…and what a nice club it is to be in. Pull up at supermarket, near the entrance, park next to another car, will they open their door on my car, hopefully not, but if they do, aresholes, but so be it,
Watch out for that kerb, yes I will, but if I catch it it’s not the end of the world….etc etc.
After 2 years of shiney new lease car which went back today it’s a somewhat revelation to be a bit carefree again.

Wait till you just chuck a muddy bike in and don’t care about tyre marks on the roof liner 😂

I went from an aledged £20k lease car (brand new astra) to a £600 focus. I love the focus, tootles along the commute and like the OP can park any where and not worry about others. Get to bat along the dual carrage way at 70 and feel like doing at lot more than that.

Pull up at supermarket, near the entrance, park next to another car, will they open their door on my car, hopefully not, but if they do, aresholes, but so be it,

This is me.

Always. 10+ year Mazda 2 coming my way soon with a filthy bike getting slung straight into the back of it, front wheel out natch’

And when nextdoor scuffs the bumper pulling out (like on my old nice works motor) i will care not a jot.

This is why I park along alone

Welcome to the club! Our 160k mile Golf has a ‘fire’ drawn on the roof lining in crayon by our son (makes me smile every time I see it) and has been sporting deer damage to the front bumber/fog light cluster for the past 12 months….meh!

Sometimes I think I should join, I’m sure it’s liberating.

I park on the other side of carparks, always looking for that big space, and have a bit of a check along the sides when I get back.

I also have to wash the car myself (or it goes to the proper detailer), I can’t just take it to the jet wash or the local hand car wash.

I also find leaving it at the garage for someone else to work on it stressful.

🙄🙄

Oh, and my car is 7 years old, I’m even worse with my partner’s 18 month old car.

Love to have a banger, all my best useable cars (and come to think of it, Bikes and bicycles) have been. Being cautious of the others removes the fun. Currently in third year of a Golf that was not expected to last more than a winter, as a stand in for shiny Beamer. That first year, beamer left the garage maybe once a month, the next, maybe every other month, so it went. Enjoying bikes, dogs and tools piling in. Maybe another garage queen later this year…

sporting deer damage to the front bumber/fog light cluster for the past 12 months….meh!

Mmmm, deer damage…i have the same down my offside door panels, it blends well with the Ikea trolley damage on the same side 🤗

Does bring a relief in knowing that nothing minor is worth bothering with.
You can up your car park, couldn’t care less approach though by seeking out the self entitled badly parked and squeezing tight down the drivers side of them.

My passenger side is rather matt finished from the hedges around here, proving that the lanes are wide enough for 2 cars in places.

I completely get it, I also get the merits of having a nice car.

x

I also have to wash the car myself (or it goes to the proper detailer), I can’t just take it to the jet wash or the local hand car wash.

You wash your car? Doesn’t it rain where you live?

15yr old Galaxy. Takes bikes standing upright with plenty of room for a mattress, seats out it’s like a van, refuses to do less than 35mpg. Love it.

£400 Peugeot 205 diesel gave me 70k miles and current £600 Clio can fit a sleeping bag and mountain bike.

Serious question, what is a detailer as opposed to a car wash?

You wash your car? Doesn’t it rain where you live?

I had to wash mine last month and the cold/dry spell meant the windows got so crusty with salt that I couldn’t see out of them anymore! Took two attempts of jetwashing, shampoo, rinse, repeat to get it clean!

Did spend £10 on a bottle of plast-rx to sort the headlights out, 125k miles and they were about the same opacity and a plastic milk bottle! Wasn’t expecting much but it actually worked (4x polishes with some cotton rag), might take the units out and do it properly on the bench with a machine rather than taking all the paint of the surrounding body.

I opened my boot before, it was windy, and the big plastic panel that covers all the gubbins up fell off in the wind. I picked it up and chucked it in the boot, on top of a bike and god knows what other nonsense.

I’ll get round to putting it back on again at some point, with the aid of some duct tape, obviously

You wash your car? Doesn’t it rain where you live?

It rains plenty, ideal for rinsing the shampoo off after I’ve washed it.

Serious question, what is a detailer as opposed to a car wash?

Someone who washes a car carefully without scratching the paint and various different stages of clean, very clean, super clean, paint correction and polishing/waxing.

We go for very clean and waxed once or twice a year, makes them easier to keep clean and protects them a bit.

The hand car washes generally use potent chemicals and then scrub your car with everyone else’s grit that’s already on the sponge.

What is this ‘washing’ your car of which you speak?

04 Passat estate here, tatty as hell and goes like stink. its ace.

I apply the same thoughts to my bike too. Always buy a second hand frame with marks so I don’t have to worry about..

I’m currently pootling around in a 17 yo 3-series loving known as “The bug hotel” by my girls as I use it as the skip car too. Garden waste, rubble all goes in there and I’ll run it til it dies.
Just passed the MOT with a couple of cheap advisories too 🙂

I washed my land rover once.

Turned out it was light green. The dark green I thought it was was due to a combination of light green paint and a very thin layer of black algae…

Rule #1 of Bangernomics . Join the AA.
Running old cars is great when they work , fustrating when they misbehave
Knowing when to try to sell to re-coup a % of the purchace price or keep on driving with zero maintenance till the next MOT is always a tricky call
Get through MOT and its a mini service and go for another year?
Sell with a years ticket and aim to recoup most of the purchace price ?
My Passat was the best for £££ per mile . 1 brake caliper replaced and sold for 90% of purchace price over 90,000 added miles , plus a few oil changes and tyres but that is unavoidable

I like being able to skip the threads on here like

Which boot liner.
White leather and a family.
What portable bike washer.

