How long can I keep my car?

[Deleted User]

jeradon said:

I keep my car until I get tired of it.

The antithesis of MSE.

iainscomputer

MrsStepford said:

What about leasing ? 

No different to buying a new car, you are still just paying the depreciation on a new vehicle, the most expensive ways of running a car.

Richard53

coffeehound said:

ratrace said:

I would keep it untill its uneconomical to repair

How do you define that, though?  Think that is what the OP is asking.  I heard one guy say he got rid of a car when a bill came in that was 10% of the residual value.

If you need a trigger to help you make a decision, I suppose that's as good as any. But it would mean that if I got a bill for £500 I would be looking for a new car, which given the good state of my existing car would be a nonsense.

At some point, a car will become virtually worthless - scrap value only. At that point, the only consideration is how much you are prepared to pay to remain mobile. A bill of £8-900 a year, on a car that is worth £200, might still be good value if the car was OK.

Willsie01

There’s another way of looking at this. Say you changed your car every 2/3 years. It’d cost you the difference between what you sold your car for and what you paid for the replacement. Repeat this for the length of time you could have kept the original car for and how much will you spend? How much more will that be then buying a car after you’ve run the original into the ground so it’s valueless?
 There’s also the benefits of having an updated model frequently. Car design improves rapidly. Safety, performance and efficiency. Some might feel frequent changes are worth it.

LightFlare

The car market has changed massively In The 3 years since the thread was started

Goudy

There are lots of factors to consider and there's no right or wrong answer.

It's funny how we look at cars as being some sort of asset and talk about depreciation.
We don't talk about washing machines in the same way.
When I was a child there was little difference in price between the two!

It's a tool and some people don't want the hassle of sharpening that tool too often and are prepared to pay for that.
Others are happy to keep sharpening that tool over and over, if they can.

Within warranty any defect in the tool is often taken care of by the manufacture and some like that.
On the other hand and there is evidence on this forum, repairs out of warranty don't always go swimmingly and some owners are downright ripped off.
(to balance things up, there's also evidence they don't always go swimmingly in warranty but there's still that safety net).

Personally I've rolled around under cars pretty much all my adult life, a bit before that if truth be known and I just can't be bothered anymore.
My time is much more precious these days and I've rather pay up front to get me where I need to go.

(since doing this I actually think I am in a better position financially. It's much easier to plan my budget as there are very little unexpected costs I would otherwise have to budget for)

OK, initially it appears expensive chopping an old clunker in for a new car, but the subsequent changes after that aren't so bad.
I'm lucky I can get discounts on some new cars that makes the change later a little more bearable. The "loss" isn't quite as high as the trend in depreciation would otherwise be, though I like to think of depreciation as the cost of use.

If I can balance that out to a reasonable amount I can easily afford, then why not?
Or I could take a risk, but why?

Something else, if people didn't do this, where do all the "buy used and run it forever" get their cars from?

If I was in this second category, I encourage those thinking of buying new and keep for a few years.
We all know what happened to the used market after the pandemic and new cars weren't readily available, the use prices shot up!

The more used cars on the market, the more it drives down the prices and creates a larger stock of good quality used cars to choose from.
You can't have one without the other.

Sterlingtimes

I pay £280 monthly for a Ford Puma that is renewed every two years. If Ford increases this figure by a stepped amount for an electric replacement, then I plan to keep the last petrol car until I can no longer drive or until I am dead.

When the government bans new petrol cars in 2030, I will be 74. I suppose that I would run my last car into the ground.

Ibrahim5

3 years ago our car was failed on its MOT by a new, inexperienced MOT tester on a few subjective issues and recommended the scrapyard. We paid £1000 and we have only bought one new tyre since. We could have got a new car on £280 a month=£10k instead. It didn't even have any advisories on last MOT.