Budgeting for a used car or big repair bill?

fred246

The £725 bill becomes £100 when you know how to do it yourself. Makes a difference. You never get to the point where you say "this car is costing me too much".

Ditzy_Mitzy

When I was young we had a Mk2 Escort, which went and was replaced by a Vauxhall Cavalier.  The Cavalier did the job for family holidays on the continent, with a roof rack fitted.  It was replaced by another Cavalier and then a Mk1 Mondeo (much better).  My father stuck with Mondeos after that, until getting rid completely.  My parents now share a Ford Focus of the same model as yours.  It does the job for a couple and luggage.  
For three a family sized car is nicer.  A pushchair is a temporary incumbrance, unless you have more children.  Four plus pushchair plus luggage is more difficult.  The trouble with this sort of thinking is that one keep going up and up in size until one thinks 'blow it, I'll buy a Range Rover', which is unwise.  
The best thing to do, no doubt, is to get the work done on the Focus and to give consideration to a Mondeo sized car.  Your child will thank you for it in years to come, as long journeys in the back of such a thing are preferable to those in the back of a Focus.  It doesn't necessarily have to be that expensive.  There are plenty of Mondeos, estates included, available for a few thousand pounds.

jimjames

fred246 said:

The £725 bill becomes £100 when you know how to do it yourself. Makes a difference. You never get to the point where you say "this car is costing me too much".

Going from doing zero maintenance to cambelts is quite a push. I maintain my cars but wouldn't do a cam belt. The oil/filter/air filter/cabin filter are all perfectly do-able and will cut the £250-300 extra off that £725 bill for a cost of probably £30-40 for parts.

Sea_Shell

Does anyone still use those small lightweight, but very basic, "travel" buggies anymore?

Like the ones we had in the 80's.  They collapsed into quite a small thin package.

Is it that an option?

forgotmyname

jimjames said:

fred246 said:

The £725 bill becomes £100 when you know how to do it yourself. Makes a difference. You never get to the point where you say "this car is costing me too much".

Going from doing zero maintenance to cambelts is quite a push. I maintain my cars but wouldn't do a cam belt. The oil/filter/air filter/cabin filter are all perfectly do-able and will cut the £250-300 extra off that £725 bill for a cost of probably £30-40 for parts.

Not forgetting that buying the tools to do the job the first time will probably be double what the garage want.  I have spent a forune on tools

over the years and there is always something else I need.

williamgriffin

forgotmyname said:

jimjames said:

fred246 said:

The £725 bill becomes £100 when you know how to do it yourself. Makes a difference. You never get to the point where you say "this car is costing me too much".

Going from doing zero maintenance to cambelts is quite a push. I maintain my cars but wouldn't do a cam belt. The oil/filter/air filter/cabin filter are all perfectly do-able and will cut the £250-300 extra off that £725 bill for a cost of probably £30-40 for parts.

Not forgetting that buying the tools to do the job the first time will probably be double what the garage want.  I have spent a forune on tools

over the years and there is always something else I need.

Buying tools is a fact of life, you just gotta have em. 

Herzlos

Sea_Shell said:

Does anyone still use those small lightweight, but very basic, "travel" buggies anymore?

Like the ones we had in the 80's.  They collapsed into quite a small thin package.

Is it that an option?

They do, and they are brilliant for slightly bigger kids. The OP talking about a huge buggy makes me think it's a very young kid in a travel system. When we had a newborn the buggy with bassonette took up the whole boot with the parcel shelf removed. Once they moved into the regular seat part it got a lot better until we moved to the travel buggies.

Shoxt3r

GrumpyDil said:

Your other option is to keep the existing car and hire a larger one for any odd weeks that you go away. 
It's always difficult to decide what to do but part of you decision seems to be around getting rid of your car due to the costs of maintenance.
I'd suggest a better plan would be to keep the existing car and save what you were going to spend buying a new one so you can buy the new one, when you need it, for cash. 

Good idea! I think that may be our best option then really, at least for the time-being, especially for the longer journeys (not that we'll likely do that any time soon!).

Herzlos said:

Good point on the car hire, it's an option that almost everyone forgets.

Shoxt3r said:

Yeah that was my thought to be honest, trade-in before it loses more money as it gets closer to the "deadline". My guess is that with a new cambelt it won't add any more value, maybe just keep it on an even keel (i.e. it'll be worth £4,000 now for example, £3,500 as I get closer to the time and then £4,000 once the belt is done - with my complete lack of knowledge of how valuations work! haha)?

Pretty much. It's value will be based on all the servicing being done, and buyers will need to factor that bill in mind. It's just something a buyer will do to knock £500 off.

Shoxt3r said:

Good point about the roofbox - my only concern is where you can store the things haha (we have no garage, just a Keter box...or the loft!).

We don't do much mileage (or visit multi-story car parks) so just leave it on most of the time.
As with rental cars, there are places where you can rent a roof box for a couple of weeks when you need it. They are very seasonal so you can potentially get away with buying one in the spring and selling it again after your holiday.

