How do you currently afford your car?

iwb100

Yeah it’s a good point. We have cars on PCP or PCH but we deliberately went way under on our mortgage to leave us with disposable income for the cars and holidays. And some to save up with. So instead of a ready made house we got a doer upper and saved £200k on the mortgage. But if we were up to the max there I’d be doing bangernomics. Unless you are loaded you have to decide what your priorities are. Our house is nice now but we did much ourselves and saved money on the mortgage. End of the day money is a resource and it’s up to individuals how they use theirs. The problem comes when people just keep borrowing and have no contingency in place.

Car finance if you know what you are doing and get deals and are prepared to shop around and negotiate is not necessarily a bad idea. But if you are borrowed up to the eyeballs elsewhere then it’s not a good plan. I bought the cheapest of cheap second hand bangers till we had our family home and had sorted that. 

Brie

@Bonniepurple
May I ask why you don't use the motability scheme?  Wouldn't that eliminate needing to get a loan?? Or have I missed something?

maxmycardagain

ask yourself what mileage you do?

once retired maybe 6000/year?

first - dont buy a diesel

2nd - erm.............dunno

motorguy

maxmycardagain said:

ask yourself what mileage you do?

once retired maybe 6000/year?

first - dont buy a diesel

2nd - erm.............dunno

+1

I stopped buying diesels some years back, despite being a big advocate of them for a long time.

Not worth the risk of DPF issues when i dont do big miles.

Brie

Grumpy_chap said:

At the moment, it is impossible to see how anyone can afford a new car - I just walked past Toyota this morning and they had a used 1yo low-spec Yaris on the forecourt at over £20k.  That's a "nothing special" car and a whole year's wage at NMW.

Since when is a £20k car affordable on NMW?  £9.50 an hour with 1820 hours in a 35 hours a week year less tax & NI = take home of something under £14k!!

I make more than NMW but can't afford to spend £20k outright and wouldn't consider buying on car credit either.  Instead I wait till I have a good decent zero % purchase or transfer deal on a credit card and buy a second hand car on that and ensure it's paid off before it costs me any interest.

Bonniepurple

Brie said:

@Bonniepurple
May I ask why you don't use the motability scheme?  Wouldn't that eliminate needing to get a loan?? Or have I missed something?

Two reasons.  One - I don’t qualify (I only get standard rate mobility and you need higher rate).  Two (linked to that) - if I were to have a Motobility vehicle I’d be terrified that I would lose the entitlement and be car less (and therefore pretty much housebound).

GunJack

motorguy said:

maxmycardagain said:

ask yourself what mileage you do?

once retired maybe 6000/year?

first - dont buy a diesel

2nd - erm.............dunno

+1

I stopped buying diesels some years back, despite being a big advocate of them for a long time.

Not worth the risk of DPF issues when i dont do big miles.

just buy an older one without a DPF.......works for me

Johnmcl7

I have an 11 year old Mazda6 2.5 estate I bought in cash for 5K plus a 6K trade in when it was three years old.  It's the longest I've owned a car but I don't have much interest in a newer one as this one has been incredibly reliable, it's still a great well specced car and with large, manual petrol estates being thin on the ground these days there's not actually a newer car I want.

Grumpy_chap

molerat said:

Grumpy_chap said:

At the moment, it is impossible to see how anyone can afford a new car - I just walked past Toyota this morning and they had a used 1yo low-spec Yaris on the forecourt at over £20k.  That's a "nothing special" car and a whole year's wage at NMW.

Lots of people obviously can though.  £20K is not particularly expensive, what I paid a couple of years ago but was a bargain as the dealership down the road had exactly the same for £25K..

It's a lot for a small, basic, non-premium brand car.

[Deleted User]

2014 Ford Focus bought in 2019 for £5395 cash after part-ex.
2002 Ford Focus bought 2021 for £600 cash.

The 2014 Focus is diesel and I use it for work through the week while I potter about in the 2002 petrol Focus at the weekend when doing odd jobs, tip runs, etc etc.

Never leased a car or any of that PCP stuff, looked into it in the past but just couldn't stomach it.