It's a newish car so nothing can be wrong with it.

[SiC]

My 13 year old Clio is better than my 31 year old car in practically every way - economy, comfort, speed etc, but has very little character, there is no spirit of adventure in taking it out for a ride. I do not doubt that a new Clio is superior to my one in the same ways, as will be most if not all modern cars. What concerns me is the huge amount of computers on modern cars, which can easily make a well loved low mileage car beyond economical repair by ten years old. On the 2cv the closest thing to a computer is the £2 Halfords clock, that has been on it for 20 years! Of course things wear out, but there is no £600 cat or £900 ABS pump, so bills are normally manageable. These prices are recent quotes I have done at work, so are not unrealistic.

 

I am certainly not saying that modern cars are crap, but I believe that most people think that they are disposable. With old cars you tend to find a way around problems or get pattern parts, most moderns just seem to get cheap then get scrapped.

Is that not just because your more used to fixing older stuff?

 

I mean I could happily diagnose, fix, swap second hand modules, etc on your Clio - but hand me a carburetor to rebuild/tune/fix, I wouldn't have much of an idea!

 

Also second hand parts costs on modern cars aren't as bad as you may think. A ABS module, new from a Renault dealer, would likely be £300-600 odd. However plenty of second hand ones can be had for under £40 on eBay. Similar price ranges to s/h callipers, master cylinders, etc.

[TDB_Inc]

I wonder if pistonheads have the equivalent thread of AOCADANS - All Old Cars Are Dangerous And Need Scrapping?

 

No they're too busy talking about being a powerfully built company director or arguing about petrol versus diesel.

[Urko]

A major part of the appeal of my recently purchased £300 Puma is that it cost £300. That's it.

[dugong]

I have a modern car.

 

I don't use it much; I walk to work. Then again, I wouldn't depend on any of my tat fleet to get me around on a long term basis.

 

There are very, very few modern cars I like and I couldn't insure the one I wanted the most with my crash history and semi-awful city centre postcode.

The same was true of my tat fleet on a normal policy - with my details nothing came in below £2000 a year.

I got a bit sick of people telling me to 'just get normal cover on x y or z'. Aye, a 21mpg V6 French luxobarge with zero parts availablity would have worked great!

 

In the end, it fell to the car I could actually insure that didn't infuriate me completely.

So many people are thrilled I've bought a 'proper' car it's hilarious. They're surprised I don't make more of it and didn't mention I'd bought it.

[Liggle]

I have a modern car, I also have a brand new car on pre-order I've gotta wait several years for! 

 

Every contender on my second car wish list is 15+ years old and a lot of them of very little value.

 

Why do you have to be in one camp or the other? 

[Pillock]

When I was given £340 a month to run a car by my employer, I spent £190 on the car. The rest I put into a savings account.

 

Once the car was serviced and kept on the road, there was just enough money left after 2 years to make up the difference between the price the garage gave me for it, and the outstanding finance. Essentially my £190 pm car cost pretty much £340pm

[Barry Cade]

I have a modern car, I also have a brand new car on pre-order I've gotta wait several years for! 

TVR, or Morgan?

[Liggle]

TVR, or Morgan?

 

Nope, I wish it were, I've pre-ordered a Tesla Model 3

[CortinaDave]

I can't get this modern mindset at all. No one seems to do anything to their cars at all. No one washes them, checks under the bonnet or tyres or anything.

 

It seems to be at epidemic levels that no one looks after anything; everyone thinks I'm mad for washing my car/leathering it after and always fiddling with it.

I'd go as far as to say looking after your car is actually FROWNED UPON. In my neighbours eyes, so much as lifting the bonnet makes you a terrible neighbour to be tutted and glowered at.

 

Lord help you if you're actually seen to be weilding a socket set, then you are "ripping apart old cars in the street"

[Pillock]

Nope, I wish it were, I've pre-ordered a Tesla Model 3

 

You do realise Dollywobbler is going to be camping outside your house until you let him have a drive?

