Should I keep my old car or buy another one?

J2637

I'd really appreciate some help with deciding whether to keep my old car or to get a new one.

It's Ford Focus from the year 2000, with around 95,000 miles on the clock.

It runs well without any problems as far as I can tell. I'm happy driving it.

At the next MOT which is coming up very soon, it will need 4 new tyres, and the cam belt hasn't been changed for a long time so it should have a new one. This will cost around £750 in total including VAT.

I don't know anything about cars but I have a good trusted local garage that I use. I do the recommended service or full service each year and get all repairs done that they recommend each year.

The value of the car is around £200 on the buy a car websites, so there is basically no resale value.

When I next need to buy a car, I'm planning to get a very reliable second hand one and expect it to keep going for many years. I would be looking at spending around £5,000 (cash not finance).

I am wondering whether I should get the tyres and cam belt and keep going with my Ford, or whether I should buy a new (second hand) one now?

On the one hand, I can keep driving with an extra cost of £750 this year, and it could keep going for many more years (or could it, I don't know).

While on the other hand, if I'm going to get another car anyway at some point, and it's going to keep going for a long time, maybe I should get it now, and save potentially more surprise bills on the old Ford. And perhaps I would be safer on the road with the newer car (I don't know if things can suddenly go wrong while driving an older car and potentially cause an accident).

Any help much appreciated.

Cressida100

Personally I would keep the Focus. You know the history. If you use the same garage regularly ask advice from the mechanics who work on your car. Once you get the tyres and cam belt sorted the car is not costing anything. 

I drive a 12 year old small car, £30 a year to tax and cheap to run. I have it serviced yearly when the MOT is due. Approx 80K on the clock. I could afford a hire spec newer car but will keep this one as long as possible. 

Goudy

It's a little like out of the fat into the fire.

Ok your current car has little value but you aren't making a massive leap up the ladder with a £5000 car, that will more than likely need money spending on that too. Probably sooner than you think/budget for.

By the sounds of it you have looked after your current car and you know what it needs to keep it running.
(you'd be surprised many don't and are shocked they need tyres!)

Yes, other things could pop up that need repairing that could make it uneconomical to repair but if you've had the basics done, like brakes etc then it would be tempting to trust it a bit longer.

You say it needs tyres for sure, get them done.
Shop around for them, look at Asda tyres and Black Circles, they tend to come out cheaper and only fit a mid range set. They will be perfectly safe to use.

Cam belt? Well as you say the car has little value, I might be tempted it risk it and not bother.
If it snaps, ruins the engine and you have to scrap it,  you've not lost much and you still have the £5000 to buy another or a bit more if you continue to save.

Mark_d

If you spend £750 on you car, it would be worth £200.  That doesn't sound like like a clever move to me.

The reason your 24 year old car would only be worth £200 is because at that age many parts/components will start to fail.

My advice would be to get rid of your car in it's current state, maybe try webuyanycar.com , and buy a newish car (say under 5 years old).

A newer car would likely be more fuel efficient, safer, more environmentally-friendly...

fatbelly

If all that is wrong with it is what you say, I'd stick with it and get both those jobs done.

Once you start getting advisories on structural corrosion the writing is on the wall but it sounds like you have looked after this one.

It's a myth that newer cars are more reliable. They are more complex, which means more to go wrong. You would also be surprised at what 5k will buy these days - would still have a lot of miles and age. Just paid 5k for a 10 y-o 70k mile Roomster. I wouldn't bet on it being more reliable than yours

I agree that when it comes to tyres, do the research on Blackcircles or similar. They often do short-term deals on particular brands.

If you are looking for mid-price tyres that are nearly as good as the premiums you are looking at names like Kumho, Hankook, maybe Toyo.

Mildly_Miffed

A Focus - even 24yo - with new MOT and new tyres is worth a LOT more than £200. It should sell easily for a grand or perhaps more, depending on how tidy it is.

WBAC might not give you more, but that's not the same thing at all.

Goudy

Mark_d said:

If you spend £750 on you car, it would be worth £200.  That doesn't sound like like a clever move to me.

The reason your 24 year old car would only be worth £200 is because at that age many parts/components will start to fail.

My advice would be to get rid of your car in it's current state, maybe try webuyanycar.com , and buy a newish car (say under 5 years old).

A newer car would likely be more fuel efficient, safer, more environmentally-friendly...

Spending £750 isn't going to add any value expect in terms of usage, that is true.

They have also looked after it pretty well, so not all those parts will be 24 years old.

If you spend that and get another year, that's not bad value. In fact, spending that amount and getting another 6 months isn't bad value when you consider the deprecation of a newer car.

I've had my car 4 years from new and apart from the money spend servicing it, it's lost around £10,000 of it's list price. I'm lucky as I didn't pay list price so to me it's lost closer to £5000.

