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Second hand cars

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 TobyA 07 Jul 2020

Long post warning - sorry: does anyone have at least a theory on when it is optimal to get rid of a car and get a new (OK, not actually new) one?

I have no particular interest in cars beyond wanting one that can get me and my family (5 in all) around reasonably comfortably, economically and safely, including taking us on holidays with camping gear. I'm sure having a really fast car is fun, but to be honest I probably get more pleasure from the aux plug in my current car meaning I can plug my iPod and listen to my podcasts with no messing around, than if it accelerated better. Having put all season tyres on my current one was brilliant for me as keen winter climber, and made getting places in even snowy conditions quite possible in an otherwise very ordinary car. The "performance" of the tyres is all the performance I need really.

We bought our current car, a now 12 year old C-Max, 6 years ago when we moved to the UK and just needed a car pretty fast, with the money we had got selling our old one in Finland. So we paid 5000 and it's been pretty reliable since then. I don't think it has needed any work done on it beyond the normal: brakes etc. and now suspension. I don't do huge mileage in it because I try to commute by bike as much possible; maybe 10,000 p.a., but it has taken on holiday to Finland and back, and down to Southern France a couple of times and with a roof box it can fit 5 of us and our camping gear in it! It has been making some worrying noises this year and some odd vibrations at certain speeds but the garage sorted it out, getting it through the MOT in process. One brake caliper and a shock absorber needed replacing, along with some new pads. 400 quid but the car feels back to normal now - I thought it might be a lot worse than that! The mechanic says there are some advisories on things that will need doing sooner or later, and some of them will cost more - suspension wishbones I think it was he said are pricey because its a big job to get to them, but it's through it's MOT for this year.

I looked on some random websites for sale value, one reckoned 710 for a private sale and 100 for part exchange, so not much. I'm just in two minds about whether to just keep it, and maybe get the work done on the advisories (perhaps spending another grand on the car). Or do I try to sell, now as it has passed its MOT and is in decent condition, and replace it with a newer car? I could afford to spend the same amount as last time for instance - and if I got another 6 years of reasonably trouble free usage out of a newer but otherwise similar car, that could be OK.

Is there any rule of thumb when a second hand car is at the optimal point of price depreciation with age against likely good condition? I'm sure that can change with type of car, but I'm talking about a boring middle of the road family estate type of car! 

 Ciro 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

If it's going to cost more than the value of the car to repair, then the only reason for repairing it would be the environmental cost of scrapping it.

Economically speaking, best think to do is not fix anything else, drive it until one of the items reaches the point where it needs to be fixed, and replace the car then. (obviously you need to ensure that the car remains safe for use during that time)

2
 minimike 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Ciro:

I don’t understand that logic about the cost of repair. If my car needs £500 repair and is ‘worth’ 500, then I have a choice between spending the money to fix known problems or spending it to get a bunch of unknown ones (on a £500 car) which will cost more. No brainier, fix my old car! If repair is much more than value then consider replacing..

if you’re thinking of spending more on a new car (Obvs you should be if you can) then it’s cost/yr of motoring. A ‘new’ 5k car which lasts 5yrs is 1k/yr + future repairs. So if the repair cost on your car to make it last another year is less that 1k, fix your old car!

(obviously you can lose slightly at this game if after 6months your old car breaks again in an expensive way, but you can bail out then if necessary)

with this logic I finally replaced a 22yr old car last year which needed 600 of work. It was a close call and the move to electric is what swung it.. the new one needs to last about 15yrs now! ;-p

OP TobyA 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Ciro:

I see your logic I think, but lets say I need to spend 1000 quid on a car worth 700. Maybe if I do that I get another few years of use out of the car? If I don't do the work, and instead spend 1700 on a different car, am I likely to get the same amount of trouble free use out of it? I know that's probably an impossible question to answer, but by fixing some stuff on the car you get more use out of it surely? Isn't what you spend on it having repairs done an independent variable to the value of the car?