I'd love a Tesla. I think they've reached the sweet spot, the Model 3 is no longer "OMGWTF that's a stupid price" and having to justify it to everyone who just sees it as a Mondeo sized car that can only go 30 yards between charges. I was chatting to a Tesla rep at the Gadget Show, an honest conversation about whether I could use one in my position - commuting distance, typical weekend use etc. Turns out there'd be no problem other than having to install a charger at home, and if I diverted off the direct route between here and work I'd have to hunt out a supercharger. 250 mile range, I do about 230 miles round trip - but then it seems work could get a grant to install charging points, so that might be a non-issue.

 

Crazy thing is the suggested price for the Model 3 is only 15% more than my run of the mill Astra.

[Liggle]

Has Tesla made an binding agreement on the $35000 sale price with people who placed pre-orders or does Tesla preserve the right to change it?

Nope, literally just paid £1000 for a place on the waiting list! Its fully refundable though should I change my mind, tbh with the mileage I do and the speculation of them arriving in the UK in 2019/2020 I'll probably have another car in between my current daily and the Tesla. 

[xtriple]

I'd go as far as to say looking after your car is actually FROWNED UPON. In my neighbours eyes, so much as lifting the bonnet makes you a terrible neighbour to be tutted and glowered at.

 

Lord help you if you're actually seen to be weilding a socket set, then you are "ripping apart old cars in the street"

Yep, same round here. But, fucking about with a socket set while fiddling with a Bentley seems to cure most of them from saying such things! Though then I get, 'what's broken this time?' which, to be fair, is usually a valid question!

[strangeangel]

I wouldn't depend on any of my tat fleet to get me around on a long term basis.

 

I do, though, and part of the point of having a fleet of old scooters is that redundancy helps when a failure occurs or extended maintenance is required; I have two of the same old Honda 250 cos I only need one lot of spare parts, special tools and knowledge to keep them going (that, and my unswerving conviction that the CN represents the pinnacle of scooter development ). And they more than competently do the same job as one modern maxi-scooter for a lot less overall cost. As for cars - I have the CJ for tarting about in the sun with the roof down, and the BX for taking demolished stud walls to the tip, broken scooters to my mate in Holywell etc. If something FTPs then I'll go to work in/on something else.

 

Fair play to anyone who wants/needs a modern car, but I don't want one and I don't need one. I'd much rather spend the cash on something else (road trips, amplifiers, power tools, coke, hookers etc.)

[stephen01]

And a lot of these people who lease new cars are very limited to the miles, some are as low as 7k per year before the so many pence per mile charges are added on when the 3 years are up, and I don't think half of them realise this when they sign on the dotted line either

 

My leaf is on a 6k year deal, after nearly 12 months its done 4.6k

[SiC]

Most of the over milage fees aren't that bad either. On normal stuff, if you're doing business miles, its just means you make slightly less from the milage allowance. But then you can choose one of the latest ultra efficient diesels too and save money that way.

 

For example my partners dad has a CRV on lease with the 1.6 diesel. It's currently doing 67-70mpg. At 30k p/y, that's quite a saving vs doing 50-55mpg that his last car was doing.

[Urko]

I wonder if pistonheads have the equivalent thread of AOCADANS - All Old Cars Are Dangerous And Need Scrapping?

Last time I looked on there they had a thread per day of vehement arguments about the maths of leasing vs outright purchase - someone always quotes that cliche about owning assets but borrowing stuff that loses value and there are 23 pages of increasingly rabid calculations and arguments about who left what out of each sum.

 

I'm lucky - I did have new cars in the past when someone else was paying and I only had space/time for one car anyway.  Now I'm paying and I have more space (and in theory, time) I don't wish to go back to the new car thing -even if someone else was paying.  But then I did 40000 miles in a year once when someone else was paying - now it's busy year if I do 15000, spread across multiple cars.

