My car (Nissan Almera) is getting on a bit (approx 13 years old).

Not sure what the equivalent C02 band would be but the engine is under 1.4 so I pay £135 a year in ‘road tax’. Just checked the mpg (2 weeks of commuting 10 miles each way to work plus 2 x 50 mile journeys) and it’s giving me around 38 mpg.

I’m thinking that if I were to but a new(er) car (similar size so Focus, Golf etc) I would not in any way, shape, be helping to reduce my carbon footprint due to the C02 required to manufacture said new(er) car.

Correct!. Someone far more educated than myself (programme on R4 last year ) did the figures with regard to his late 1980’s gas guzzling diesel engined Landrover vs buying a new Pious Prius and the actual CO2 figures in favour of the keeping the Landrover running over the next 10 years vs the CO2 used in the total construction and 10 yrs of running the Pious Prius were utterly stacked against the ugly little holier than thou plastic creation – anyone who buys a prius or any new car and believes they are doing the planet a favour is seriously deluded to the point of insanity, for the life of i cannot remember the programme nor the figures involved but it was a sciencey/climate type programme hosted by a well respected scientist….anyone else remember it?.

For that reason i drive a 28yr old golf gti that spits petrol out the exhaust at a rate of 15mpg in city traffic to 30/32 mpg on a long motorway run.

Wondered about this myself. We are looking at 200o-2002 age 1.4 ish cars to replace the 1999 2l CRV we use currently.

Can’t see how a new car can be justified sometimes when older ones have so much service left in them.

This might interest you:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2010/sep/23/carbon-footprint-new-car

just buy another s/h car

By keeping your current car running so long, and by buying a medium sized and fuel efficient second hand car, you’re doing all you can with regard to ecological footprint if you decide you need a car I.e the alternative of city car club + lots of bikes!

That guardian article is good.

The stuff about extra miles on a Landrover verses buying a Prius is total junk. Making a landrover is no small enviromental cost and it will of course wear out. They don’t really wear out slower, they are just more worth repairing. Prius is abit of an enviromental nightmare to assess

To minimise CO2 emissions we need cars that produce low emissions and last well.

It matters not whether your current car carries on being used by you or some one else. What matters is that its used until it dies.

If you are prepared to but a low emissions car new then I think that is a benefit. One of the current problems with tha car industry is that too many new cars are not that low in emissions. Loads of larger cars bought for fleet use driven a short way then moved on into the used market quite cheap. They are cheap as larger cars in over supply second hand.

So assuming you can move your car on as a good runner to some one who will keep it running then buying a new car whilst not green isn’t making things worse. Thats assuming that cars have a finite life time

The cost of an item / service is a good indicator of the carbon cost, since we live in an oil based economy. So the cost of products / services correlates reasonably well with the associated energy cost to make / deliver that service. So a £15k car has roughly the same carbon footprint at £15k of fuel. If you think the new car will be £15k in fuel less expensive than the old one, then it will be better for the environment.