Affordable or cheap?

[Bobthebeard]

Affordable cars being for people on good* salaries, both working 10 hour days plus overtime, to make the car payments, pay for child care, ironing services, cleaners and a gardener ( as they are always at work ) so they can have a late reg car to impress the neighbours. Paying dearly just so they can afford to go to work to finance all the above and a holiday once a year.

 

Cheap cars.

Discuss.

[Jim Bell]

To me, Cheap cars are not just cheap cars to buy.

 

They have to be cheap to tax, cheap to insure, cheap to feed and cheap to fix.

They come from Autoshite. Retro Rides, Gumtree, Happy Friendly Internet Auction Site or Post Office Windows.

 

An Affordable car is something you can get a loan for. Or qualify for Finance to achieve. A status symbol that pushes the envelope of what you can manage.

These come from Dealers.

 

I preffer the former, and have never been interested in the latter.

[londonm]

Half a dozen of one, six of the other.

[Bobthebeard]

To me, Cheap cars are not just cheap cars to buy.

 

They have to be cheap to tax, cheap to insure, cheap to feed and cheap to fix.

They come from Autoshite. Retro Rides, Gumtree, Happy Friendly Internet Auction Site or Post Office Windows.

 

An Affordable car is something you can get a loan for. Or qualify for Finance to achieve. A status symbol that pushes the envelope of what you can manage.

These come from Dealers.

 

I preffer the former, and have never been interested in the latter.

Both being a lifestyle choice.

I prefer the former!

I have a life, but no style.

[tooSavvy]

...Hmmm... Dealer was offering a Grand for WHY, MOTd, off the £car.

 

Bought car [cash] and intend to run till cubed.....

 

dunno what that equates to as 'full life' £ - per - Mile but I service it, and Waxoyl it, so it should go a bit.....

 

tooSavvy

[Justin Case]

A new Skoda Citigo at £135 down and £135 a month with free servicing is affordable but not cheap. A £500 XJ6 is cheap, but is unlikely to be affordable. Easy

[Faker]

An '03 Clio 2.0 16v 172 for £1600 a year ago with a years test. Since purchase, a couple of things, set of new tyres -£240. Stainless cat back exhaust £250 ( marginally more expensive than a standard replacement one, though I won't get the full benefit really) for the last mot. Was lowered when purchased, so they were binned and Clio cup springs fitted, so much nicer now to drive. It's quite expensive to tax at nearly £300 per year, with renewal looming very soon. Cost a couple of hundred to put through its last mot a few weeks back. Its not the most economical thing to run either. Total spent Over the year = £1000 or so not including the springs as that wasn't really necessary. I've put 14,000 miles on it with it now reading 93k. I think I'd still get about £1300 or so for it now with T&T. So it's cost over £1300 to run for the year not including fuel. Not been very cost effective or affordable, but have enjoyed owning and driving it. Would I be content driving something more sensible that's cheaper to tax, insure and run? Probably not.

[Wilko220]

Presumably, given the whole concept of this forum, this is doomed to be a pretty one-sided debate, no?

[Bobthebeard]

Presumably, given the whole concept of this forum, this is doomed to be a pretty one-sided debate, no?

Yes...

[warren t claim]

A new Skoda Citigo at £135 down and £135 a month with free servicing is affordable but not cheap. A £500 XJ6 is cheap, but is unlikely to be affordable. Easy

If you're not doing many miles then the XJ6 seems a logical choice to me.

[oman5]

Volvo 240 estate. do I need to say more?

 

Mrs oman bought a new dacia from a small inheritance she had,(the first and only new car we've ever had) otherwise it's cheap cars all the way. couldnt give a shite about impressing anyone, and we like having money in the bank too much to want any kind of finance deal just to have a new car.

[Junkman]

Peugeot 405, cheap and affordable.

Rover P6 V8, fuggin neither.

Prestige? Yes, both of them, if your idea of a reputation is that everyone thinks you are either 78 years old or a total lunatic.

[Wilko220]

So, are you trying to tell us that you're not 78-years-old and a total lunatic then?

[Pillock]

I can afford my car, it wasn't cheap. That makes it affordable.

It's cheap to run at 58mpg, £30/year tax and £200 comprehensive insurance. 

