Affordable or cheap?

[Mr Livered]

I recently sold an 06 plate Ssangyong Rexton, because I no longer needed a 4x4 and it was costing me a gazillion pounds a year. A tax disc is nearly £500, the insurance is quite high and it uses a fair amount of fuel. But the real killer was the maintenance. A dash light came on, I disn't even know what it meant (ESP I think) but I was quoted £800 for some kind of computery thing to make the light go away. There was very little beyond the most basic work, like oil changes, that I could actually tackle myself.

 

So that was a relatively cheap car for its age, because it was a shite make, which cost a fuggin fortune to keep on the road. The cheapest is the Minx: because of its simplicity there is very little which would cost big money to fix, insurance is pennies, there's no tax and even no MoT. In fact the total running costs of the Minx including insurance - everything but fuel - is significantly less than a tax disc for the Rexton.

[rml2345]

I worked out once that running my old Volvo was cheaper than a brand new small car on finance with a similar amount of kit but more important than that is that I like my old Volvo more than a brand new small car so I'm willing to spend money on it to keep it on the road.

I guess it's cheap and affordable but I'm honestly bot that bothered about it. As Lord S said, it puts a smile on my often miserable coupon and you can't put a price on that.

[barefoot]

I've been totting up every penny I've spent this year.

 

Here http://autoshite.com/topic/13543-barefoot-motoring-costs-2013/?do=findComment&comment=416883

And on fuelly.com

 

Scirocco seems to be leading by a head at the mo.

[Cavcraft]

I honestly don't understand the original post in this thread, but my hatchback is costing me next to nothing really.

[Bobthebeard]

I honestly don't understand the original post in this thread, but my hatchback is costing me next to nothing really.

The original post was just to compare what people consider to be affordable cars. As opposed to what most of us consider to be cheap cars.

Affordable = newish, but on finance. Dependable but costly.

Cheap = errrr Cheap. No finance. Not costly and sometimes dependable.

[Cavcraft]

Isn't 'affordable' dependant on income/outgoings and cheap probably the same?

[Bobthebeard]

Isn't 'affordable' dependant on income/outgoings and cheap probably the same?

Sort of....

But not really!

A...Affordable means a monthly payment.

B...Cheap means no monthly payment.

If a monthly payment can be afforded, then that's ok!

Most of us are in Cat B. I suspect.

[Junkman]

I think cheap is cheap, no matter what you can afford. So yes, affordable is linked to one's income group and lifestyle, cheap probably not, as in, a cheap car can always be affordable (unless one is too poor to afford motoring altogether), but an affordable car isn't neccessarily cheap.

 

What I mean is that people are nowadays purely judged by the monetary amount they have at their disposal to show off. Only the geezers in here may remember the times, when a man had to have a lot more attributes than just money in order to be seen as 'good', but that's well and truly history. It's money only now and the more you have the better* a man you are seen as. Hence the vast majority of people drive affordable cars, i.e. the most expensive car they just about can still afford the payments for, so the neighbors can see how good* they are.

 

Cheap cars are cars one can run on the cheap and one choses them despite one could afford something more expensive. This leads to one being seen as not as good* as the next man who has the exact same income, but choses to spend it all on an affordable car. Not a shit givage is an important premise for chosing to drive a cheap car, as opposed to driving an affordable car.

 

Did I get it right?

[RichardMoss]

The way i look at affordable is:  at the time I was running my XJ40 I was having a hard time financially but thanks to LPG, cheap parts via ebay/specialists and my own mechanical skills I was able to afford to run a car like that.  It was cheap, because it had to be - I had very little money in the car budget - and was thus affordable.

[Junkman]

Yes, any cheap car is affordable, but whether an affordable car is cheap depends on your personal circumstances. There were times in my life when I found brand new Corvettes very affordable, still kept driving clapped out beaten up bangers though, which were cheap.

[Cavcraft]

If my maths are any good, my £205 car has saved me about £250 by running on veg oil (mostly, but not always, mixed with diesel) in the few thousand miles I've been running it. That's pretty impressive really and I suppose that's well into the 'cheap' bracket.

[pandamonium]

I think the happy medium is a well maintained 10 year old diesel car with a low tax bracket.

 

We've just bought an '05 Vauxhall Meriva 1.7cdti with our savings - £1200, and it is a cheap car to run, insure and tax. Plenty space inside too, and isn't that horrid to drive.

 

Personally I'm happy with the Lada, but the Meriva is the more sensible solution for the family.