Keep my car or upgrade

Grumpy_chap

Keep the Audi.

macman

The only place with ULEZ actually in place for private vehicles is central London, with the expansion out to the NCR and SCR due in October this year. Everywhere else is just provisional, so actual implementation for private vehicles might be 5 years away. With most large city centres having taken a huge economic hit during covid, LA's are not going to introduce measures any time soon that may reduce the resumption of 'normal' business activity. 
Non Euro 6 diesels will still be perfectly saleable locally: the dealers will simply move them along to areas not affected by the ULEZ's, which will be 95% of the country.

AdrianC

Goudy said:

col81 said:

My audi has just had a full service, cambelt water pump done and 4 new tyres. My point is doing 20k I was looking at a passat manual rather than the auto audi. I was looking to go to a 65 plate with 95k on it. My audi has never let me down. It's simply the fuel costs. The insurance is £150 cheaper in vw and the tax £30 rather than £220 in the audi. I would need to borrow the cash for the upgrade

Not a minor issue for the OP.

They stated they are looking at a 65 plate Passat, so that would have been registered between Sept 2015 and end of Feb 2016.

All diesels registered from Sept 2015 had to be Euro 6 compliant, though many manufacturers released Euro 6 cars prior to this date.

So a Passet B8 registered after Sept 2015 would be Euro 6.

When I search those dates, I get over 600 cars and they are all ULEZ compliant.

And how do they fit the £7k budget (which the OP is going to be borrowing for)?

Autotrader has 752 2015-on diesel manual Passats under 100k.
Six are not flagged as ULEZ, so 746.

But now bring that budget in...
33 are under £7.5k, 72 under £8k. To cover 600 cars, you'd be north of £13k.

mcpitman

Keep the audi.

You keep mentioning budget and needing to borrow - keep the audi

You keep talking of fabled MPG's from the Passat, only the one that's based on driving it like you have a spinal patient loose in the boot and a basket of kittens on the passenger seat will you ever get that. - keep the audi.

As already worked out for you 31 months to "break even" from the cost of upgrade - keep the audi

General theme here - keep the audi

Goudy

It doesn't really matter what is on Autotrader or elsewhere for that matter.

The OP is stating they are already looking at a 65 plate Passet with 95k on the clock and I pointed out that will be Euro 6.

As they are considering it, it's must be within or very near their budget.

The question was to stick or twist with another car.

I made the point that older diesels are already being charged in some areas because of their emisson status and more areas will certainly follow. If they stick with a Euro 5 it might effect them sooner rather than later.

How soon these areas follow is questionable. It seems Manchester is some way off with a private car charge but by reading the OP drives 20k miles a year, they aren't just pottering around Miles Platting taking the kids to Karate on a Tuesday evening, they are obviously getting about a fair bit, most likely to other large towns and cities which might have emission plans far in advance of Manchester.

What is pretty clear is there will be a repayment plan for the borrowed money that might be used to swap and that is likely to be over a couple of years at least.

It wouldn't make much sense to borrow this sort of money over say 3 years to then find out you've bought another Euro 5 car that will be charged a fee every time you travelled to work in it in 2 years time, yet another years payments are still due.

It might be wise to cash in on the current Euro 5 car now while it has some value and swap to a Euro 6, particularly if they plan on keeping the newer car longer than a couple of years, it's cheaper to tax, cheaper to insure and perhaps returnsbetter mpg.

It might be wiser to keep the current Euro 5, run it until the charges are implemented, then swap out at that time, but this seems a problem for the OP due to the reportedly low mpg, the higher tax and higher insurance of the current car.

It would be pretty unwise to make a mistake and swap out a Euro 5 for another Euro 5 with a rather large loan, be tied into a repayment plan and have to pay repeated emissions charges.

Because of these things I encouraged them to consider the emissions of what they have and what they might plan on buying, I didn't give them an opinion as only they will be able to make the choice, hopefully a better one when they consider things carefully.

Biggus_Dickus

Goudy said:

It doesn't really matter what is on Autotrader or elsewhere for that matter.

The OP is stating they are already looking at a 65 plate Passet with 95k on the clock and I pointed out that will be Euro 6.

As they are considering it, it's must be within or very near their budget.

The question was to stick or twist with another car.

I made the point that older diesels are already being charged in some areas because of their emisson status and more areas will certainly follow. If they stick with a Euro 5 it might effect them sooner rather than later.

How soon these areas follow is questionable. It seems Manchester is some way off with a private car charge but by reading the OP drives 20k miles a year, they aren't just pottering around Miles Platting taking the kids to Karate on a Tuesday evening, they are obviously getting about a fair bit, most likely to other large towns and cities which might have emission plans far in advance of Manchester.

What is pretty clear is there will be a repayment plan for the borrowed money that might be used to swap and that is likely to be over a couple of years at least.

It wouldn't make much sense to borrow this sort of money over say 3 years to then find out you've bought another Euro 5 car that will be charged a fee every time you travelled to work in it in 2 years time, yet another years payments are still due.

It might be wise to cash in on the current Euro 5 car now while it has some value and swap to a Euro 6, particularly if they plan on keeping the newer car longer than a couple of years, it's cheaper to tax, cheaper to insure and perhaps returnsbetter mpg.

It might be wiser to keep the current Euro 5, run it until the charges are implemented, then swap out at that time, but this seems a problem for the OP due to the reportedly low mpg, the higher tax and higher insurance of the current car.

It would be pretty unwise to make a mistake and swap out a Euro 5 for another Euro 5 with a rather large loan, be tied into a repayment plan and have to pay repeated emissions charges.

Because of these things I encouraged them to consider the emissions of what they have and what they might plan on buying, I didn't give them an opinion as only they will be able to make the choice, hopefully a better one when they consider things carefully.

One wonders how the predicted(??) long-term drop in road traffic will affect various local authorities' perceptions when it comes to introducing congestion/emission charges for their city centres.

Will the reduction in road traffic be enough to stave off such measures until ‘emission free’ electric vehicles become prevalent?

I saw a Railway Network chappie the other day saying they were only expecting 80% of pre-covid19 passengers to return to regular rail travel when things get back to normal due to the meteoric rise of people working from/at home and other factors. I guess it remains to be seen exactly how it actually pans out.

I was a city-centre polluter/congester for many years until I vacated my Manchester office and started to work at/from home. I moved out when the technology was good enough to allow remote working, and that was 20 years ago!;...on so many levels it was the best decision I ever made.

Remote working doesn’t suit every business or employee of course,  but I’m amazed it’s taken a worldwide pandemic to highlight the many advantages that  remote working offers,...for employer, employee and the wider community.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grumpy_chap

Biggus_Dickus said:

Remote working doesn’t suit every business or employee of course,  but I’m amazed it’s taken a worldwide pandemic to highlight the many advantages that  remote working offers,...for employer, employee and the wider community.

Because too many managers are afraid of innovation and change and scared to rock-the-boat, plus the "power trip" of being able to step away from their desk and survey their empire with all the minions slaving away.

macman

I don't see potentially higher depreciation on a Euro 5 vehicle really being a factor should a ULEZ emerge in Manchester. That will not happen for at least two years, by which time the OP's Audi will be about 14 years old and at about 167K. 

col81

VW golf tdi manual 150bhp? 

Biggus_Dickus

col81 said:

VW golf tdi manual 150bhp? 

Your annual journey profile appears to be 7k miles town/urban plus 13k motorway. Are you comfortable with 20k per year in a manual?;

...on a personal note the thought of switching to a manual with such mileage would fill me with dread. 😯