 

Depends what you want from a car. At 33,000 miles in the last 52 weeks a £500 XJ6 would have had me pondering life on the wrong side of a motorway bridge railing. 

[Mr Livered]

Depends what you want from a car. At 33,000 miles in the last 52 weeks a £500 XJ6 would have had me pondering life on the wrong side of a motorway bridge railing. 

 

Just playing with some numbers for the hell of it. If you're driving a gas guzzler, let's say 18mpg because that's what I used to get from my Range Rover - might be similar for an XJ6 driven enthusiastically?

 

Based on petrol prices around here and 33k miles a year, that's £1000 a month fuel

[meggersdog]

My last Discovery was a £200 MOT failure.I probably spent the same amount in welding materials.For the next six years it cost £200-£250 each year for  MOT and repairs.I fitted an inline fuel heater so it could run 50/50 veg oil and diesel and changed the filter twice a year.Parts are cheap and it's easy to work on.Replaced it with a £330 300TDi and the old 200TDi is now a spares vehicle for whatever parts are inter-changeable. (like the complete exhaust yesterday).

Cheap  all the way for me.

[Pillock]

Actually I bought the car because I could claim a flat rate of 12p per mile business use. So an 18mpg petrol car would cost 35.3p per mile at today's prices, meaning I'd be spending 23p per mile out of my own pocket to drive for business :-0

 

However, a few months back they changed the rules, and gave me a fuel card. 58mpg, 8mpg.... They just pony up for my business fuel. I pay back private miles as pro rata, but it's never more than about 60 miles a month.

 

 

[Junkman]

Just playing with some numbers for the hell of it. If you're driving a gas guzzler, let's say 18mpg because that's what I used to get from my Range Rover - might be similar for an XJ6 driven enthusiastically?

 

Based on petrol prices around here and 33k miles a year, that's £1000 a month fuel

 

Why do I always get 22-24 mpg from cars like this? I'm not hanging around with them either, if that's what you think.

To the contrary, everyone around me does, but that's a different thread.

Interestingly, I can't get near the mpg other people claim they get from their dizzlers, not even close, only pezzers work for me.

There might be exceptions, but whoever does 33k p/a does most of it professionally, hence gets reimbursed for the fuel one way or other.

When I did this much driving, I did much of it with a '78 Caprice Classic with the 350/350. Consistently got 24mpg.

[cms206]

Had the Council Estate since June 2012.

 

Cost: £150

Insurance: £200/yr (just renewed, £200 again)

Tax: £230ish/yr

Parts: £120ish

Tyres: £100

Other sundries: £115 (full service & front pads at local garage)

 

I make that about £1115 before fuel for 15 months motoring in relative luxury; it does about 25mpg round the houses, 32ish mpg on a run, and I've done about 12k miles. Taking an average of 25mpg, that's roughly 2160 litres of pez, making fuel costs of just shy of £3k over 15 months. All in that's about £270 a month over 15 months in total. I couldn't get a Focus on finance anywhere near that figure. I'll stick to my Volvo, ta.

[brickwall]

Buy a Rangie and thus destroying your relationship and filing for bankruptcy because yoiu will refuse to part with it...or...there is always the RVP route(Rover Volvo Pug)

[fiatdaft]

You could actually!

[dollywobbler]

Why do I always get 22-24 mpg from cars like this? I'm not hanging around with them either, if that's what you think.

To the contrary, everyone around me does, but that's a different thread.

Interestingly, I can't get near the mpg other people claim they get from their dizzlers, not even close, only pezzers work for me.

There might be exceptions, but whoever does 33k p/a does most of it professionally, hence gets reimbursed for the fuel one way or other.

When I did this much driving, I did much of it with a '78 Caprice Classic with the 350/350. Consistently got 24mpg.

 

No idea how you do it. My P6B auto generally did 20mpg, but once nudged the dizzy heights of 26mpg on a run. Landy V8 did 15mpg, however I drove it. CX auto was a pricey ol' beast, as that generally did low 20s. 

