Skint shiters - running a car on a budget

[loserone]

I've always taken pride in owning the worst looking car in our work car park !

 

I was at a "regional conference" yesterday, and parked the Kia right outside the conference hall window where people where queuing up for coffee and breakfast. Got some interesting looks from other delegates as I pulled my hoodie off, reached in the back for my suit jacket, then left the car obviously unlocked with the empty glove box open in the middle of Sunderland.  You could see on their faces they had decided not to park there as the risks to their monthly-payments Range Rover Sports were too great.  I reckon the Pride is a better looking car anyway.

 

I need to always have a working car, and I'm fortunate that I can have a 'spare car' and afford to have someone skilled do the work on both. If I were doing all maintenance myself, having two reduces the pressure significantly especially when getting hold of parts quickly is difficult. When I first encountered 'things breaking on a car', I tried buying a modern - a four year old Almera - and it simply increased the costs of maintenance and depreciation, leaving me just as stuck when it broke.  It's not a good place to be, and if that's what you were comparing to I can see why PCP might appeal.

[rantingYoof]

^^ Same here. Have had several friends in the last year singing that tune too. I try to tell them that repairing/maintaining the older car will save them more money than they will ever save (wrt fuel economy, road tax etc) hawking their souls  by signing up to some finance deal on a new/newish car. They all agree, nod obligingly and with one exception, go ahead and buy a new/newish one. Oh well, it's your money, your business, your problem. 

 

There's also the "Gotta getta fancier car than sibling/friend/neighbour/workmates/people I don't know or care about"/showing off issue to deal with here too. 

 

I have lost count of the number of times that people with generous budgets for cars have announced excitedly that they're in the market for a replacement to their older car, and I've enthusiastically gone "wow that's a good budget there's some really interesting stuff you can get with that monies", and they've seemed really pleased with a few of the things I've found...

 

...and then a few days later I spot the '15 plate BMW One-one-fucking-six in the carpark.

 

"I see you've got the BMW 116 - how is that?"

"It's great - it's a new BMW!!!"

"Weren't you looking for something with a bit more spark than that?"

"Oh it doesn't matter, it's a new BMW!!!"

"But I showed you a 328 coupe which had leather, and a proper straight-six engine and was actually a car rather than a badge with a turgid underpowered underspecced pile of shite attached to it...."

"BUT IT'S A NEW BMW HURRHSHRFFHSUfSAFSHGFHSH..."

 

My feelings are strong on this subject.

 

 

Also, I rolled home in Mason the LS400 the VERY SAME DAY my neighbour picked up his brand new '15 plate Toyota Prius. Literally, he was standing by it looking pleased after arriving home with it when I rumbled past and pulled onto the driveway.

 

Then in the mornings, as I was sitting there waiting for Mason to stop warming up at 2,000rpm, sending plumes of exhaust literally over the roof of my house, he would come out, get into the Prius and silently glide away, and I would feel awkward, but mostly thrilled.

[Grundig]

There are people on this forum who baulk at the idea of part worn tyres or used brake parts. If you buy new tyres or new brake discs, they are used the moment you start driving on them.

It's not like people on a budget would replace fucked tyres with cracked and bald ones or warped, borderline brake discs with equally buggered ones. What would be the point?

 

I work with some people who own newish cars, many with outstanding finance but outside of the warranty. If something cripples their car, what are they going to do? They're already paying £150-300 a month just to have a car on their driveway, if you don't work on cars yourself labour can be expensive, and garages often insist on new parts.

At least if my van breaks I can get used parts for buttons and fix it myself.

 

I often see cars in scrapyards that have had new parts fitted to them not long before being scrapped - exhausts, batteries, tyres even calipers replaced probably for the mot, which it must have then failed 

[Coprolalia]

I probably currently fit 2 & 3 aspiring to 4 in 10 years time. 5 years as a student then another two years clearing accumulated overdraft meant I sat firmly in 1 for a while.

I ran the golf on a shoestring and it survived. Tyres were pulled off scrappers. Simple fixes were done myself, MOT stuff by trusted independents once a year.

The Roc still bears the hallmarks of this, and I'm going to spunk now I can on proactive work.