 

I got a good deal on my Discovery as a result of ex getting worried about the costs of maintaining it - she's leasing a Nissan Juke now - nice enough thing,but not for me until they are £300 with six months test.

[andrew e]

I really want to believe Tesla will honor that price.

 

But I can't.

[Parky]

I am happy with my 9 year old Seat. Does all I need and by servicing it myself I keep the costs relatively low. It is looking cosmetically knackered now though.

 

I don't mind shelling out for Mrs P to have a new car. She needs reliable wheels for work and having been stranded by the A2 for FIVE FUCKING HOURS after a Bini FTP (despite being lone female) I decided the grief wasn't worth it. What's more it also means we have something reliable and warranted and nice for long distances, etc.

 

Bangernomics does make perfect sense though. It applies in many walks of life. I bought a tenners worth of bedside cabinet off the bay, three hours work later it's a vintage distressed chalk painted conversation piece my wife loves. One of our friends thought we would have paid about £150 for it. Shit I thought, there's a little sideline right there....

[danthecapriman]

I've got a modern company van, it's a requirement of the job I do so I have no say in it. But it does mean I don't pay anything for the van or it's maintenance and I don't pay anything on fuel.

This has saved me a shit load over the years and also means I can have a free reign of whatever old cars I want without having to worry about running costs and other boring things.

 

I have run only old or classic cars as dailys and never had any trouble really, plus I used to work on modern cars for a living and that put me off ever wanting one, let alone the costs of buying them. Aside from that I just can't drive modern stuff, they just do absolutely nothing for me at all I'm afraid.

 

Nothing wrong with anyone wanting one though, everyone's different.

[SiC]

someone always quotes that cliche about owning assets

I've heard it on there but also from my accountant too. I think really only applies though if you're dead set on buying brand new either way and actually have cash to choose between finance and outright. As of course, if you buy a 10 year plus old car, its not likely to loose much more at all! If it's special then it can go the other way!

[Urko]

I really want to believe Tesla will honor that price.

 

But I can't.

 

They probably won't need to.  If they are anything like as popular as they are looking likely to be, they can charge a lot more.

 

You have to hand to to Tesla - BMW did a brilliant job of creating snobbery value from 2 door RWD cars that used to be the poverty model when they were a Sierra.  Then they made people (Clarkson et al) sneer at anything with a hatchback (until BMW started to make them too) - but Tesla is totally rewriting the book on what a mainstream car might be.

[Urko]

I've heard it on there but also from my accountant too. I think really only applies though if you're dead set on buying brand new either way and actually have cash to choose between finance and outright. As of course, if you buy a 10 year plus old car, its not likely to loose much more at all! If it's special then it can go the other way!

 

When my ex wife was doing an MBA and I was moaning about her running up our joint overdraft to frickery, she started trying explain that "leverage" thing where companies run an overdraft because the cost of borrowing is less than what they can make from it (I understood that already, I just don't have an MBA to show for it).  She seemed utterly blind to the concept that a person spending money on shoes didn't work the same way.

 

Good point about depreciation though - my Puma can't cost more than £300 in depreciation.

[sierraman]

Bangernomics makes more sense now than ever. Years ago you'd have to suffer a smoky cortina or a cavalier that sounded like someone cleaning out a cement mixer. I've just searched on Autotrader around the grand mark and there's some eminently sensible cars with decent mileage backed up with history for a grand, not fucked bags of shit. Of course you might get a huge bill for some electrical box going wrong but if you've had 2-3 years out of it you've done ok. There's lots of stuff at £4-500, but most of it is utter shit, you might get a year maybe more if you are lucky, the extra £500 gets you something you could easily depend on. Alternatively you could spend £250 month hiring one...

[Cheggers]

The thing with any luxury purchase (and I'd consider a new or new-ish car as a luxury purchase), is to only spend money that you wouldn't use for anything else. A wealthy friend of mine has a lovely was of explaining it (after dropping the thick end of £2m on a boat)...

