Bangernomics: Is this the cheapest possible motoring?

trets77

i have had many a banger , but my last one was undoublty the best

12 year old Mazda 323 with FSH , 12 months MOT ,4 months tax and a full tank of fuel 88000 miles . £250 quid

spent £150 on servicing over 3 years ( my father in law is work from home Mechanic ) , £25 to replace smashed rear light , £60 on MOT's , and about £150 on pads . 16,000 miles and 3 years of flawless service later , it finally scummed to rust. but hey was given £40 quid for it from scrap metal merchant .

i have a ford fiesta at the moment that in total has cost me £1000 and had it for 18 months , that includes a new Cam belt , and radiator . i am still not sure if it has been the best buy , but it does have the Honda engine ( so my Father in law tells me) , so hopefully should last a fair few miles yet. already had 13,000 out of it and it is still going strong.

given the choice i would always go for a Japanese car, you just cannot beat them for build quality and reliability.

i always aim for something that is not atheistic pleasing , a few superficial dents and dings and a nasty color will see a perfectly good car avoided by the masses .

other great things about a banger are :

you don't have to worry about people trying to steal it . great if it lives half it's life in a train station car park.

you can get dirt cheap 3rd party fire and theft insurance ( £97 is my record so far) .

you can bully shinny cars in city traffic . people who see your car has dents and is a banger think twice about cutting you up etc.

loads of money to spend on the things in life that matter .

david69_2

too many people buy cars for image i could afford to buy a nice car but whats the point i have a company van to use during the week so if i had a nice new car all it would be doing is sitting on the drive all week losing money.

greenman7

Since passing my test in 1975 I have had plenty of bangers. Starting of with an Austin A35 van, 3 Morris 1000s, a Morris 1000 Traveller, an Austin A40, a Morris 1000 van, a Mini, a VW camper, a Transit pick-up, 2 Fiestas, a Fiat Uno and a Citreon AX. The Fiat Uno and the Citroen AX were around the £500 mark – but everything else was between £50 - £300. Bangernomics has been a way of life for a long time with me. When you do not have a lot of money you buy what is available locally in the area at a cheap price.

I think that there is a lot of luck attached to buying any vehicle, particularly when it is old and cheap, sometimes you have it and sometimes you do not. The advantage is that if you do not have the luck then you have not lost a lot of capital tied up in the vehicle.

Over the years I have certainly learnt a lot of car mechanics keeping some of these vehicles on the road, especially the Morris 1000s, (These mainly went off the road due to rust problems). I have spent many a happy hour covered in oil taking engines, gearboxes out etc. If you are prepared to do this then the car will be more cost effective to keep on the road.

I changed in April 2004 and bought a 1998 Fiesta from ebay for £1,270, going a bit upmarket -10 months ago I gave this to my son and bought a 2003 Citroen C3 1.4 Hdi from ebay for £2,950. These more expensive, modern cars have been more reliable and economical than the older cars. I feel that the market is changing for older cars with high scrap values – a friend of mine took his old Vauxhall Vectra to the scrap yard and got £192 for it. Why sell a car really cheap when you can get that money for it?

PhilSParker

Who cares about depreciation ? My 1971 VW Camper is going UP in value. And it's reasonably cheap to maintin even when I have to get someone to do work on it. Older cars are designed to be fixed unlike modern ones. If you go for a "classic" there is the option of cheaper insurance if you accept a limit of the mileage - I can do up to 5000 miles a year. Oh, and the Road Tax is free on pre-1973 cars. If you run 2 bangers then even reliability becomes less of an issue as you can use one while the other is off the road. Get the cars cheap enough and this is a real option.

The environmental benefits are important too. It takes at least 60,000 miles for a car to generate as much emissions as it does to make the thing. So, changing your new car ever year for a "greener" model doesn't work.

DuggyMak

It's clear from the posts, so far, that everyone's circumstances/requirements/mechanical experience, etc is different.