 

I could have financed myself to the 9s when the golf finally died and I needed a car for work (can't do house calls in a 30 mile patch without a car). Student living has left me tight as a nuns chuff.

 

By contrast a mate in a similar position has a new LR Disco on tick and two houses on some iffy mortgage situation. He injures himself he fucked.

 

No ta.

[Pete-M]

A lad I work with has always insisted on driving new cars. He gave up his two year old Galaxy when he started working at our place because he gets to use new cars for free. Now his wife has bought a new car (Focus, bought with some huge NHS discount) and he has recently had the unfortunate news that he's not gonna be taking company vehicles home anymore.

 

Goodbye free fuel, insurance, tax and maintenance. Welcome to the real world.

 

So for the last few months he's been surrounded by brochures for new cars. Stuff like BMW 116, Golf 1.4 TSI etc. He's been chucking figures about for weeks "The 316 is £249/month, but a Golf is £225, what would you buy, Pete?", to which my answer is always the same "something old, unfashionable, fast and reliable for a grand. Don't forget that £250/month doesn't include insurance etc.. buy an old snotter for a grand, insure it for a few hundred quid and it'll cost about £20-25 a month to tax. No depreciation, you don't have to worry if it gets dinged and you get to drive something you know you own"

 

This brought unhappy responses from him for months. "Don't like old cars".

 

Until this week when he rocked up in his dad's old car which he's now inherited. '95 Volvo 850 T5. 34000 miles on the clock, dead straight, dad bought it new and it's got about £10k worth of valuable two number two letter reg (dad and lads initials). Dad's told him he can have the plate but it has to stay on the Volvo.

 

Matey boy is all confused. He's got to keep the T5 until his dad pops his clogs. He's got a nice car with a good plate BUT IT ISN'T NEW. I did, however, catch him cleaning the Volvo the other day so there's a chance he can be redeemed.

[Lacquer Peel]

Here's the kind of thing that happens when you're skint. The van didn't come with a spare wheel, I kept putting off getting one.

It's jumped up the priorities list all of a sudden.

Kurust looks shit eh?

 

Some alcohol for my friend who went out of his way on his birthday to help and £20 for a decent part worn Toyo fitted sorted me out.

 

My sister's fiance got a puncture on his Citroen DS4 and it cost £150 to replace it at short notice, I think he had to wait a day or two for the correct Michelin as well

[cort16]

It's cost 1000 quid to replace 4 tyres in my a6. Luckily I didn't have to pay for it.

[Lacquer Peel]

It's no wonder Wanlis and the like are so popular, when replacing 4 tyres on an exotic car like a top of the range Focus or something costs so much.

 

The roads are appalling just now, huge potholes and jagged ruts. Does anyone have a spare wheel for an older VW with 4x100 PCD?

[anonymous user]

Not sure where I fit into this. I've been dreadfully hard up in the past and had to cobble "solutions" to my transport, or get lifts, cycle, or the bus depending where I was living and working at the time. The worst being when I had to borrow money off an aunt, as I was already over my overdraft limit and my nearest relations wouldn't help. Lessons learned after it's too late, buy a really ordinary car that it's easy to get secondhand/cheap spares for.

 

As things got easier I have gone down the multiple car route, in the hope that at least one would always work.

 

The last few years I've done the dirt cheap new car route and chopped it in after three years for another. (Yes I know, but the savings on fuel/VED/repairs over 20k miles per year can cover an awful lot of depreciation)

 

Now that my mileage per year is coming down and I don't need reliable transport for work it's back to what I know and the last few months I've been driving a petrol Land Rover.

[andrew e]

I don't think tyres are expensive any more really - I remember paying a £110 for a Michelin pilot in 1997. Last month I paid £110 for a 245/45/17 continental fitted.

[HH-R]

175/65/R14s FTW.

[SiC]

Most modern stuff seems to run on 225/45/17 - which means they can be had pretty cheap now. Also loads of choices because it's so common size.

[DodgyBastard]

It's no wonder Wanlis and the like are so popular, when replacing 4 tyres on an exotic car like a top of the range Focus or something costs so much.

 

The roads are appalling just now, huge potholes and jagged ruts. Does anyone have a spare wheel for an older VW with 4x100 PCD?

