the options are not new or old funky dunk

there is very skewed sliding scale of options at where to buy.

i find the value options to be either just under the very top (but not at new) or at the very bottom and treat as disposable. I find that middle ground where everyone who buys a used car seeems to shop (the sort of 3-6k 5 year old area) to be fraught with danger and its also a sellers market some mug will always buy it it seems as thats what a quality car costs apparently .

Finance vs savings is an important consideration. It’s all well and good leaving your money in the bank earning interest but if it’s below the rate of inflation you’re still losing. I’m not at that point anyway, I have a mortgage and at least 20 years shy of a lot on here.

On servicing, 1200 over 8 years sounds laugable, even at DIY (which if you buy new enough isn’t an option if you want to keep warranties). Oil isn’t cheap, I assume about £30 for a service, plus bits brings you to about £50×8 = £400

Tyres, £60 a corner for something decent, every 3 years so say two new sets = £480

Suspension wear  – springs, bushings, drop links etc. easily another £200

So now we’re at £1080 and we’ve not even got to a timing belt change which can easily hit £300 at a minimum.

But it’s all relative. My gearbox was making funny noises, I’m assuming it’s a bearing or the DMF starting to go but if it cost £800 (DMF, clutch and slave cylinder) to make the problem go away for another 110k miles it would be well worth it getting the lot done. That may be 4 monthly payments on a new car but I only need to pay it once.

Also, running cost of a Mondeo and a Corsa shouldn’t be too dissimilar given they are both popular cars. Parts are cheap and plentiful.

We bought a 6 year old hatchback for £5K cash. I reckon that, including services, tyres, repairs, MOT, tax and deprecation, it has so far cost something like £75-80 a month all in. Hoping to get another 3 or 4 years out of it yet.

they seem to have £3k-£10k cash floating about to hand to buy these cars, which surely is not the norm?  And yet, the asset they buy with it depreciates hugely.

I thought it was good practice to keep a few months salary in a savings account for when your boiler carks it, car needs replacing, sudden redundancy, etc? Although I haven’t always been able to do so, now that I’ve got a regular salary I’d be nervous without that. If we have to dip into it, no holidays or treats until we’ve topped it back up again.

Are you sure about that? What rate of interest do you think you secured your loan at? £180pm for 5 years indicates an interest rate of around 1.6% which to be honest is pretty incredible.

Well £180 * 60 = 10800 and the loan was 10000 so yes a very good loan.  So again, why would I save for 5 years to get something 5 years later all for a saving on a nice meal out ?

I am bordering more on the might be dead tomorrow but even so, saving away for 5 years for something I want now is just self flagellation

Well £180 * 60 = 10800 and the loan was 10000 so yes a very good loan.

Astonishingly good. Where was/is it from? Can’t see anything close to that available on comparison sites. At those sort of rates (below inflation currently) it does make more sense.

So again, why would I save for 5 years to get something 5 years later all for a saving on a nice meal out ?

And yet again, why would you allow yourself to get behind the curve in the first place where the only two options were paying for finance or waiting and saving? Most recent car bought 2 months ago – the first £500 for the next one already saved earning a half reasonable return whilst the current one is still shiny and new (to me) on the drive. If this is what self flagellation feels like I must be more kinky than I thought!

Lease the car – on our third now (each for 2 years). I keep expecting the good deals to dry up and I’ll go back to buying a year or two old, but every time they come around I see a good offer and go for it. We just have the one car so a new, zero hassle one works for us. It’s a premium over buying s/h but not a big one IME.

Bikes are either C2W (will get another in a couple of months) or some combination of savings and paypal account from selling unneeded stuff. Still yet to spend over a grand on a bike, at least on the initial purchase excluding later upgrades.

i find the value options to be either just under the very top (but not at new) or at the very bottom and treat as disposable. I find that middle ground where everyone who buys a used car seeems to shop (the sort of 3-6k 5 year old area) to be fraught with danger and its also a sellers market some mug will always buy it it seems as thats what a quality car costs apparently .

Sorta agree except that just includes my car… though that was without the leather seats which I fitted (and the cloth seats were what was causing the specific car not to sell) however the OH seems to ignore my “advice” when it comes to cars and always seems to get screwed or a bad deal…

When I bought the last car I actually got a loan because at the time I wanted to get a better credit rating for a mortgage… but I took the shortest repayment time I could.  That was years and well over 100k ago…but I’ve paid for a new clutch and DMF in the meantime… and also the alternator arm broke… cost me £300

Other than that the car paid for itself years ago and I can still stick the bikes in the back..jump in and drive 200 miles… pretty much just topping up fuel and wiper water…

Sorry I didn’t make everything clear, my mondeo was 3yo when i bought it.

no timing belt*, and all servicing was done by a good mate, so effectively parts only, although i have to say, i was lucky that nothing ever broke down.

im not a hard driver, wear on tyres was minimal, (fuel consumption was excellent)

of course, it’s probably unfair to compare a 3 yo mondeo to 3x brand new corsas.

also, I’d agree with (someone up there) who said, there’s no definitive right or wrong way to do it.

also, it’s fair to point out I don’t care about the numbers written on the reg plate, or the ones on the odometer either.

but i did save over 5k, compared to leasing a brand new car (which would have been too small for my needs anyway, so irrelevant) and I’ve bought perfectly decent cars for a lot less than that. Or, looked at another way, the first time I went to Canada it cost less than 5k.

horses for courses, some people don’t want to sit in a second hand car, I don’t want to waste money buying new.