However, the one thing in common is that we are all trying to enjoy safe, affordable, reliable motoring by preventing the unnecessary scrapping of perfectly serviceable cars, at the expense of the environment and our pockets.

No matter which part of the Bangeromics "spectrum" we, individually, prefer (dirt cheap, to those costing a few thousand pounds) we should all be proud of our combined efforts. It's financially stupid, as well as just plain crazy, to fall into the trap of changing a perfectly good car that you know the history of, for a newer one, just to get a few more mpg. That's just locking in depreciation that, up to the point of sale, was purely a "paper loss". What's even worse is risking the repossession of your home to struggle to finance a new motor sitting outside it!

However, personally, if I had a garage, I would definitely be thinking about picking up a "future classic", in the next year, as the prices of larger cars plummet.

Incidentally, although I have no knowledge of any of my neighbours selling their vehicle, I have recently noticed a marked drop in the number of cars parked in my, Edinburgh, street. Even during the day, when the cars owned by staff from a nearby large office replace the resident's ones. Perhaps the huge increase in motoring costs has, finally, resulted in more car-sharing, motorcycling, cycling, walking and public transport use that previous schemes failed to encourage. Whatever the reason, I must admit, it's great being able to get parked without any trouble.

Furthermore, for those of us still able to keep motoring, with less traffic, our journeys should be more economical both in mpg, and time taken, not to mention a reduction in the stress involved. However, it will be interesting to see if the number of fatal, or, high-speed accidents reduce now that a significant number of drivers are trying to get more from each gallon.

Never having had the luxury of driving a company car, with "free fuel", I have always been aware of the effects of a heavy right foot on both the accelerator and, even worse, the brakes! By keeping a safe distance from the car in front, looking well ahead and "through" the corners, and anticipating other people's actions, it's perfectly possible to keep up a steady speed without adversely affecting other drivers, even in a small-engined car. I certainly managed to embarrass the drivers of more powerful vehicles, on many occasions, in my 1litre Daihatsu Charade (non-turbo!) simply by staying well back and being ready to exploit any safe overtaking opportunity that arose, while they were often still on "auto-pilot" simply following the car in front!

Incidentally, I once worked for a company, who, when the first car-phones became available, thought it would be a great idea to be able to contact their reps out on the road. Unfortunately, one of them was prone to tail-gating other vehicles, (less than 20ft!), including lorries on motorways. Of course, when he answered the phone and became distracted, replying to head-office, the result was a major crash into the back of the vehicle in front. He only had the repaired vehicle back a few days when the same thing happened again, at which point, the insurance company refused to cover him if he drove a car fitted with a phone!

Unfortunately, many people today, don't realise the skill involved in driving a car properly, with full attention on the road, and deliberately limiting unnecessary distractions. Hopefully, some of them might begin to appreciate what's involved, by paying more attention to an everyday activity they often take their mind off, while thinking of other things. If that, combined with fuel-efficient driving, makes our roads a safer place to be for all road users, then it will be a welcome "plus" against all the "minuses" we are facing just now.

Thunderbird_2

On the other hand, to be fair, we are able to run old cars simpley because we know that if it breaks down, we will not lose our jobs, in other words, we can afford the time of breakdown, should it happen, plus the time to fix it DIY style.

Some people can not afford this level of uncertainty. So, they opt to buying nearly new cars because they can not afford the lost time should a breakdown happen to them in some days in some journeys. It's like an insurance policy. You buy what you think will cover your needs. Or like mortgage deals ( fixed or tracker rates)

I am not saying older cars are not reliable here. All I am saying, logically, in two well maintained cars, a newer one is unlikely to break down when compared to an old banger.

I am happy that my life style, at the moment, allows me to afford bangeronmics.