 

Money is a bit like doughnuts...If you're absolutely starving and someone gives you a doughnut, you're going to eat it. The same goes for the second and maybe the third. You'll probably tuck numbers four, five and six away in case you get hungry again, but after that you're happy to swap the doughnuts for luxuries and fun stuff.

 

My car was bought with my 12th doughnut, so depreciation is pretty meaningless to me.

[rantingYoof]

Because this thread was going so well, I'm going to resurrect it by making a post about the inbetweeners.

 

Not that irritating TV show, but the cars that aren't brand new but aren't bangernomic either.

Now that I'm married and mortgaged and, more specifically, am capable of causing an extinction-level event by merely weilding a garden variety spanner, I cannot really partake in bangernomics. I'm mired in the first-world problem of having a driveway and garage, but only room for a single car, otherwise I'd have an undesirable heap sitting there, which I would use to film myself slowly and unintentionally torturing and butchering it to a smoke-filled tappety demise, like some kind of vehicular snuff-movie, in the effort of learning something or two.

 

My point is, I'm one of the people in the second-hand car market who is looking to spend £2-4k on a 6-10yr old second-hand car. In this market-place, you are met with the most amount of frustration.

 

• Main dealerships obviously very much care about their product and taking your money and will do things to ensure you happily depart with a brand-new car car - "Yes, we can offer three year's free servicing and your first MOT is also free, have a free Sat-Nav too..."
• All dealers who have a shitty P/X on the forecourt want to get rid ASAP for anything they're offered (within reason) - "Mate, this is a bit of a heap and has a short MOT, you can have it as is for £300 if you can get it off my hands today"
• Dealers in 6-10yr old cars in the £2-4k price-bracket don't care much about their products but are determined to take your money and are more likely to bullshit a car off the forecourt - "Service history? It's seven years old, you shouldn't expect that. I will not be servicing the car as it was last serviced 10k ago and the interval is 12k. It's in superb condition... [dents and rust are highlighted]...it's seven years old, it's going to have some wear and tear..."**
  
   

**Not applicable to all dealers in this zone but I must say that the majority I've dealt with have had an air of cowboy/winging-it about them

 

In this inbetweener zone you have none of the peace-of-mind you get when buying a brand new car, where you can lob it back at the dealership and go "FIX NAO" if things go wrong, and neither can you drive with little or zero mechanical sympathy on the grounds that you spent £200 buying it and if it sharts out its innards you can merrily take it to pieces and make back your money by selling the wheels and interior.

 

Cars in the inbetweener zone are hard to own because even though the likelihood of a serious component failure isn't quite as high as it would be a few more years down the line, the car's value makes any massive repair bills harder to stomach. You end up in that catch-22 scenario where you have a £2k car now worth scrap, with a £1.2k repair bill sitting on it which you need to spend in order to make the car worth £2k again.

Sometimes depreciation can factor in too - my Mondeo was six years old and cost me £2k, however after just a year the same car with the same mileage in the same condition was fetching around £1300 and then mine broke its turbo/actuator and I had to sell it for £700. My Saab 9-3 Aero was 10 years old and cost me £2k, however after just a few weeks I realised I'd paid a little over the odds for one in the slightly scruffy condition and after six months good ones were fetching £1500 and then the flywheel started making awful noises so I sold it for £1100 with 12 month's ticket.

 

I appreciate that some of what's plighted me could be remedied by some better decision-making skills and some basic car servicing knowledge, but any £1k repair bill will ultimately cripple people on moderate incomes like myself (and many others), and a £1k repair bill is unlikely to be something that anyone other than the most die-hard DIY mechanic will want to tackle on a driveway, so it's a risky part of the second-hand car market to occupy.

 

 

TL:DR - Either buy brand-spanking new or after 95% of the car's value has fucked off. ALL SIX-TO-TEN YEAR OLD CARS ARE SHIT.

