Budgeting for cars?

nigelbb · 12 November 2019 at 7:20PM

lexington013 wrote: »

I do the same, bought a 57 plate Volvo V70 D5......£2800 a year ago.
Will run it till it dies......it's 12 years old now, I reckon I will still have it at least another 7 years.

I'm a big fan of a cheap but quality car bought at 10+ years old. My Range Rover cost £4K & I've had it for 7 years now. When The Range Rover eventually needs to go in a few years then I was considering a Discovery 3 but might take a look at the big Volvo estate as they look cheap & the diesels are pretty economical.

ex-pat_scot · 12 November 2019 at 7:30PM

nigelbb wrote: »

I'm a big fan of a cheap but quality car bought at 10+ years old. My Range Rover cost £4K & I've had it for 7 years now. When The Range Rover eventually needs to go in a few years then I was considering a Discover 3 but might take a look at the big Volvo estate as they look cheap & the diesels are pretty economical.

I had a Discovery 3 from new. 225,000 miles before it died.
It wasn't cheap to run though, and needed plenty of tyres (heavy vehicle with tracking issues), suspension bushes etc.
When it died it got broken for parts. Pretty much the whole lot got recycled.

westv · 12 November 2019 at 10:12PM

You would like to think the newer the car the better the fuel efficiency and the better the safety features.

ffacoffipawb · 12 November 2019 at 10:21PM

Must learn to read properly, I thought the title of this thread was "Budgeting for care".

badmemory · 13 November 2019 at 12:23AM

I have a small garage so a small car. I do buy new but keep at least 10/13 years. Never take it to a repair garage for its MOT & you save a fortune. I learnt that quite a few years ago (via MSE), unfortunately that was after I had a £900 bill on a car's first MOT that I was fairly convinced was a rip off. Felt patronised etc one of the penalties of being a woman.

k6chris · 13 November 2019 at 8:49AM

So it seems to me the 'secret' of low cost car ownership is to keep your car for as long as possible and look after it. The starting point of that cunning plan may vary, but actually if you keep it long enough, a sensibly priced new car is not as stupid as 'common sense' might at first assume. Keep the car as simple as possible to minimise expensive bits going wrong. Mind reset required!

Triumph13 · 13 November 2019 at 9:17AM

k6chris wrote: »

Keep the car as simple as possible to minimise expensive bits going wrong. Mind reset required!

If only we could reset the minds of the manufacturers to stop making things too stupidly complicated! Things like electronic handbrakes and keyless ignition replacing things that worked perfectly well with something that means you can't even tow the car to the garage when it goes wrong. Grrr.

crv1963 · 13 November 2019 at 9:33AM

I always followed "Bangernomics" until Mrs CRV insisted that I buy a newish (3 year old) car due to a long commute and high work miles. My intention though is to keep running it after retirement until it gives up the ghost.

Mrs CRV always buys a new CRV, every 3-5 years, I might buy hers off of her when she replaces it- 4 years old and 7.5k on the clock, FSH. She always has a 4x4 due to the amount of snow we get.

I did try pointing out that with depreciation she'd save money using a taxi but was told very clearly that as she pays for hers and I pay for mine it is up to her.

We're budgeting running costs in our number, but planning on saving 250 pm for purchase costs in retirement, again part of our number.

Parking_Trouble · 13 November 2019 at 11:13AM

Got a Honda CRV that we bought new in 2004.
Bulletproof and I'll run it into the ground now it's worth next to nothing.

Not economical on fuel but only do 2k-3k miles per year using it as a capacious dump/removals truck and perfect dog transport for weekends away.

Other car for now is Audi A1 which wife needs for her job.
Bought from new (saved loads on Carwow) and now 3 years old. Just paid up the balloon payment, mostly with a long term low interest loan and £3k from savings. Monthly costs have come down by £90 so feels like we are better off.

When the wife packs up work in a year or so, we'll change to something that could be our only car. Needs to be able to transport a large dog economically but needs a bit of oomph. Estate or SUV, maybe a new CRV??? Prefer new but might be 2-3 years old max. Budget £250 max per month.

Anonymous101 · 13 November 2019 at 12:58PM

k6chris wrote: »

So it seems to me the 'secret' of low cost car ownership is to keep your car for as long as possible and look after it. The starting point of that cunning plan may vary, but actually if you keep it long enough, a sensibly priced new car is not as stupid as 'common sense' might at first assume. Keep the car as simple as possible to minimise expensive bits going wrong. Mind reset required!

I'd agree with that and perhaps add that purchasing the vehicle after most the depreciation has occurred is perhaps the other 'secret'.

Buying a car at 3-4 years old with relatively low mileage and keeping it for as long as possible is the key for me. There's other small strategy's for saving on the purchase price etc but really its about buying for a good price, not paying interest on loans and holding onto it. Same principle as lots of things.

Budgeting for cars?

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