 

Speaking of which, the CX is probably my most successful cheap car believe it or not. Tt 'cost' me about £850 (did a swap with cash). It overheated on the way home (109 degrees) but kept going, despite running quite badly - there was a massive air leak due to a split hose and someone had 'cured' this by wanging the mixture screw as rich as it would go. I sorted that for not much dollar, fitted some new HT leads and a manual fan switch and that was it. Used it to help a friend move from Birmingham to Kent, then went to a car meet in Malvern the next day and back home to Cambs in one weekend, used it to move house when we moved to Wales, allowed the coolant to freeze (left it to thaw, no damage!) then flogged it for £545. It once failed to proceed (never did find out why) but generally just worked. I never got around to servicing it, but did fit a pair of Hero tyres. It was epic in the snow. As far as I remember, I didn't have to tax or MOT it during my ownership. So there you go. If you want cheap motoring, buy a CX 25 Auto.

[DSdriver]

 If you want cheap motoring, buy a CX 25 Auto.

I like your logic and I have been offered a CX auto in Estate flavour. Trouble is the guy knows his Citroens and  thinks it's worth more than I do. It probably is but I am still in 1970s mode.

[dollywobbler]

Problem is, a lot of it is down to luck at the bottom end of the market. I got lucky with the Disco, the last BX was an absolute disaster. The Mercedes isn't looking like a success on any score either!

 

Mind you, with the Disco, I did budget on spending a fair chunk more than the purchase price on maintenance catch-up, and that's exactly what's happened. Too often, I buy a car without really budgeting on the fact that imminent expenditure is always pretty likely on something with well over 100,000 miles on the clock.

[ShiteRider]

I drive a 735i every for commuting, 400+ miles a week costs me around £85 in juice.

Purchase, insurance, servicing stands me less than a grand.

Got to be cheaper than a new fiesta and a lot more fun.

[RichardMoss]

My old LPG powered XJ40 - bought for £200 (including full tank of fuel and new battery), £250 spent making it MOT ready, then run for a couple of years at 17p per mile. Cheap and affordable.

[Lord Sterling]

I got my KV6 Sterling for free, it probably cost me just under 1k for everything so far, that's getting it taxed, getting it down here, insuring it, new exhaust, body parts from a breaker and getting it through the MOT recently. It makes me smile, you can't put a price on that.

[overrun]

Bought my current 'daily', a 2004 Mondeo Ghia X TDCi 130, about 16 months back, for at the time, a very low £1200.

 

In that time, I have fitted x4 tyres at around £320 (iirc) a rear wheel bearing, £30. An exhaust centre section, £30 and, obvious servicing aside, I think that is it.

 

I have covered over 15,000 miles at an average of 50 MPG (I'm not one for driving behind HGV's). The car is doing exactly what I want of it, and is quite cheap to run, imo.

 

Oh yeah, I fitted a towbar too. Bought in true bangernomics style, second hand on ebay.

 

It's a handy tow car. So saves me money there, too.

[Junkman]

CX auto was a pricey ol' beast, as that generally did low 20s. 

 

I had a new CX25GTIAUTOBREAK w/aircon that I used to transport calibration equipment for concrete testing machines, i.e. 300+ kg load at all times, forth and back throughout Europe and Scandinavia, ca. 33k miles a year.

It needed more petrol than the 1984 5 litre (307Y) Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser I replaced it with after it had terminally failed in spectacular fashion after only 44k miles.

The Olds did 24 mpg, the Cit only 21. I sold the Olds 200k trouble-free miles later, see weird people you sold cars to thread.

 

Do NOT buy a Citroen CX larger than 1/18 scale!

[inconsistant]

{sensible post warning}

There have been some interesting studies into the true financial cost of car ownership, and it is reckoned that on average roughly 25-30% of wages are spent on all costs of owning and running a car. Wish I could remember where I got this, the AA maybe?

Personally, I'm fascinated by the fetishisation of cars by society. The exagerated role cars play in most peoples lives is incredible... and I'm talking about aspirations and lifestyle choices, financial/credit/repayments, how cars stimulate antisocial and selfish behaviour in otherwise kind thoughtful people, and how they affect our own health and wellbeing.

 

I think this says much more about people than cars, and car manufacturers know this, and do all they can to whip us up into a frenzy about what they'll be selling next... but then being here I would say that.

When you look at the total cost divided by the miles driven, the only sensible way is have a car that only costs money when you're actually driving it... so I guess cheap over affordable then.

{end of sensible}