Do you drive this car?

[slowmotion]

We bought a Vauxhall Combo 1.7 diesel van ten years ago for £2000. It was never serviced, but it sailed through MOTs. The oil filter never got changed. It had new tyres, an alternator ,a couple of batteries, and a few new bulbs. The RAC were called three times in a decade. It went to the scrappie three months ago and we got £90 for it. ( I think you get £10 per 100kg of weight). Latterly, it did look a bit rough, but that helps when in London traffic. Shiny cars keep a safe distance and you get "respect". The "driving experience" left a lot to be desired and it didn't have "new car smell". It went from A to B though and never let me down.
RIP.

 

[screenman]

Fine by me trader near.me has got an S reg hyndai accent up for 400 quid!!!!!

Which he paid £100 for.

In life it is nice to have choices.

 

[screenman]

we had 1 and it was far from ok

I have had hundreds and can only think now of one bad one, a over heating 30.

Hired a Clio diesel in France last week, cracking little car.

 

[Fab Foodie]

Hired a Clio diesel in France last week, cracking little car.

Fun, frugal comfortable, handled well and the estate is reasonably roomy.
Ace!

 

[Mark Grant]

I have very recently sold my 1998 VW Caravelle / Multivan.
I bought it when it was 4 years old for £10,000 from its first owner with 36 000 miles on the clock.
In the 12 years I owned it I think the only parts I fitted to it were service items, and one relay!
I sold it a few weeks ago, 16 years old with 136000 miles on for £ 7800.
I think that is good value motoring!

 

[Over The Hill]

I have very recently sold my 1998 VW Caravelle / Multivan.
I bought it when it was 4 years old for £10,000 from its first owner with 36 000 miles on the clock.
In the 12 years I owned it I think the only parts I fitted to it were service items, and one relay!
I sold it a few weeks ago, 16 years old with 136000 miles on for £ 7800.
I think that is good value motoring!

This is the real illustration of what a car costs.
Most thinks are just used by us for their lifetime and so the purchase cost = the true cost. Not so with cars.
The big problem with a low priced new car is that they often then are an even lower priced second hand car and over your ownership they can drop in price (and so cost you as much as a higher priced alternative).

I really dont think that you can to go for low cost motoring and buy a new car (or indeed any car up to three years old). You cannot buck the fact that the car will lose between 40 and 60% of its value in its first there years. That loss in any car outweighs the other costs by a huge margin.

Put a new Dacia up against a 3 year old Golf and look at the cost over 3 years. My guess is the Golf will have more life left in it, cost half as much, drive better and be just so much better at doing the job. If it is important for you to have new then forget about saving money.

My solution? Mercedes E Class Estate. New they are about £50k, six years old (when I bought) £8k and then they drop by only perhaps £500 per year but even this will level out after a few years. Fuel tax and insurance are a bit more but it really does not add up to that much. It probably has a good 20 years left in it as they seem to just go on for ever. Merc give them a 30 year rust warranty! Cheap motoring in style.

 

[Moodyman]

I used to change cars often, until I found out it was driving I get fed up with rather than the car I was driving.

This could explain my reason for changing bikes so often. Get sick of cycling 30 miles everyday.

 

[Pale Rider]

We bought a Vauxhall Combo 1.7 diesel van ten years ago..latterly, it did look a bit rough, but that helps when in London traffic. Shiny cars keep a safe distance and you get "respect".

Best vehicle I ever drove in London traffic was a Ford Transit pick up.

The sharp corners at about shoulder height of the load area meant even Black cabs got out of the way.

Aided by decisive driving on my part.

Except on one occasion when I was a bit too decisive.

Rounding Marble Arch to go along Bayswater Road I managed to lose control and do a 360 degree tailspin.

Didn't hit anything, finished facing roughly the same way, so the only thing to do was keep quiet and carry on.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Bought my current 2005 Corsa 3 years ago for £2000 with 45000 miles on it, full service history, 1 owner blah blah. In the last 3 years I have had to replace Lambda sensor, crankshaft position sensor, MAF, rack ends, drop links, battery, wiper motor, wiper linkage, crankshaft oil seal, and then all the usual service stuff like, oil, plugs, blades,belt, coolant, filters. I expect to do the timing chain next year. For the cost of all this I could of just bought a new car and not of had to get under the car so much.

We bought an Octavia estate ('11' plate, 1.6Tdi), in March 2012, when it was 7 months old, with less than 7,000 miles showing

To date, it's on 71,000miles

Granted it's had 4 new discs & pad-sets at it's Mot test, but, the first 45,000-50,000 miles with us were on constant trips to Cardiff, or Market Harbrough, so a lot of heavy braking in rush-hour motorway traffic
Other than that, just routine servicing
Capacious, comfortable, relatively cheap to insure (£190 F/C, with 4 drivers) & economical
This was my average mileage on a trip down to East Midlands Airport a couple of weeks ago




Would I have another?? Oh yes!!!!!!!!!! (maybe even a Superb estate next)

 

[Piemaster]

Asking about car choice really does split opinion on here,especially if it involves a 'lesser' marque - I got similar replies here. Fair bit seems to revolve around 'driving experience' for the use one of our cars gets it doesn't matter, there are other factors far more important. For the other car it does matter a lot more.

Anyway, masses of Dacia in Brazil, they all wear the Renault badge.

 

[CopperBrompton]

I really dont think that you can to go for low cost motoring and buy a new car (or indeed any car up to three years old). You cannot buck the fact that the car will lose between 40 and 60% of its value in its first there years. That loss in any car outweighs the other costs by a huge margin.

Indeed, when I was looking for my current car, I wanted a very specific (and unusual) spec, so knew it would take a while. As a stop-gap, I bought an ebay car, sight unseen, for £700: an old BMW 535. Hugely specced, would have been a 50K car when new, and nothing wrong with it.

Drove it for two months until I found the car I wanted, then sold it ... for £700.

 

[gavroche]

Going to test drive one on Saturday pm.

 

[simon the viking]

Going to test drive one on Saturday pm.

Don't know what your time scale is, but when I bought it was a 3 month delivery schedule.... Ordered beginning of June and got it september....

 

[MarkF]

Indeed, when I was looking for my current car, I wanted a very specific (and unusual) spec, so knew it would take a while. As a stop-gap, I bought an ebay car, sight unseen, for £700: an old BMW 535. Hugely specced, would have been a 50K car when new, and nothing wrong with it.

Drove it for two months until I found the car I wanted, then sold it ... for £700.

Just to add, all my cars over the past 12 years have been bought unseen from Ebay, 5 cars and the only fault, 1 £30 radiator hose.

 

[Over The Hill]

Just to add, all my cars over the past 12 years have been bought unseen from Ebay, 5 cars and the only fault, 1 £30 radiator hose.

I like to see it and generally can find a few faults to get the price down a bit. Not sure I would want to get it unseen.
Autotrader seems fine and you can search just in the local area with lots of choice.

Some cars do seem to have faults but they do seem to crop up as much in newer cars as well as older ones so I really don't think age is the main factor.

I got my car last year with 115k on the clock and I think it will be good for the same again. We run two cars and in the last 15 years all we have had in parts for any car has been - couple of diesel jets, couple of brake callipers, one exhaust (first one lasted 14 years), a few rubber bushes. That is on cars mainly 8-12 years old and all French! I really don't think they go wrong now and cars are still looked at as being something that lasts 10 years and 100k when they will easily do that twice over.