[Jazoli]

 

TL:DR - Either buy brand-spanking new or after 95% of the car's value has fucked off. ALL SIX-TO-TEN YEAR OLD CARS ARE SHIT.

 

I agree, its a minefield and not a good place to be buying a car, most will be one their second or third owner and will be being sold because they are too old, too many miles, worn out, they most probably have nothing more than a couple of stamps in the service book and are being punted at a premium price by an independent garage with the minimum warranty offered.

 

I hate looking for cars sometimes, its the paying 3k for a car and then being stuck with a big bill for say a third of the cars value that you have to fix otherwise the car is worthless which keeps me in £1500 cars, which come with their own set of issues, I need a car for the missus as she is going to be changing jobs and I'll end up giving her my Focus as its a known quantity and has had all the money spent on it.

[twosmoke300]

Rantingyoof is 100% correct . Old cars cool , new cars have their place but the in the middle ground be dragons

[Vince70]

I always have newish cars because as I only buy car magazines that are 15/20 years old so when it comes to buying another car I think I'm buying a new one and if I feel really plush when I read the road tests and I'm not sure which motor to buy I can buy both for less than a wet weekend at butlins if I decide to go down the say Vectra vs Mondeo route for example.

 

My three car fleet all come from 1997/98 so I must of been reading this before deciding.

I might go all upmarket next and buy one of those new Freelanders for about the price of 20 B&H and a pint to tick the 4x4 soft roader list next.

[rantingYoof]

I'm now in a very nice S60 bought from a decent trade seller, however the search for it was very frustrating, as I outlined in an old thread, and have recreated below:

 

"My budget was quite high (well, it was up to £3k, but to certain Autoshiters this represents well over a dozen purchases), so I wasn't looking for a do-er-upper at all. It had to be 10 years old or newer, so I wasn't going to accept anything that wasn't reasonable wear on a 10yr old car with a reasonable mileage. I didn't want the car to have any issues that needed DIYing or sorting out before I could just enjoy it.

 

What an utterly shite day. We drove over 100 miles around the southern midlands, north of M25 but south of Junction 14, looking at various cars being sold by dodgy, unscrupulous dealers who had advertised them misleadingly.

 

The first car was a '57 Mondeo 2.0 Titanium X with under 100k and for £2800ish. Petrol. Arrived, parked up, walked over to vehicle. Noticed within 30 seconds that it had a completely flat rear tyre, a knackered driver's seat, and then the front end showed clear signs of a badly repaired crash, with a wonderful gap under one headlight but not the other. Walk away.

 

The second car was a '06 Volvo S60 2.4 SE D5. Highish mileage, £2950. Arrived, parked up, walked over to vehicle. Seller gave me key, car looked pretty good in black. Tyres were a bit low on tread. Got in - interior alright too. Turn key, engine starts, dashboard lights up with warnings, and an ominous message about a blocked soot filter or something appears on the computer. Get out, walk away.

 

The third car was an '05 Jaguar X-Type 2.5 V6, advertised as having a full service history. It was £2,500 or something, I don't really remember. Arrived, passed the key by chatty dealer. Got in. Smoker's car. Okay, I can deal with this. Sat in it, yes, very comfortable, nice interior etc. Got out, spoke to dealer a bit. Oh...full service history? What I meant was, there's no book at all, no stamps, nothing except the DVLA print-out anyone can obtain from the new Government website. By the way, we've just MOTed it, and it originally failed....on RUST. We've welded just enough to make it passable but you can see some surface rust down there, near the driver's door."

 

Whimper.

[sierraman]

See thing is for £700-£1000 you expect a few minor faults, dents etc. When I paid £1900 for a car a few years ago I just felt ripped off even though the car was/is good. I just felt as if one I could have paid £800 for wouldn't have been any worse. But then I'm tight.

 

I think there's a big gap these days between a £500 car and one for £7-800. 7/10 the £500 is a nail.