Most tax efficient and lowest annual cost to own a new or nearly new car in retirement?

Iceweasel

I retired over10 years and in 2022 was running a 3 litre BMW diesel.
As soon as BMW (and others) announced they were discontinuing 3 litre six cylinder rear wheel drive only cars, I scoured the market for the newest, lowest mileage one I could find.
I bought a 6 month old, ex-demo 330d with less than 7K miles on it for 60% of the new price
A year on I could now sell it for more than I paid for it.
There is a real shortage of such cars now.
It does just over 60mpg as it's a diesel-electric mild-hybrid.
Auto of course it's faster and more economical than any manual ever was.
I'll likely never need another car as I don't know of anything to replace it with.
We do 2 or 3 long trips in mainland Europe every year and it's cheaper than flying by a long chalk.
Nothing electric will ever fit the bill as we do 500 to 700 miles a day on our trips and hanging around recharging would drive us nuts.
Horses for courses of course.

sgx2000

See nissan leaf reviews on youtube.
Yes a cheap cheap car...

Many reviews of 100,000 mile cars

And many owners saying that the only thing that ever goes wrong with then is
1. Small starting battery
2. Tyres wear faster
3. They had to change the windscreen wipers

Yes the battery will degrade (less mileage before techarge) but nowhere near as bad as people say

A 3 year one with 15-20k mileage is about £14k
And will easily last for over 10 years
Now that is mse sense

Herzlos

What kind of distances/journey types are you expecting to do? If it's not many long trips I'd be looking at an older EV like a Nissan Leaf. Most of the depreciation is done and the range should be fine. On long trips you'd need to stop a few times to recharge or hire a petrol car for the duration.

Or if you want newer, I'd just keep an eye out for good deals and buy the deal not the car. For instance if there's an unpopular colour or a model that's been replaced you can get some great deals to clear stock. Just don't buy a diesel with your mileage.

daveyjp

Iceweasel said:

I retired over10 years and in 2022 was running a 3 litre BMW diesel.
As soon as BMW (and others) announced they were discontinuing 3 litre six cylinder rear wheel drive only cars, I scoured the market for the newest, lowest mileage one I could find.
I bought a 6 month old, ex-demo 330d with less than 7K miles on it for 60% of the new price
A year on I could now sell it for more than I paid for it.
There is a real shortage of such cars now.
It does just over 60mpg as it's a diesel-electric mild-hybrid.
Auto of course it's faster and more economical than any manual ever was.
I'll likely never need another car as I don't know of anything to replace it with.
We do 2 or 3 long trips in mainland Europe every year and it's cheaper than flying by a long chalk.
Nothing electric will ever fit the bill as we do 500 to 700 miles a day on our trips and hanging around recharging would drive us nuts.
Horses for courses of course.

Thats how to do it.  Buy something you want and meets your needs.  I've bought cars for the wrong reasons and quickly regretted it.

GazzaBloom

Herzlos said:

What kind of distances/journey types are you expecting to do? If it's not many long trips I'd be looking at an older EV like a Nissan Leaf. Most of the depreciation is done and the range should be fine. On long trips you'd need to stop a few times to recharge or hire a petrol car for the duration.

Or if you want newer, I'd just keep an eye out for good deals and buy the deal not the car. For instance if there's an unpopular colour or a model that's been replaced you can get some great deals to clear stock. Just don't buy a diesel with your mileage.

Mileage and getting a car to match is a good point. We will be pottering about locally with occasional longer distance for mini breaks or to airports for holidays. Why do you say not a diesel for our planned low mileage?

Goudy

GazzaBloom said:

Herzlos said:

What kind of distances/journey types are you expecting to do? If it's not many long trips I'd be looking at an older EV like a Nissan Leaf. Most of the depreciation is done and the range should be fine. On long trips you'd need to stop a few times to recharge or hire a petrol car for the duration.

Or if you want newer, I'd just keep an eye out for good deals and buy the deal not the car. For instance if there's an unpopular colour or a model that's been replaced you can get some great deals to clear stock. Just don't buy a diesel with your mileage.

 Why do you say not a diesel for our planned low mileage?

Although diesels are slightly more efficient than petrol's and also produce less Co2, they do produce more particulate matter (soot) and nitrogen dioxide (NOx).

Over the years and as Euro emission specs have changed, manufacturers have had to tackle these particular pollutants. 
The way they have done it tends to not favour short trips.

Soot is treated by a diesel particulate filter (DPF).
The system is an active one. Extra fuel is injected on a non combustion stroke to make it's way to the filter and it ignited in the filter to burn the soot which has large particles to ash, much smaller particles. A process known as regeneration.