The OP is actually in a pretty good position.
I presume they owe nothing on it, it's value is minimum and will continue to be like that.
They have owned it for a while and have generally looked after it
If they choose to spend on it, that can be weighed against the continued usage.

Is it worth it to themselves to spend out a fairly reasonable amount (in motoring terms) to get some more life out of it?

As the MOT is due soon, stick it early, you can do this a month before the current one expires and see what they say.
If it fails miserly, you have your answer.
If it just needs a couple of tyres, then perhaps that's all it'll need for another year.

If that ends up wrong and it goes bang, you've spent little really and have the money ready for another, no real harm done.

pseudodox

My car is 22 years old, done 86,000 miles.  It occasionally needs new tyres, brake shoes, wiper blades & the odd wear & tear jobs (cracked spring being most recent).  My garage are also very trustworthy & I know they will advise me if it is uneconomic to do any work.  But it has passed MOT first time 5 years on the trot.  Value is irrelevant - unless you do want to sell.  My guys tell me "it's not actually worth much, but whoever you sold it to would get an absolute steal".

Even a new car can need new tyres if it has an unrepairable puncture.  Whatever you spend will not put value on the car but it will buy you cheap motoring.  Over 22 years, including initial purchase (brand new) I have spent around £36k - VED, insurance, breakdown cover, MOTs, servicing, fuel etc.  Pretty good cost per mile & still does 45mpg.

Barkin

fatbelly said:

It's a myth that newer cars are more reliable. They are more complex, which means more to go wrong.

Also, seemingly smalls problems can cost a small fortune to fix. 

Herzlos

Barkin said:

fatbelly said:

It's a myth that newer cars are more reliable. They are more complex, which means more to go wrong.

Also, seemingly smalls problems can cost a small fortune to fix. 

A point well worth noting. Pretty much any mechanic in the country will have experience of working with that model Focus and parts are still pretty common.

I reckon new cars are more reliable, but more complex so when they go wrong it's worse.

If you pay £750 to get a £200 car back into good condition then that's going to be better value for money than spending £5000 on a newer car that could still require money being spent.

As mentioned elsewhere, you're looking at about £1000 for anything that has an MOT these days, but at that age the car buyers don't want it.

J2637

Many thanks everyone, it is really helpful getting your input.

I think on balance I might end up keeping it. It is a nice car in that I like how it drives. I own it, it doesn't have any finance on it.

I will ask the local garage to look it over at the MOT and tell me if they think it will keep going OK once the tyres are changed, and possibly the cam belt. I think they said last time that they can't really check a cam belt to see if it's liable to snap soon (cracking or brittle for example), it's more a case of, one day it will snap and the older it is, the more likely that becomes. It was last changed in 2011 and they said the general advice is for it to be changed every 10 years.

One thing I wonder about, is if I keep going with the current cam belt, and I was unlucky enough to say have the cam belt snap while I was on a motorway doing 70mph, would that cause an accident? I'm wondering how likely it is for the cam belt to suddenly snap and cause safety issues.

I wonder how many years cam belts can potentially keep going before they break. If I don't change it, then once it snaps the car is finished if I understand it right. And maybe if it snapped on a road somewhere I might end up paying a bit for the car to be hauled away and scrapped. But if I do change the cam belt, and if other things don't then start going wrong, then I could get some more good time out of the car beyond when the cam belt would have snapped.

I think the car is OK in terms of structure or rust, as far as I can see. I'll ask the garage what they think about that. The only thing is the boot door leaks some water into the boot when it rains, but I can live with that. I tried asking the garage if there is maybe a rubber seal or something they could change for me to fix it, but they don't really do bodywork like that, and a local bodyshop wasn't interested either.

I also wonder - should I keep it in the garage when I am not driving it, would this make it less likely to rust? Right now it sits on a drive when not being used.

I think my garage last year said they would be able to get me tyres for £60-£70 each plus VAT, I don't know if that's a good price.

Mark_d you do make good points about getting rid of it too.

I just checked on webuyanycar.com and the value is £275. When I end up selling I was thinking about asking the dealer where I'm buying the next car (I'd go to a well reviewed second hand car dealer) for a trade-in. I am not sure about trying to sell it privately.

For when I buy a new one in the future for £5k, I was thinking of getting a second hand one of maybe 10+ years of age, with much less on the clock than my current one, and one of the most reliable brands and a common model so mechanics would have experience with it and parts would hopefully be cheap/easy to get. I would be wanting a recent MOT on it with all advisories fixed, so I would hope it would not be going wrong soon after getting it

Overall, depending on what the local garage says at the MOT, I'm tending towards keeping the Ford and seeing the money I spend on on it as buying me cheap motoring as pseudodox says.