EDIT: I have got two cars, one is a lovely 14 years old banger and another car I use when there is some work to be done to the old girl!

stewie755

My n reg clio just died, bad times, but it only cost me £300 quid 3 years ago and all i paid was petrol and tax, good times.
I've just bought a Probe on ebay, a bit flash looking but i love it and only £460. I did have a nice sparkly hp car, but not worth it. Good topic.

Daisy_Bell

Got an 'L' Reg Rover Metro 'Casino' that gets through it's MOT time after time. Costs me practically nothing to run. £35. MOT from local garage. A new tyre every now and then, the odd part, occasional battery. Tax £110. Insurance around £160. Mind you, I only use it as a runaround and hubby does a bit of maintenance on it before the MOT. Still........:D
Hubby runs a 2002 Nissan Micra - now there's a car that doesn't rust! We see really old ones around and very few seem to have any rust on 'em! (They can't all be garaged!)

[Deleted User]

My contribution: bought a '99 V-reg Mondeo for £460 in May from eBay with 99k miles on the clock . Done minor servicing myself (oil filter, oil, etc). The thermostat needed changing, needed a new seal on the rear light cluster and it (still) needs new front tyres but otherwise everything else is good.

I don't even think it's really a banger; it has full air-con, electric sunroof/windows/mirrors/seats, traction control, CD player, remote central locking, airbags, etc etc etc.

I'm enjoying driving it and so far not the slightest hint of a breakdown or anything; the MOT is coming up at the end of the summer. Hopefully nothing much needs doing.

Oh, and I put my mum as a second named driver; brought down the insurance by £100! Odd but true; apparently putting an older driver on as a second driver makes it cheaper!

In fact I don't understand why people spend £17k on a new Mondeo when they can pick up an 8 year old Mondeo, for 97.3% less. But I'm not going to complain; if people weren't buying lots of new cars the old ones wouldn't be so cheap :-)

camaj

jdavtz wrote: »

Something worth considering, which may or may not make a difference to your final calculations, is petrol costs:

I was thinking the same thing. In the past, getting a banger did make sense but now more attention has to be paid to fuel costs. If we get to £1.50 or even £2 a litre it's going to make a big difference

I've never paid more than £100 for a car, although I have spent a fair bit on some in order to get them up to scratch but the cars have been free.

There are a lot of variables, a low mileage driver might find a car dies from old age before overuse or misuse. I've seen scrapyards offering £100+ for cars so getting a £200 quid car is really only £100.

Compare two approaches, the first an owner buys a banger every year for £300 but once scrapped it'll have cost him £200 for the year. The fuel efficiency works out to 30mpg on average.

The second buys a car for £3000 but it has 100,000 miles on the clock and will go on for another 100,000 miles. The fuel efficiency is 60mpg.Both drive 5,000 miles a year.

Car A: Will last for a year. Works out to £200/year (£300 - £100). Fuel will be £922.5 a year
Car B: Will last for 20 years. Works out to £145/year (£3000/20 - £100). Fuel will be £461.3. Car B saves £55 a year on purchase cost and £461.3 on fuel costs, a total annual saving of £516 compared to car A.

If petrol goes up to £1.50/litre then the total saving is £567. If it's £2 then car B saves £805/year. Naturally, the savings are greater the higher the annual mileage and lower if the mileage is smaller.

Of course it's not that simple. Inflation (or deflation) will play a part. Will it be possible to get a banger for £300 in 5 years? If it followed general inflation it would probably cost more but perhaps the price would plummet for uneconomical cars since savvy buyers would avoid cars with poor economy.

I'm assuming equal maintenance costs, although it's likely Car B would cost more to repair. Insurance would also be higher, I'd imagine, although it would fall as car B aged. Also, eventually the 60mpg cars will be bangers themselves but electric cars or near 300mpg cars are promised to arrive in a few years.

Admittedly my experience with cars is pretty limited. Can someone tell me if it'd be possible to keep a car for such a long time (20 or 40 years) even if the mileage is low? What could happen and can it be prevented? All I can think of is rust, and I thought that can be avoided with proper care of the paintwork.