Yeah that was my thinking as well - so basically, we can't afford a new car at this point (or it would be a struggle to finance) so just get our current car fixed and then at least it will keep it's value going.

Norman_Castle said:

How much longer will you need to take a pushchair? Can you get a smaller pushchair or put it on the roof?

https://kit.honestjohn.co.uk/top-tens/top-10-best-roof-bags/

I think we'll probably need to keep the pushchair until our daughter's at least 3 so roughly another year or so. A roof bag would be a good option maybe but I do wonder about security compared with a solid box (which in itself comes with its own problems of storing the thing haha).

fred246 said:

The £725 bill becomes £100 when you know how to do it yourself. Makes a difference. You never get to the point where you say "this car is costing me too much".

Yeah true, although I don't trust myself to do other than the bare minimum when it comes to servicing cars, especially traveling with my family - if it was just me I might consider it but there's also the fact I'd have peace of mind by going through a garage I suppose!

Ditzy_Mitzy said:

When I was young we had a Mk2 Escort, which went and was replaced by a Vauxhall Cavalier.  The Cavalier did the job for family holidays on the continent, with a roof rack fitted.  It was replaced by another Cavalier and then a Mk1 Mondeo (much better).  My father stuck with Mondeos after that, until getting rid completely.  My parents now share a Ford Focus of the same model as yours.  It does the job for a couple and luggage.  
For three a family sized car is nicer.  A pushchair is a temporary incumbrance, unless you have more children.  Four plus pushchair plus luggage is more difficult.  The trouble with this sort of thinking is that one keep going up and up in size until one thinks 'blow it, I'll buy a Range Rover', which is unwise.  
The best thing to do, no doubt, is to get the work done on the Focus and to give consideration to a Mondeo sized car.  Your child will thank you for it in years to come, as long journeys in the back of such a thing are preferable to those in the back of a Focus.  It doesn't necessarily have to be that expensive.  There are plenty of Mondeos, estates included, available for a few thousand pounds.

True, the pushchair is likely to be a temporary thing until we get something smaller as our daughter gets older. It's strange how we seem to have a lot less boot space than our old 307 - I guess that's just modern cars and safety standards for you!
Good idea about getting the repairs done and considering an upgrade to a slightly larger car. I did think about getting an estate and basically being done with the size problem but maybe just an upgrade to a Mondeo-sized car would be enough (I test drove an Insignia and a Mondeo last year and liked both, especially in terms of size - our current pushchair even fitted with ample room to spare!).

jimjames said:

fred246 said:

The £725 bill becomes £100 when you know how to do it yourself. Makes a difference. You never get to the point where you say "this car is costing me too much".

Going from doing zero maintenance to cambelts is quite a push. I maintain my cars but wouldn't do a cam belt. The oil/filter/air filter/cabin filter are all perfectly do-able and will cut the £250-300 extra off that £725 bill for a cost of probably £30-40 for parts.

Good to know - I think I just worry about any problems with the car if I was to do it and I'd have no comeback...

forgotmyname said:

jimjames said:

fred246 said:

The £725 bill becomes £100 when you know how to do it yourself. Makes a difference. You never get to the point where you say "this car is costing me too much".

Going from doing zero maintenance to cambelts is quite a push. I maintain my cars but wouldn't do a cam belt. The oil/filter/air filter/cabin filter are all perfectly do-able and will cut the £250-300 extra off that £725 bill for a cost of probably £30-40 for parts.

Not forgetting that buying the tools to do the job the first time will probably be double what the garage want.  I have spent a forune on tools

over the years and there is always something else I need.

Yeah that would be a major concern for me really - I buy enough one-off tools when doing DIY to be honest, nevermind getting them for the car as well haha!

theoretica

Shoxt3r said:

I don't, no. My concern as I said to Hunyani_Flight_825 is that anything in the cabin area floats around in an accident so I try to keep luggage in the cabin to a minimum where possible. True - it would likely only be a couple of times a year (normally) when we'd go away.

That is why I own luggage straps.  Also some things on the back seat can be secured with the seatbelt.  It's a bit of a nuisance, but I don't need to do it often.

Shoxt3r

Herzlos said:

Sea_Shell said:

Does anyone still use those small lightweight, but very basic, "travel" buggies anymore?

Like the ones we had in the 80's.  They collapsed into quite a small thin package.

Is it that an option?

They do, and they are brilliant for slightly bigger kids. The OP talking about a huge buggy makes me think it's a very young kid in a travel system. When we had a newborn the buggy with bassonette took up the whole boot with the parcel shelf removed. Once they moved into the regular seat part it got a lot better until we moved to the travel buggies.

Yes exactly that actually haha. We've had a Joie travel system since she was a newborn and have recently switched to using the seat part but it still completely fills the boot and pops the parcel shelf up! We sometimes take her out with a trike which has an adjustable seat but it still takes over the boot...