(It's worth noting at some point, even when everything is working well with regen, the filter will fill with ash at some point down the line, but that can be cleaned with a special process and the filter reused).

This requires lots of heat, over 600c.
Short tripping doesn't produce lots of heat in the filter, it needs sustained lean running (steady throttle) to build up heat in the exhaust/filter.

Short tripping can also repeatedly interrupt the regen as the process takes time to complete.
It might start to regen but you turn off the ignition after a five minute drive to Tescos, then do it again on the way home and so on and on and on.

Apart from more and more untreated soot building up in the filter, interrupting the cycle also allows the post combustion injected fuel to pass the piston rings and dilutes the engine oil as it have nowhere else to go.

Modern petrol's have particulate filters but they are passive.
When you take your foot off the throttle the engine runs super lean and produces a really hot exhaust, hot enough to burn the soot (which is less than a diesel anyway) to ash without any further help.

Nitrogen dioxide (NOx) treatment usually starts with the EGR system which is pre combustion.
This allows exhaust gas to recirculate through the engine to cool combustion temps that cause NOx to prolificate when you take your foot off the throttle and combustion temps rise.

Less fuel equals lean which means hot, more fuel from repeated accelerations means richer, cooler but also more soot. 

Cooler exhaust temps and DPF regen don't really go hand in hand which is way diesels need to be ran regularly for sustained distances at an even/light speed/throttle, like you would on the motorway (hopefully).

There is also post combustion treatment of NOx called selective catalytic reduction or SCR.
This uses a fluid to treat the NOx in the exhaust. This fluid is known as Adblue but it's based on urea (though not your own).
Some manufacturers have had expensive problems with their systems and passed the cost on to owners.

Petrol engines have been easier to treat.
Yes they use EGR and a particulate filter (often called a GPF) but they are not treating the same amount of soot and NOx a diesel produces.
They generally have passive and reliable emissions equipment like GPF's and catalytic convertors.

Better still are full hybrids.
They don't need to use the combustion engine to produce all the torque to move the car, so they don't run a normal Otto cycle (equal strokes of suck, squeeze, bang and blow).

They utilise an Atkinson cycle (though it's simulated with a different value opening pattern).
This effectively allows more throw or movement of the pistons for the least amount of fuel but at the cost of torque, but the EV part of the hybrid produces that missing torque.

They also tend to allow some exhaust gas to be forced back into the combustion chambers that helps combustion temps and so reduces NOx.

As they are more efficient, they are cleaner which means the emissions equipment works less.  

Pat38493

GazzaBloom said:

Herzlos said:

What kind of distances/journey types are you expecting to do? If it's not many long trips I'd be looking at an older EV like a Nissan Leaf. Most of the depreciation is done and the range should be fine. On long trips you'd need to stop a few times to recharge or hire a petrol car for the duration.

Or if you want newer, I'd just keep an eye out for good deals and buy the deal not the car. For instance if there's an unpopular colour or a model that's been replaced you can get some great deals to clear stock. Just don't buy a diesel with your mileage.

Mileage and getting a car to match is a good point. We will be pottering about locally with occasional longer distance for mini breaks or to airports for holidays. Why do you say not a diesel for our planned low mileage?

To add examples to Goudy's point, I know a couple of people who had significant issues with their diesel car and they were told that it was because they were doing too many short journeys, and not enough longer trips, and this is not suitable for diesel engines.

Goudy

It's worth noting some low use full hybrids can suffer a battery issue.

Hybrids tend to have a traction battery that powers the electric motor to drive the car and a normal 12v battery that obviously powers the 12v system.

As the car doesn't need a traditional starter motor, it doesn't need a large 12v battery, so it's usually quite a small battery.

Leaving the car without use tends to flatten this small 12v battery which will cause the car not to power up.

There are a few things you can do to help.
One is powering up the car for a while regularly.
This doesn't mean driving it, just turning it on will allow some power to pass between the traction battery and 12v battery.

Something else owners are using are small solar trickle changers.
The AA and Halfords sell them that use suckers to attach to the inner side of the windscreen and plug into the OBD port which is live all the time.

These will usually give out just enough power to keep your small 12v battery topped up, unless it's parked in a dark garage, then you can just use a normal trickle charger plugged into the mains.
 

daveyjp

Modern diesels are just far too complicated for low mileage users and any mpg improvements are now negated by hybrids.  None of our local taxi drivers have diesels, all are in Toyota, Hyundai or Kia hybrids.

Petriix

Now is an incredible time to buy a second hand EV. There's some great deals on new ones too (Nissan Leaf for £19k, MG5 for £20k) but a Niro for £14k is probably optimal. Or, if you want to lease, £400 per month can get you a brand new ID7 Tour or there are loads of choices for more like £300.