Royce it would be different. They are all automatic. So if you are older and know that you can always drive big automatics that's fine but I wouldn't restrict myself to automatics in my twenties.

I've just really don't see the point in manually changing gear when the car can do it for you. Any automation is sure better and safer. Just let the car do the gear shifts, so you can focus on driving. I know it means my market becomes considerably smaller but I'm happy to keep it to that for the moment and then if its problematic i can include manuals later. 

Mickey666 said:

Personally, I couldn't live without a car but if I was in the OPs position of only needing one for occasional weekends then I'd seriously consider hiring one as needed.  Fact is, owning a car is expensive and risky, so be financially prepared.  Buy new/nearly new and hope for reliability or go the 'banger' route and be prepared to pay for repairs or try something in between.  There is no clear cut 'best' option otherwise everyone would be choosing the same thing - and the same car come to that.   Basically, it's all down to personal choice.

Yeah I'm really not enjoying choosing a car because as you say it's not clear cut and anything could happen. But I can at least work to reduce the risks as best I can. 

Deleted_User said:

Waste of money paying £99 x 2 to check over 2 cars. Just buy from a reputable well established trader and you should be fine.

The local reputable dealer to me charges quite a bit over what valuation tools tell me the car is worth. So the alternative is finding something more aligned with its worth and pay £99 to get it checked out. But I probably need to explore more dealers, but as a first time buyer I don't know what to look for. Reviews can be mixed, some say great, others say the car stopped working and they couldn't get a refund. Difficult to know what to buy, where to buy, etc. when not knowing much about cars.

fred246

You just need to buy an ultra-reliable very old car. That gives you the combination of low depreciation with low repair costs.

Chris4

fred246 said:

You just need to buy an ultra-reliable very old car. That gives you the combination of low depreciation with low repair costs.

Thank you. Any personal recommendations?