Forget that I ever existed

fred246

The OP probably doesn't do many miles. Maybe under 1000 a year. You don't have many bills for tyres and brake pads. You worry more about perishing than wear. One option may be to buy a high mileage car cheaply. As long as it seems OK and has been serviced you know that you aren't going to put many miles on the clock. So it may give many more years of good service at low annual mileage.

fred246

It's expensive per mile but not a lot to have access to a car 24 hours a day. Tyres last me at least 20000 miles and brake pads about 50000 miles. If you only do 2000 miles a year it's irrelevant. I assume at 20 years old it's probably more than just tyres or brake pads.

Scrapit

ushjr said:

Lots of questions, I'll try to cover them best I can.

There are 2 things primarily driving the cost of the MOT. One is a minor problem that's expensive to fix the other was an advisory last year which is a lot more serious and probably means the beginning of the end for my car.

The maintenance costs are the only unknown year on year costs. I pay around £200 insurance and £150 tax. It's too old to depreciate now and I can't remember the last time I paid to park it. Last year I paid £192 for service and MOT and that was it. 

I don't finish work till 6pm therefore I don't have time to walk to the supermarket in the evening. The thing with taxi drivers does happen, I read about a taxi driver being jailed for it.

One of my none supermarket journeys by public transport would require 2 train journeys, a bus journey and a 10 mile walk.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I also use my car to take my garden waste to the tip because I would have to pay for it to be taken in the bin collection. I've taken other things to the tip as well. 

6pm is too late to walk to the supermarket?

Herzlos

There are 285,000 taxi drivers in the UK. I wouldn't worry about the behaviour of 1 of them making a trend. It's bad business and an easy way to get caught, too.

You're at £550 just to have the car sat on your drive, without any maintenance work. Most of those trips could be replaced albeit taking stuff to the tip would require you to pay a garden waste removal company rather than a taxi or rental car.

Scrapit

ushjr said:

Scrapit said:

ushjr said:

Lots of questions, I'll try to cover them best I can.

There are 2 things primarily driving the cost of the MOT. One is a minor problem that's expensive to fix the other was an advisory last year which is a lot more serious and probably means the beginning of the end for my car.

The maintenance costs are the only unknown year on year costs. I pay around £200 insurance and £150 tax. It's too old to depreciate now and I can't remember the last time I paid to park it. Last year I paid £192 for service and MOT and that was it. 

I don't finish work till 6pm therefore I don't have time to walk to the supermarket in the evening. The thing with taxi drivers does happen, I read about a taxi driver being jailed for it.

One of my none supermarket journeys by public transport would require 2 train journeys, a bus journey and a 10 mile walk.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I also use my car to take my garden waste to the tip because I would have to pay for it to be taken in the bin collection. I've taken other things to the tip as well. 

6pm is too late to walk to the supermarket?

Yes, it means my evenings are far too short and it would be very damaging to my mental health to spend the whole evening going to the supermarket. What I do is put a pizza in the oven as soon as I get home, it takes me around 20 minutes to drive to the supermarket, do my shopping and drive home in time for my pizza to be ready. It would take nearly 20 minutes to walk to the supermarket alone.

6pm is very average for a finishing time, no hardship there.
20 minutes to do the shopping with a car. Lets say 18:30 at a push. Pizza, margarita 8-10 mins cooking , something with meat on 12-16. So its now 18:45  10 maybe 15 minutes to eat. 19:00 on the nose. Walk and din dins finishes, what,19:30 latest. Hardly all night. Also, pizza, not the best scoff. Your assessments are a bit away with the fairies.

elsien

Exercise is good for mental health. 

And you only go to the supermarket 2 or 3 times a week. One of which could be at the weekend. So only 2/7 days with a brisk evening walk. 

Herzlos

ushjr said:

Yes, it means my evenings are far too short and it would be very damaging to my mental health to spend the whole evening going to the supermarket. What I do is put a pizza in the oven as soon as I get home, it takes me around 20 minutes to drive to the supermarket, do my shopping and drive home in time for my pizza to be ready. It would take nearly 20 minutes to walk to the supermarket alone.

How long are you spending in the supermarket? 1 mile is going to be ~2 mins in a car, assuming a 30 zone and parking etc. So you must be completing your shopping and getting back in the car in about 6 minutes?
It's really not recommended to put food in the over and then go out - there's all sorts of risk there and I doubt an insurance company would be happy about paying out if you burnt the house down.

You were talking about going to the supermarket 2/3 times week or so, so couldn't you go directly there from work, shop, get a taxi home and then eat dinner 30 minutes later than usual? Or do a bigger shop less often?
If you're eating pizza every night for dinner (like I did in my 20's) then the 20 minute walk might be well worth doing (I wish I had).
You're not going to be spending your whole evening shopping, you're looking at spending at most an extra 18 minutes getting there.

I had a similarish lifestyle for long enough, except I walked home from the train station (about 1 mile, with a small detour to go to a supermarket), it's really not bad once you get used to it. I got home about 7 though, oven on, got stuff done whilst pizza cooked.

NottinghamKnight

Far higher probability of the OPs house burning down due to an unattended oven pizza catching fire than being burgled by a taxi driver.

elsien

So you’re back to fixing your current car or buying another then.
Given that you don’t want to share the details of the work/costs that need doing, there’s not much else useful anyone  can say. 

[Deleted User]

NottinghamKnight said:

Far higher probability of the OPs house burning down due to an unattended oven pizza catching fire than being burgled by a taxi driver.

Everyone knows that firefighters steal things from your house while they pretend to put the fire out(not really true but the OP may have read about it once)