I might have one, I will check.

 

Sent from my D6603 using Tapatalk

[brownnova]

The time I was most skint sent me the opposite direction to some of you it seems...

 

Having just bought our first house, all our savings were gone and money was more than tight! So when my Alfa 156 JTD ate it's clutch and DMF there was no way I could afford to have it done, nor to purchase a different motor. The 156 was worthless not least coz I had been done and sold a clocked car, and by the time trading standards had done anything the trader closed up and disappeared!!

 

So with a 60 mile a day commute, no train station, no skill to do work myself etc we opted to go down the finance new car route. A) because they would give me 500 for the Alfa. we knew that we wouldn't have to factor in repair costs for a couple of years. C) the savings in insurance, fuel, repair etc covered a good chunk of the monthly payment. So we got a Fiat 500.

 

Good little car!

 

My mistake was when, after 3 years and 50k it felt baggier than a 55 year old prostitute. Instead of getting out of new cars, I daftly part exchanged our for another, much more expensive car. Despite the fact that money, fixing skills etc had all increased.

 

I plan on not making the same mistake when this one comes up for change!!

 

Were all find different ways to survive I guess...

[rantingYoof]

From what I've heard from various owners, and people who have been given them as courtesy cars, the 500s don't like short-distance driving as much as they do not wear higher mileages very well.

 

Saying that, a lady at work had a brand spanking new one, and a couple months later I remember thinking "That sounds rather clattery for a modern diesel" one day when I heard her start it up after work.

 

Another few months later, I overhear her complaining to a colleague that "the little petrol engine is very thirsty and feels very lumpy and rough, I don't know why that is, it's very poor for a modern car!"

 

The colleague asks "how many miles has it done?" and she responds "You know, I've had it around six months and I've only put five hundred miles on it!"

 

Turns out she'd been driving it to work and back (a distance of under a mile each way) and hadn't actually ever taken it on any dual-carriage ways or anything in its first six months. This was over winter, too.

 

Derp.

[mouseflakes]

Here's the kind of thing that happens when you're skint. The van didn't come with a spare wheel, I kept putting off getting one.

It's jumped up the priorities list all of a sudden.

Years ago, running an R4 in Bristol, I was pretty skint at the time. I had my eye on a french-registered R5 that was dumped in a public car park. It was smashed to bits but still had half-decent tyres on rims that would fit my R4. I thought I could swap over a couple of my R4 wheels with balding tyres, under cover of darkness (so's not to upset anyone - Bristol in the grip of a car theft epidemic at the time).

 

Anyway, someone must have sen me through the gloom and thought I was stealing a car, as a couple of pursuit cars came screaming up and some police officers started shouting at me. I explained the situation and they soon realised I wasn't TWOCing anything of worth, but they said they couldn't let me continue and sent me on my way. I think they understood my point that I was trying to keep my car roadworthy on a shoestring using bits that were otherwise just going to be scrapped. The R5 disappeared a couple of days later.

[Lacquer Peel]

 

£1.99 at Home Bargains, WCPGW?

[sierraman]

If have to have £250 worth of bills every month without fail from my car before a new one became a viable option. It's all well and good saying ahh but you can lease a VW up for £99 a month. That's no fucking good to me! If you could lease a brand new Mondeo for £50 a month all bills servicing included then I'd consider it. Until then...

[xtriple]

A chap round the corner has had a Mondeo (06 reg) ever since I've lived her (so at least 2.5 years) and really looked after it. A few days ago there was a 16 reg Fiesta in bright red in his parking space. Just been talking to him, lease deal, £190 a month. It's a 1.0 ecoboost thing and it looks quite nice to be fair. Three years then chuck it back and he's already planning his next new car in three years time!

 

Not sure how I feel about it all to be honest.

 

I understand he wanted a brand new car (it is a nice feeling to have a 'spanker' until the first scratch appears) but £190 a month for three years just to rent it? No maintenance to pay for though and it will be cheap and economical to run (I hope). However, it worries me that he is already planning the next one! Surely, the first few months of ownership are the honeymoon period where you love your new car with a passion bordering on obsession?

 

I like owning things (I include HP in that as you do own it in the end) rather than renting but, his needs are very different to mine.