OP TobyA 07 Jul 2020
In reply to minimike:

I think that's how I see it too. Obviously there aren't going to be any good rules of thumb on this!  

 Neil Williams 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

I personally tend to buy at about 3 years old and keep for 3-5 years depending on how much money it starts costing me.  This isn't a scientific approach, though, just what's worked for me so far.

"Bangernomics" obviously works rather differently to that, though, and is more about what work is needed at any given time vs. the risk of a "new" banger needing more work than the one you've got.

Post edited at 18:35
 Ciro 07 Jul 2020
In reply to minimike:

I'd base the logic around the fact that every car I ever owned, once it stated needing repairs, that need escalated.

Perhaps it only applies if you're not that great at looking after your vehicles though 😁

3
 Ciro 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

I assumed when you said you would spend the same as you did with the car that lasted 6 years, that it would be a bit more than £1700!

Yeah, if you're going to buy another oldish car, you'll be taking a bit of a punt, so maybe better the devil you know.

But as I said above, my experience of older cars is that once they start to cost money, it snowballs (unless you're in a position to do most of the work yourself).

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

Unfortunately almost impossible to answer as it depends on loads of variables, many of them intangible/non-quantifiable/personal. For example someone might advise me to sell my car (worth more than yours, I estimate maybe £3000 if I get lucky) as it is still running OK and it will be lot harder to decide what to do with it if I get hit with a £1000 repair bill. After a bit of research I surprised myself by concluding I should keep mine as it’s the best £3k car on the road and I would even spend another grand or so to keep it running! But see the next bit....

One thing that is worth considering in the case of “near-end-of-life” cars is whether you have any opportunity to SORN and keep off road for a brief period in the case of uneconomic MOT failure and wanting to sell “for spares or repair” rather than scrapping. The law (and insurance policies) start to get very murky on the matter of whether an MOT failure can be kept parked on the public highway and I am still confused about this aspect. 

If I get an uneconomical repair bill, my car still holds some decent value - the registration plate is worth about £400 and the alloys possibly £800, so I would not want it sent straight to scrap but it would take a while to find the right “spares or repair” buyer...: and that’s just one slightly niche example! I know your scenario is different as you are looking to sell something around £800 and buy something around £5000 whereas I am not sure what I want to spend on any replacement

The whole “make the repair that’s worth more than the car and then you know what you’ve got vs buy a second hand one with unknowable future issues” decision is entirely personal as well.

1
 flatlandrich 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

A piece of advice I was given a few years ago was to watch what you spend on a car over 10 – 12 years old, especially if it is just a basic run around. Once they get to that age you'll probably get an endless run of problems.

I'd spend as little on it as possible. Obviously keep it safe and legal but just have basic services and use aftermarket rather than genuine parts. Keep putting money aside for a new(er) one and when your current one needs a lot spending one, bin it. You'll still get £100ish in scrap for it. Only you can decide how far you want to push that but there comes a time when you're throwing good money after bad.

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

NB my personal take on this is probably coloured by a history of quite a few cheap old cars that did get scrapped due to uneconomical repairs at end of life, including a notable example where the garage rang me when they were halfway through the MOT and said there were about £500 of repairs being flagged up before even starting on the emissions test, and they didn’t want the work and offered to stop the test there and then and only charge me half the test fee 🤣

Conveniently I was off on holiday to Sardinia 36 hours later so had no choice but to scrap the car instantly, luckily this was during the period where you got about £170 from the scrappy. Now you will get more like £8, seriously! Hence my mention of sell for spares or repair (which I did with another car)

1
 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to flatlandrich:

There was a collapse in the price of steel a few years ago, has this recovered? I put a friend’s car through a few “we scrap any car dot com” websites a few years ago expecting a result of £150 or so, as I had had £170 for a Vectra in 2013. In 2016 I was getting online calculated results of £5.00 to £8.00 ! We managed to sell his car for £500

1
 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

Spreadsheets are your friend.

