cheapest vaguely-newish car you’ve ever managed to run? without grief

vaguely-newish: less than 4 or 5 years old when you bought it
repairs: no major repairs or nasty surprises, and you never panicked to sell becuase of mechanical problems etc
your journey length/regular usage: anything

talking about year 2000 onwards as well… to rule out any stories of a Ford Model T and such.. i.e. there’s a chance one could sensibly run said car these days

just intrigued 😛

I paid £50 for a Renault 5, 10,000 miles cost me a set of windscreen wipers and petrol, scrapped it for £100.

Does that count?

Not sure if this is what you had in mind, but anyway…

A 2002 Peugeot 406 diesel estate, bought by my wife for £7000 in December 2004 with 19,000 miles on the clock. Handed over to me in 2009 with 160,000 miles on it. I’ve added a further 20,000 since then with no probs except a rear seatbelt that can lock the backseat in its folded position. And the scrapes I’ve put on the front wings.

405 Mi16 for me, cheap by my standards 🙂

New Saxo 1.1 for my OH.

Citroen XM, bought for £600 with a plier cut parking brake cable. Ran it for four years largely trouble free. Went to the South of France from Scotland flat out twice. It’s only trip on the back of an AA truck was when the clutch cable snapped. It’s a full dash out replacement. A C5 appeared on here the next day, I’m still using it as my daily wheels.

My current 2004 diesel Mondeo. Had it just under 6 years now and about 100k racked up in that time (showing 135k ish now).

During that time I’ve only had 2 service or MOT bills over £500. One was for a clutch and DMF and the other was a rather unfortunate combination of several expensive consumables falling due on the same trip to the garage together with a crankshaft pulley and aux belt change.

When i lived in australia for a year back in 1999, I randomly bought a Mk2 Golf gti for $50. Drove it like i stole it for 3 months and sold it to some backpacker for $200. Its great driving a car around that you really dont give a shit about.

I paid £4500 for a 1999 306 estate nine years ago. Apart from the usual running costs I have had (fingers crossed) 100k out of the old girl and she still fires up of a morning but I will admit she is not as light on her feet as she used to be.

Bought an F reg ford fiesta 950cc years ago for £350. Cost about £20 back then for an mot and a fiver for some windscreen wipers. So all in about £375.

Sold it about 3 months later for £700.

My current passat 03 plate, bought 4 years ago for 4k still going with nothing more than consumables needing replacing. 170k on the clock. Goes down to the alps or pyrenees twice a year.

The Yaris. Bought in 2003 by my father, given to us three years ago. Now on 90k. Cost new pads and discs, two wheel bearings and a windscreen wiper (plus cheap usual servicing).
Tax £35. Insurance £120. 60odd mpg no matter how I drive it seems.
Still worth a few quid.

2000 Fiat Marea 2 litre 20v. Bought for £1600 with 43k on the clock. Ran it for 4 years until it finally died with 186k on the clock. In that time it cost me the grand total of about £3500, including tax, insurance and original purchase price. That worked out at 2.4p / mile. Biggest expense were tyres and cam belt kits which were done every 60k. They cost something like £150 and three hours of my time.

My old Vauxhall Astra was bomb proof, apart from an early hiccup with an oil leak (or something) never had it serviced and never cost me anything more than the odd tyre change.

Froze it solid for a week once, still started up no bother once it had thawed out.

’97 plate cost me £3.5k with 28k on the clock, finally scrapped it for £250 two years ago.

Doubt I’ll get that lucky again…

Alfa 155 v6 for 1k ran for a year sold for 700 only big bills were fuel and tyres.
Pug 205 bought for 250 ragged till it was almost dead and sold on for 250
Honda civic estate bought for 1200 ran for 18 months sold for 1150.

Daewoo Nexia.
Stopped production in 1997, but almost young enough.

Mine was similar to this;

but a rhapsody in a dark green/grey.

It was given to me;
Every single panel had been kicked in – it had lived next to The Museum pub in Moston – people with little taste used to boot the shit out of it on their way home.

We covered many thousands of miles together, not a single issue until it shat itself spectacularly and terminally whilst driving home from work one night.
Luckily, it had the grace to expire outside my favourite pub.

It took myself, Mrs Spanner, two bikes and all our camping, climbing and walking gear all over Britain for years.
We slept in it, looked after it, cleaned it occaisionally and loved it very much.

RIP Shedric, I still miss you 😐

’97 R Audi A4 TDi.

Bought as a snotter for my wife who is incapable of looking after a car properly.

We had it 5 years. It had 97k when we got it, and ended up around 190k when it was sold. Paid £2.6k for it, sold it for £2k. The only thing that went wrong with it was it needed a replacement ignition barrel, everything else was the usual service items.

Probably should never have sold it!

2006 Pug partner

Bought in 2009 with 35 k on clock for 3500 quid

4 going on 5 years later its done 85k and cost us routine servicing a snapped spring ( where a tractor forced us off the road by drifting across the dualer as we passed) and when i get home its asking for a new exhaust due to a wee rasp.

