Changing cars... Every 3 years or much longer?

AdrianHi

MJI1962 wrote: »

I usually keep for 4 or 5 years, basically from cheapish to start to get problems, my current car was 4 when I bought it now 7, I'll run it as long as possible because they don't make them any more, and it is worth not much only about 1800

I'm curious, what cars are you doing this with? Just wondering which side of 42% retained value at 3 years old it falls.
Now that it is 7 definitely hold on to it as long as possible, especially if you still like it.

WestonDave

My current strategy is to buy at a year old, and to avoid the bottom spec both on trim and engine size, and keep them going with proper servicing until I start to hit snags. The current car is an 8 year old Astra which ideally I'd like to keep going for another year or so. It is however rather galling to park my car across the road from a neighbour who works at the UK HQ of a car maker and has a work 08 plate 4x4 and a 57 plate supermini for his wife! I console myself with the amount Gordon must be swallowing out of his pay packet!

Hintza

OP you say in your thread you like cars? Buying a Focus and possibly changing to Mondeo is a contradiction in my view.

Anyway if you do, why not search for something a bit more interesting but as others have said a year or two old.

Lord_Lardington

Bangernomics for me every time. My previous car was a 1992 Lexus LS400 which never missed a beat and only required a couple of repairs above and beyond normal servicing and it only didn’t start once when the battery failed. Cost me £3750 to buy, ran it for 3.5 years (65k miles) and sold it for £1700. My parents have lost about 4 times that on their (admittedly quite nice) new Corolla.

I‘ve now got a 2000 x plated Audi A6 2.5 TDi Avant and hope to get a good 3 years (boredom threshold) of reliable motoring and a decent resale value. Cost was £5500.

Millionaire

I would never buy a new car due to depreciation in the first 3 years. I also get bored of driving the same car after about 2 years so change it then for a different model/make.

I tend to buy a car thats at least 3-4 years old as it wont go down in price too much in the next 2 years.

I also wouldn't buy anything over 5ish grand.

Its staggering if you sit down and workout how much you spend on a car per year and factor depreciation into it. Money down the drain really.

I recently sold a perfectly working car that I had for 2 years because I was bored of it and wanted something else.

AdrianHi

Lord_Lardington wrote: »

Bangernomics for me every time. My previous car was a 1992 Lexus LS400 which never missed a beat and only required a couple of repairs above and beyond normal servicing and it only didn’t start once when the battery failed. Cost me £3750 to buy, ran it for 3.5 years (65k miles) and sold it for £1700. My parents have lost about 4 times that on their (admittedly quite nice) new Corolla.

I‘ve now got a 2000 x plated Audi A6 2.5 TDi Avant and hope to get a good 3 years (boredom threshold) of reliable motoring and a decent resale value. Cost was £5500.

I'm thinking about doing the same thing with a similar age BMW 5 series touring later this year. Against my own better judgement I did the new car thing about 2.5 years ago (still have it), I'm glad I've done it once, but I'm not sure it's good enough value for money to do it again.
That Lexus sounds like solid gold.

AdrianHi

Millionaire wrote: »

Its staggering if you sit down and workout how much you spend on a car per year and factor depreciation into it. Money down the drain really.

I do sit down and work this out and it is staggering.
There are two things that make a car more expensive, early depreciation and driving a lot of miles. If you are driving a lot of miles, switching to a new but cheap and economical car can result in less money spent.
Examples:
A new Mondeo Estate 140bhp 2.0 TDCi Zetec over 36 months and 10,000 miles a year is about £630 a month, that's £22,680 in 3 years!!!!
Do 20,000 miles a year in the same car and it is around £775 a month / £27,900 in 3 years.

cyclonebri1

AdrianHi wrote: »

If you were paying 50% of original list price for these cars I have these thoughts:
1. It was clearly affordable for you
2. The cash flow challenge relative to younger car purchase is easier as you don't have to fund as much purchase price
3. You were fortunate enough to have no bad big repair bill experiences

One thing I am absolutely 100% certain of is that this was not necessarily the cheapest way to do it in the long run. Unless you kept these cars beyond 6 years old to take advantage of the near zero depreciation period, it was more expensive, not by a huge margin and it might have been easier to deal with for cash flow reasons (i.e. not needing to finance higher purchase prices).
If you have the ability to fund higher purchase prices I still say about 42% to 44% of original list price is the most you should pay for a 36 month old out of warranty car. Higher than that and you need to get the up to 6 month old 20% off list price car.

Read what I said, which was 50% of the value of a low mileage 3 year old car, which in effect is probably 50% of 60% of the original starting price.

It then all begins to make more sense, yeah?

It is not quite as simple as you make out

movilogo

If everyone thinks that only fools buy new cars, then we wouldn't be having any 2nd hand cars in the market. So, we (who buy used cars) should be grateful to those who buy new cars so that we can get cheaper used cars

Different people have different criteria for buying cars. Mr X bought a car for £500 which ran fine for 5 years, does not signify that if Mr Y have bought the same car, it would have served him exactly same way for 5 years!

Buying a really good/reliable car is often a matter of luck as well.

Most people change cars after 3 years because manufacturers' warranty ends after that. However,
[1] several manufactueres allow you to extend the warranty by paying a [reasonable to excessive] fee
[2] Hyundai/Kia/Fiat/Subaru/Daihatsu etc. offers 5-7 yr warranty on one or more models in their range

If we all refuse to buy cars which do not come with long warranty, then all manufactureres will be forced to raise the warranty period to 3+ years.

Some people pay over the odds just for brand snob value (for example, Aston Martin is a highly unrealiable car). Nowadays BMW 3-series sells more than Ford Mondeo. So, I personally don't see any point of paying extra for brands.

AdrianHi

movilogo wrote: »

Some people pay over the odds just for brand snob value (for example, Aston Martin is a highly unrealiable car). Nowadays BMW 3-series sells more than Ford Mondeo. So, I personally don't see any point of paying extra for brands.

This is a case in point for my never pay more than about 42% of original list price for a 3 year old car, because the 6 to 36 month age range is cheaper monthly if you can raise the cash for it, unless you pick up the same car at 7 years old. You are looking at 50% or more of original list for a 3 series which I don't think is worth it. I'm sure many do buy BMW for "the badge", I bought a 3 series on capability despite the stereo type image for this kind of car owner and I take advantage of those who will pay too much for it used, because I get ownership / use costs only slightly higher than say a Honda Accord as a result.
I bought in new, wouldn't do it again, would do 6 to 36 months or a 7 year old BMW or something completely different. "something completely different" that gives me the same driving experience and space is near impossible to find, I keep looking.