Also don’t join the AA join autoaid or something.

Buy a van FTW.

All those shiny cars parked on the far side of the car park? I like parking really really close to them…

Are you still in the bangernomics club if you spent £4k-odd on a car and have just kept it for years?

Great club to be in. My 2002 Audi A3 was destined for the scrap heap when the gearbox packed in. I gave my mate £100 for it and took a punt on a £50 box on Ebay. ” days work and the old tub has been perfectly reliable now for almost 2 years. It already had a few dents and scratches, so when the garage door came off its hinges and added another dent to the front wing, did I cry? Nah, kust adds character. Left outside, never been washed. Permanent set of winter tyres on it and drive it like it is stolen.

Serious question, what is a detailer as opposed to a car wash?

Depends who you ask.

At one end of the spectrum you the guys who will take a brand new car and charge £5k to get the paint perfect rarer than just good.

Then there’s just a good car wash. Including degreasing the engine bay, poking all the bugs out of the radiator matrix, and generally turning it back to how it left the factory. The sort of stuff you’d do for a concourse competition.

Then there’s detailing dave. He drives a transit st with a company name emblazoned on the side in a chrome effect vinyl. He’s going to wash and wax your car and charge £250 for it because he uses a clay bar rather than tfr, a lambswool mitten rather than a sponge and posh words like Carnauba wax (posh word for palm oil) and will tell you that the silicone wax used at the local hand car wash is inferior (it is, but it’s also not charging £250 to wash a car).

keep the bangers going. My car is old but in good condition so not a banger. I park over the far side of the car park away from everything and worry about it getting stratched.

Are you still in the bangernomics club if you spent £4k-odd on a car and have just kept it for years?

Id say so.   We bought our Kuga on a Ford release day special offer employees only in 2008.  We finished paying for it years ago and although it ate its gearbox last year still goes well, although I suspect the “Service Oil” warning which I googled to mean the DPF is full after this many years of school runs will cost us £300 after market.

Its used for kids, gets bashed around in north London car parks, is scratched but essentially carry’s the family and bikes on a tow bar with little concern and the added benefit of Haldex 4wd and all seasons for muddy bikes and sports car parks.  It’s become very utilitarian.

On the other hand my 2017 PCP’d car is a very nice place to sit and easier to drive / less effort when on a motorway for hours.  I wouldn’t swap the two, although I use mine more carefully for bike races when I’m going solo and know there’s appropriate parking at the end.

We bought my wife’s Focus 1.6 tdci  11 years ago as a dealer pre reg.

140k miles later it’s dented, scratched and the dogs have made the boot a biohazard area but it still keeps on going.

Passes MOT every year, cheap servicing (even at the main dealer) and hasn’t needed anything on top other than brakes and tyres.

Clutch is good and it still returns circa 50mpg (according to the trip computer).

£30 p/y tax too.

We keep saying if/when it does we’ll get her something newer and/or nicer but fingers crossed that will be years away.

I may have to wash the ratty Saab as it has green all around the rear screen. It will be the first wash for about a year.

When my battered old Land Rover looked a bit tatty, I decided to paint it black. Hammerite black.

My neighbour knocked on my door a few months ago looking very sheepish; “I’m sorry finbar, I’ve just bumped your car when I was parking mine.”

Me: “Oops! Haha, don’t worry about it.”

Neighbour: “Er… don’t you want to have a look? I’ll pay for any damage”

Me:” “Nah….”

Heres a good story for you.

In 2005 I bought an ex demo Octavia vRS, kept it for years and left it with the (ex)wife when we got divorced. She traded it in years ago.

Last year I was looking for a bangernomics car to replace my ageing Mk4 Golf GTi and thought I fancied another Octavia. So I went on Autotrader put in ‘Octavia vRS estate’ and a nice example came up first in the search. I was looking at it, and how tidy it was for the (very little) money, then thought I recognised the number plate. It was my old car. It had only just been listed on AT (literally ten minutes earlier), and was in a dealership 3 miles away from where I was working, so I phoned them up, went and had a look at it during my lunch and bought it on the spot.

It’d had one owner in between me, and he’d kept up the dealer servicing and put very little mileage on it. It was an absolute bargain too. We were just meant to be together, I suppose 😀

Those on the thread with landrovers, they don’t count.

Bangernomics, Banger-nomics, banger economics. ECONOMICS! There is absolutely nothing about landrovers that’s economical.

Fuel – would be cheaper if it ran on steam generated by burning £5 notes.

Parts – reasonably priced, but there’s economics of scale that cause that, you’ll need a lot of them.

Longevity – yes landrovers are allegedly the longest running vehicles on UK roads, but once it’s on its 4th engine transplant, 3rd bulkhead, 2nd chassis and more cross members than ive had hot dinners thats not really the same Landrover.

The only economical landrovers are the ones people bought for £30k new a few years ago and kept immaculate that have actually appreciated.

My Landy dated back to 1964. It was built to last and refused to stop working even though it was seriously abused.

Fuel – it was a small Perkins diesel engine so the economy wasn’t too bad. It didn’t go very fast though, which was probably a very good thing.