Well under my 1k a year for depreciation and maintainance target .

I’ve had loads of cheap cars, one of the best was a citroen BX, 1600 petrol, silly suspension and despite me not being very good at looking after cars it kept going and going
the mk1 focus I had up until recently was really good too but I paid 1500 quid for that and really abused it, it started to get wet interior and I never drove it and eventually it went to the scrappie cos it had died on the drive

my tips are buy base models with as little gadgets on them at all, change the oil regularly

Hyundai Getz bought for £75 from neighbour & sold for £550 after a proper cleaning. I actually gave the neighbour an extra £150 when I sold it (guilt etc..) – here’s hoping paying it forward works..!

I’ve just bought a honda CRV that drive like a new car. I’m hoping this is a good but buy..!

I was given an uncool sort of gun metal coloured 1998 vectra by my dad as he was offered £300 trade in around 2007.
He had it from new and as far as I know no major problems.
I used it for commuting for 2 years and clocked up another 45k up to 167k. The only repairs when i had it were a new battery, new handbrake cable and a couple of brake pipes. Probably tyres, don’t remember though. Scraped for £130 when the cat converter failed the mot. Still ran fine but i didn’t really need it any more.

4 or 5 years old?

I’ve never been able to afford anything so recent, so I’m out criteria wise

I did once buy a fiesta for £100 that I drove to Warrington every day from Glossop, hateful thing but it wouldn’t die

I also had a diesel 205 that I must have ran dry of oil 4 or 5 times (it had a leak) that used to take me to Wilmslow every day. It also refused to give up. I got £50 for it at the scrap yard. Still feel bad about taking it there, nothing wrong with it apart from the leak

P reg BMW 523i (e39,,,,,,sweet) bought from my neighbour for 600 quid with 90000 on the clock. And the best handling car I’ve driven. Cost me a clutch slave cylinder so far, (less than £100).

When I last needed 4 tyres, I just bought another e39 with nicer wheels and good boots for 450 quid, (anyone want a cheap BMW with 4 worn tyres lol).

Currently saving me 1500+ pa on depreciation, and I hope to get it to 2020!

Ford Mondeo (Mk3) 1.8 petrol bought at 1 year old for about £12K @ 15K miles, has been running for 6 years to 87K miles with only tyres (twice) and brakes (once) changed. Only other issues are a new battery, recent spring breakage and the rear washer fluid pipe disconnecting so I
never use it). The first 3 years it was doing daily commutes of 50 miles but this has become less and this year it is mainly used for family runs at the weekend. Not cheap really but way less hassle than the Megane I had before it or the Rover before that.

52 plate Focus 1.8 LX. Bought as a cheap stop gap car when my wife fell pregnant with our first child to replace her 4 month old Mini One so I could keep my 1987 Porsche 944 Turbo. Ended up keeping it for 5 yrs. absolutely bullet proof, got it at 60k miles and sold it with about 130k miles. All she cost me was a timing belt at 95k, a battery and a few sets of tyres. So not bad. Just almost 100% trouble free motoring. Was quite a fun car to drive too. I’m not sure I’ve driven a more fun fwd hatch – even relatively new Golfs, Leon’s, the new Focus all feel heavy lumbering beasts in comparison.

Holiday booked to Cornwall and our nice Pug 405 diesel died with a week til we drove down…and we had no cash!

Scanned eBay for cheap and local runners. Large blue Saab 900 won for £67 with MoT til October. It got us to Cornwall and all over for the rest of summer and was sold in September for £100. It remains the only car I have ever made a profit on 🙂

In 2006 I got a job away and needed something to chugup the M6 from Wolves to Lancaster and back once a week until we relocated. Again scanned eBay for cheap and local. I got the last of the Escorts in red estate turbo diesel flavour for £450 with full MoT and service history. It ran great and only sold it to buy MPV.

Last car was an £800 Focus tddi estate that was faultless and a perfect banger. Sold it to buy a campervan.

306 2.0 HDI Pug
bought with 7000 on the clock (I was doing 35,000 per year for work)
died at 186,000 (engine wouldn’t fire – spent 200 then gave up)
fsh + extra mid point oil/filter
only extras – 2 bottom pivot bolts,1 exhaust, 1 fuel pump

rip

FYI – in the 80’s. I used to buy Maxis with towbar and years MOT for £300, they all ran to end (I just kept adding oil – and that was a year of London/Maidenhead commute)apart from 1 which snapped 2 days before MOT expired.