Other people may think it’s best value to lease new and change every 3 years, best of luck to them, but I don’t.

Edit: timing chain

Trail rat, id agree, the middle ground is fraught with danger.

Don’t make the mistake I did, – just got the best valet I’ve ever seen for £12, and now my car looks fantastic and its confused me more.  It is in the middle ground – 5yo, FSH, 38k miles needs new tyres what could go wrong in the next 5 years…

Our other car is an interesting storing.  Ford Kuga TDCI one of the first in the county in 2008 PCP for £18k, paid the balloon in 2011.   No issues but a leaking hose until this year, when the starter motor lunched the DMF and gearbox -£2400.  Having said that, thats a total PCP like for like cost of:

Car = £19000 (we had a special Ford employee deal)

G/box = £2400

Servicing £1600 ( we pay £160 a year on a maintenance plan)

VED £2500

Tyres x 8 = £1100

… so £221.66 a month excluding insurance for 10 years owning the car.

Got a Toyota Hiace for £900 cash, never goes wrong bulletproof, also a Celica off ebay £1600 also bulletproof.

Avoid anything German and life is so much simpler.

My motoring sweet spot is 3 years old and with as low a mileage as possible in an unpopular colour as long as it isn’t blue. Blue is unlucky.

There are a plethora of ex lease cars in this range so you can shop around and find one what you like.

I’ve  had two ex- Motability cars which have been ideal.

you’re doing yourself down there Kryton – don’t forget you could sell that Kuga and get £6,000ish for it. So it’s more like 170 a month IMO

don’t forget you could sell that Kuga and get £6,000ish for it. So it’s more like 170 a month IMO

Or something could go bang and leave a £1k bill tomorrow and leave him with another cost and a reduced asset value.

Jesus mike you need to go back to tazzie i swear you were never this much of a victor grump when you were there.

His leg could also fall off tomorrow 😉

Or something could go bang and leave a £1k bill tomorrow and leave him with another cost and a reduced asset value.

True. And we all die alone

Sorry just doing a load of numbers for options at the moment!! As much as optimistic budgets make us all smile….

you’re doing yourself down there Kryton – don’t forget you could sell that Kuga and get £6,000ish for it. So it’s more like 170 a month IMO

Another way of looking at its value, is that its been through 2 young kids, a myriad of North London car parks and sits on all season tyres with Haldex 4WD if needed, so a little scratched lets call kit well used.  For where I live its a good alternative for infrequent slippery weather conditions and a good candidate for a journey in/out of a mid-forest Gorrick car park aka its intrinsic value is in the job it does.

Hence its part of my buying criteria – in my case could be better off buying something nice for Mrs K (as much as she says she’s happy with the Kuga, I know she’d like a new car) and the family, and I could trot around the M/Ways and bike races of the UK making the most of the Kuga (and clearing the DPF as a consequence), it even has a tow bar / bike trailer.   However even my dwindling materialism finds that hard to accept….

So personally I’m back to virtual bangernomics for work, shiny for home.   Except that I have a “suitable for your employment position” clause in my car allowance, which being in Sales of course only means one thing… 😉

of course only means one thing…

Sorry I got side tracked, which means paying £12 a month to clean the shiny car park vehicle and keeping the Kuga for the rougher stuff! 😀

I buy mine from savings generally

But both bikes and cars are luxuries for me. I can cycle to work on a £50 shonker if I need to.

But, if I needed them to earn more money then the mathematics changes

C2W for 2 bikes, other 2 bikes and car all bought cash. Don’t like leases and loans, I like to save up and spend cash. Not better or worse, just the way I like it. I like knowing I own what we have (except for the house)

Cash savings generally. Did it with my car, ~£5.5k. I did intend to get a car finance loan, stick the cash in an account with a direct debit set up for the payments and forget about it. Figured it would have been better to have the cash as a last ditch emergency fund and the interest rates on a loan that size are so low it was worth it purely for the improvement to my as yet practically nonexistent credit history. Ended up handing over a wad of cash straight out of my bank as I didn’t have enough time to organise it. If I come to change the car this will be the plan though. For what it’s worth my cars value looks to be about to start increasing so it suits my situation well.

Cash these days, gone are the a reckless days of my youth taking full advantage (or taking the piss) of credit on offer to me.

I like to modify cars to some extent, and bikes too, so a PCP/Lease just isn’t for me. Cash is king.