[sierraman]

This is what I'm saying, I'd want to be like for like, not getting out of a big car into a pov spec Fiesta. I don't know it might suit his needs more but if I'm paying more out that's to say the £200 I'd want to be in something similar to what I've got. Financially that's not going to happen so that's why I wouldn't do it.

[SiC]

 

£1.99 at Home Bargains, WCPGW?

Good enough to replace the expired gunk when your modern has no spare tyre - but you need something as a token gesture to appease the Breakdown company that you do have a form of repair kit! Most breakdown policies in their small print require you to have some sort of functional spare tyre or tyre repair solution. So I have a can to cover that, but never actually intend to use it...

[robinmasters]

A girl at work was talking about how her and her husband are going to trade in their 8 year old focus for a nearly new Nissan Cashcow as the focus needs new brakes and is becoming 'unreliable'. She was hung up on mpg and cheap road tax and I tried to explain the biggest cost is depreciation but I don't think she got it. She was also looking for a diesel buy only does 10k a year.

 

I can understand those people, to a point. They don't want to think about maintenance or repairs; possibly because cars don't really matter to them, or possibly because they don't understand them and the thought of going into a garage to get minor consumables replaced is intimidating to them. Either way, the upshot is the same; they'd prefer to pay a few quids extra a month to avoid having to deal with all that. The trouble is that is quite often ignorance behind it, and as they're spending quite a bit on the finance they get quite defensive trying to justify their decision. More often than not it's a conversation best avoided.

 

I've had my ZX over five years ago. Bought for £470, from my student loan, it hasn't needed much more than consumables, most of the work being done by me, using parts off eBay. I did recently splash out on two new tyres, but in the past tyres have been bought second-hand, already on wheels. It was our only car for years, so repairs meant days of public transport, which in turn took a big chunk out of each day leaving less time to do the repairs. 

 

I could afford a PCP new car now, but I like running something basically for free, and its mine-if I lost my job tomorrow, it'd still be mine. Also, part of me likes 'beating the system'.

[BorniteIdentity]

I've never bought a new car. Ever.  The last time I spent any significant money on a car was 2002, and that was £5400.

 

Since then I've always bought the wife something nicer and had her cast-off, or spent under £1000.  Bangernomics works for me, as you really can beat the system with 90s Jap stuff.

 

But I hate myself for this.  Despite me protesting, I do actually care what other people think. A bit.  One of the Dads at football last week rocked up in his 'new to him' 2009 Jaguar X-Type estate.  Now you and I know what this really is, but he was sat there proud as punch in the car park.  I thought I'll go mention it to him, he's obviously chuffed and it's nice to be nice.  (I like making people feel good about themselves)

 

Converstation goes:

 

ME:  "Love the car, Dan!  Are you pleased with it?"

HIM: Yep. ERR MAY ZING.  Couldn't be happier.  Just the ticket.

ME: "I'm glad. Really pleased for you. It looks lovely,"

 

Then, weirdly, the conversation turns to my car.

 

HIM: How's your fleet? How many do you have now??!!1!

ME: "4. It's best when you run older cars to have options" (I started to flinch a bit, defensively)

HIM: Ha. Your number plate is worth more than your car! (It has a Norn irish plate on it with a significant four digit sequence)

ME: (Polite laughter... it gets awkward) "Well I better let you go..."

 

I'm fucked off at myself for 

 

1) Giving a shit what people think.

2) Giving a shit what someone who had an Agila but chopped it in for a fancy pants Mondeo thinks

3) Being nice.

 

People are fucking horrible sometimes eh?

 

Back on topic, buy what you can.  Look after it and it'll look after you as best it can.  In the end, it's only a race with yourself.

[sierraman]

I've never given a shit what people think. Ultimately you find who your real friends are, I've friends who are genuinely on their arse, then others who are what you'd call well off. We meet for a drink as we get on and have a laugh, the fact we are in different positions financially is irrelevant, none of us feels the need to impress each other.

[SiC]

HIM: Ha. Your number plate is worth more than your car! (It has a Norn irish plate on it with a significant four digit sequence)

Is this not a really good thing? Cause it means if the car dies, the number plate covers the cost of what its worth, thus making it a completely free car?