Happy maxi stories
– pissing wet night, ran out of office, unlocked car, jumped in and then thought – I haven’t got a furry steering wheel – wrong car – mine was 3 more up road.
– standing in road looking bemused as car was not there – but new tarmac was, bloke popped out of house – it’s up the road son, they unlocked it and pushed it up there so they could do the road.
– sold a 1750 for £30 scrap after mot expiry to a dealer called ‘butch’ – flattop lorry, hoist – windows down, chains around – offski, anyway 3 months later mountain biking in the shrubbery near Knowl Hill, oi,oi,OI,OI,OI OOIII- it was butch – ran up to me and shook my hand, in has garden was my old maxi, de-lighted/glassed, bashed to buggery and rallycaged by acroprop – he gone banger racing and won, proudly showed me the trophy wihile the missus made the tea

sold a 1750 for £30 scrap after mot expiry to a dealer called ‘butch’ – flattop lorry, hoist – windows down, chains around – offski, anyway 3 months later mountain biking in the shrubbery near Knowl Hill, oi,oi,OI,OI,OI OOIII- it was butch – ran up to me and shook my hand, in has garden was my old maxi, de-lighted/glassed, bashed to buggery and rallycaged by acroprop – he gone banger racing and won, proudly showed me the trophy wihile the missus made the tea

That a great story! 😀

Mazda6 give £1500 in 2008 sold it this year with 135k on the clock for £900 apart from service and mots did not spend a penny on it.

Wife’s Toyota Yaris cost us £4000 had it 8years just clocked up 45k and not cost a penny apart from mot and service. Sorry I tell a lie the Yaris had a new battery last year.

Current one, its a Hyundai Getz.

Small simple petrol engine, had it 4 yrs now and never gone wrong….its had tyres at MOTs and an annual (cheap) service at Kwik-Fit.

I bought it with 50,000 miles and it now has 85,000 on the clock, i’ll run it until the first expensive problem occurs then repair it and sell on….cant be doing with expensive, complicated problematic cars any more, life is too short and a car is just a tool to get me from A to B in a warm and dry environment.

I’ll replace with similar, i have a motorbike and mountain bikes for fun.

A Daewoo Tacuma

It was a 53 plate that I bought in 2008 with about 35,000 miles and full dealer service history. Cost £1,600.

Sold it almost exactly a year ago for £1,200 with 60,000 miles on it.

During my ownership it never broke down once. Couple of suspension bits at MOT. Oil and filter change once a year. Did the air filter and spark plugs just before I sold it. Ignoring insurance and VED, which are much the same on any car, I reckon it cost less than £200 a year over the four years I had it.

1994 Rover 414(the Honda years) bought in 2004 for £3500 ran for 10 years, apart from doing the head gasket @ 115,000 miles it only had a service a year and the usual tyres brakes & 1 exhaust system.
Drove it like my hair was on fire, sold it for £500 only because we went to 1 car and needed an estate, I checked recently and its still on the road!

05 diesel clio. cost £5k in 2007. sold for 3k 3 years later. £20-30 tax. 65+mpg average.

The only things other than maintenance was a dashboard which was done under warranty. and 2 wheels; one the council picked up the bill for (pothole) the other i had to pay for – i hit a kerb in the snow; whilst attempting to demonstrate how to control a slide!

I seem to be descending in mpg figures, 65 to 37 to 25, by this rate i’ll be driving a tank when i retire!

03 Honda civic, 1.6 petrol. Got it on about 30k in 2006 and sold it this year on about 106k. Apart from usual services, it only needed a couple of brake calipers and some front suspension gubbins.

Only had one “newish” car, thats the current one, had it four years now.

Focus 2L diesel estate, bought as a low miler at 3 years old for 7k, current value about 4k – so deprecation of about 750 a year, which is not bad for a “newish” car.

Insurance is about as minimal as it gets (late 30’s driving boring family car), tax isn’t bad, and its done 60k trouble free miles at around 50mpg.

Surprises (so far) have been limited to a new alternator, everything else is service items, plus two flat tyres – gah.

I always used to reckon, if the car itself cost less than 1k (deprecation + servicing + fixing it) a year, you were doing ok.

Smart fortwo pulse, bought for £6000 had for 4 years sold for £4500, fuel 70mpg, tax free, covered about 6k miles in it, serviced by Merc which was the only costly bit.

Not quite the OP’s criteria but I’m still running a ’95 Peugeot 205 diesel. Bought for £400 with 100k on it, now up to 140k commuting 320 miles/week and still flying along.
I change the oil and filter every 3000 and it’s just passed an MOT. Couldn’t recommend it more but if I crash I will die (it did replace a motorbike though so no change there).

I second matt_outandabout – my Yaris is extremely reliable. I learned to drive in a Yaris and have stuck with one ever since. Sturdy little thing, easy to drive and doesn’t cost me much at all 🙂

Bought my Land Rover for £4750 10 years ago

Ran it

Cost nothing but Insurance, Tax, MOT and Fuel.

Oil & Filter changes done myself

Sold it last year for £5000 😀

bought a 98 R plate honda civic in 2007. it was a 3 door version with a 1.4 engine and auto box. had 60k on the clock. paid 900 for it and 3 years later we got rid of if for 650 with 98 on the clock. in that time apart from the usual servicing, the only thing it needed was a new exhaust and 2 front tyres….the almera we replaced it with was the complete opposite!!

Never had a car that new so all my cars will have been cheaper.
Keep taking that depreciation hit for me gents. 😀