Forget that I ever existed

Bonniepurple

OP - how many miles a year do you normally do?  Not right now, but normally?  You might be surprised.  It depends where you live, how able bodied you are, and how old you are.  I’m lucky enough to have a bus stop outside my door - but the bus doesn’t go past the supermarket.  If I were to visit my Dad (25 miles, about 50 minutes drive away) it would take me 2 buses and a half mile walk each way - and it would take hours.  If you live somewhere where there’s decent public transport, going to places that you want to go to, at times you want to go there, and taxis/Ubers are available whenever, try without the car.  SORN it.  If, however, the public transport options are limited, or you have problems walking (I do - hence a half mile walk is no longer an option for me!), then keep the car going.  

And yes, I can sympathise with the expensive car thing.  I’ve got one car in for an MOT and brakes tomorrow, followed in the next few weeks by the other for a service, timing belt and clutch.  That is going to be painful,

Petriix

I just can't get over the nonsense in this thread. You won't get a taxi a couple of times a week because they're expensive and they might burgle you?!
Do you have the slightest idea how much it costs to insure, tax, maintain and fuel a car in total? A ballpark figure would be £800 per year plus 15p per mile, not considering depreciation or the cost to replace the vehicle eventually. That's ~ £30 per week to spend on taxis or hire cars, train fares etc..
Don't get me started on your outrageous stereotyping of taxi drivers as burglars. What advice were you looking for? A kindly forumite to fix your car for free perhaps?

dipsomaniac

Taxis are fine if you live in London, expensive, inconvenient & inflexible otherwise.  Where I live taxis don't like driving to the suburbs just to do a 1 mile journey. 

[Deleted User]

ushjr said:

. If the taxi driver knows I'm out he knows my home is empty and could therefore burgle it.

Make sure to tell the taxi office that when you book a taxi.
With that attitude you`ll never have to worry about being in a taxi and the driver knowing your home is empty.
Mainly because no firm will entertain you as a customer.

fred246

I kept a car for ages spending very little on it. Once it's worth less than £1K depreciation is negligible. I was paying £100 emissions tax, £120 Insurance £30 service £40 MOT. So about £300 a year. I didn't use it much but it was always available. Didn't seem any point getting rid of it. I remember buying a copy of WhatCar. They were quoting £20K 3 year ownership costs for very average family car. I nearly choked.

fred246

I always wonder what I would do if I had say £3K to spend on a car. I would be tempted to buy one for £1K and if it wasn't OK just scrap it and get another for £1K. You want a car that is fine and just needs a few consumables. If you paid £3K you would be more tempted to throw good money after bad. My current car is fantastic and it's been worth less than £1K for years.

prowla

Don't think of it as the cost of maintaining the current car vs. its value; think of it as the cost of being mobile and also against the cost of buying another (which will also need maintenance).

marlot

ushjr said:

victor2 said:

ushjr said:

TimSynths said:

Taxis.     .

You mean get a taxi everywhere I drive?
Yes, because you said "I don't do many miles. I drive weekly to the supermarket which is less than a mile away and the odd longer journey every 2-3 months."

ushjr said:

TimSynths said:

Taxis.     .

That would be expensive, plus I would never get a taxi to pick me up from home because the taxi driver would know I'm out.

Erm, that doesn't make sense!

Comments above

A taxi round here costs £5 before you go anywhere. That's £520 a year before going anywhere and then there's the longer journeys. If the taxi driver knows I'm out he knows my home is empty and could therefore burgle it.

And how much will a replacement car cost before you go anywhere?  Tax, insurance, MOT, servicing, depreciation.
I persuaded my mum to put her car costs into a taxi fund a few years ago.  She donates the money left over each year (usually about half of it) to charity.

NottinghamKnight

Surely if the OP mentions to the taxi driver that they are too poor to spend a few hundred on running a car then the taxi driver, or his mates, will dismiss his residence as a burglary target due to the lack of valuable goods.

Mickey666

fred246 said:

I always wonder what I would do if I had say £3K to spend on a car. I would be tempted to buy one for £1K and if it wasn't OK just scrap it and get another for £1K. You want a car that is fine and just needs a few consumables. If you paid £3K you would be more tempted to throw good money after bad. My current car is fantastic and it's been worth less than £1K for years.

Part of the problem with car costs is that most people don't really budget for them, as in they don't pay each time they use them, so the costs build up and have to be paid in a big lump.  The taxman allows 45p per mile as the cost of running a car, so a 10 mile trip will cost £4.50.  But few people will put that £4.50 aside in readiness to pay the big bills as they arrive. 

If you're unlucky and your car happens to need all new tyres, brake pads and oil change all at the same time then it's going to be a big bill.  If your car happens to be a reliable 'old banger' (ie anything over about 10-12 years old) and almost worthless it could easily be that the bill will be more than the car's market value . . . . but so what?  If you want to run a a car you have to pay for tyres, and brake pads, and oil changes and all the other things that make up that 45p/mile, so the best approach is to budget for those costs.

I buy all my food with a credit card, but that doesn't I can eat for free for a month and then suddenly complain when the bill arrives!  Car's are very similar.  The daily running cost might be 'free' but it's only because you're storing up the real cost until the inevitable big bill arrives.