List some candidate replacement cars, run them through some an online insurance calculator, check the VED per year, check the mpg, look at the price, and work out the cost of running them for 3, 4 or 5 years assuming zero resale value. Don’t try to guess on repairs etc, just use the parameters I list (maybe some more if you feel confident) Include your current car on there but maybe in that case guesstimate the repairs and assume just one more year out of it. See how that year stacks up against others. 

At this sector of the market you will be surprised at how much difference can sometimes be made by factors that you sometimes don’t consider. eg if the VED is £300 a year instead of £30 a year 

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

all that said, if those suspension wishbones are on their way out and it’s a big job in terms of labour, sell it. 

a possible rule of thumb is to see what mileage you have in it and look on autotrader to see how many of the same model are for sale with that mileage or more, nationwide. If there are very few, then you have an indication that it is near to end of life . 

1
 flatlandrich 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> There was a collapse in the price of steel a few years ago, has this recovered? I put a friend’s car through a few “we scrap any car dot com” websites a few years ago expecting a result of £150 or so, as I had had £170 for a Vectra in 2013. In 2016 I was getting online calculated results of £5.00 to £8.00 ! We managed to sell his car for £500

I don't know what it is now. I got £170 for a small van (VW caddy size) in January 2019. I'd expect a car to be somewhat less but still about £100, especially for the larger  C Max the op has.  Probably depends on whether you drop it off or if they have to collect it as well.

 abr1966 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

I'm in a similar position Toby...my car has 150,000 on the clock and its a 1.2 petrol engine. I keep lookin at cars at the moment but am cautious as mine is working fine but I'm increasingly thinking I wouldn't trust it driving up to the highlands.

Each car has a depreciation curve based on spec, mileage, condition and so on. Its always a punt though I reckon.

My logic is that if something starts costing money something else will fail and cost again. I think I'd get a grand trade in but if it really breaks I'd lose the residual value when trading it in. My daughter has just got a new car for £6000 and although she wasn't trading in the discount she could negotiate was only about £250 and that was consistent across a few dealers. On that basis I reckon trading in is better than running a car in to the ground when it becomes worthless....

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to flatlandrich:

Thanks, sounds like a mild recovery then. My £170 for the Vectra was them coming to collect. I’d only have got £30 for delivering it....then I’d have been stranded at a remote rural scrapyard miles from anywhere! 

1
 Ian W 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> One thing that is worth considering in the case of “near-end-of-life” cars is whether you have any opportunity to SORN and keep off road for a brief period in the case of uneconomic MOT failure and wanting to sell “for spares or repair” rather than scrapping. The law (and insurance policies) start to get very murky on the matter of whether an MOT failure can be kept parked on the public highway and I am still confused about this aspect. 

The law isnt murky at all. If it is on the public road, it must be taxed MOT'ed and insured. f it is SORN'ed, it must be, as the name implies, off the road.

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Ian W:

You seem quite knowledgable and confident. So here’s a question. How about if you take it for an MOT 5 weeks before it’s due, and it fails? Have you just bought yourself a 5 week grace period eg for keeping it parked on the road while selling for spares and repair, as last year’s  MOT still stands?

1
 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Ian W:

My apologies, I should not have said that the actual LAW is murky. I meant that “when you try to Google it, the results are unfortunately flooded out by links to old forum discussions full of armchair pontificators only offering vague anecdotal advice that isn’t worth the bandwidth it occupies” 

(I am not referring to you!)

Post edited at 20:17
1
 sg 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

If we all knew what our ageing cars were actually worth and when we should ditch them (ie how quickly after this 500 quid job is the next one going to come round and make us wish we'd not spent the first 500 but lead us ever further into the money pit) there'd be no Arthur Daleys still in business!

If I were you I'd keep the old one for a while and hope that just after you've had cambelt, gearbox and catalyst all replaced within about a year on the basis that that would give it at least another two years, you don't then blow the head gasket!

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to sg:

> If I were you I'd keep the old one for a while and hope that just after you've had cambelt, gearbox and catalyst all replaced within about a year on the basis that that would give it at least another two years, you don't then blow the head gasket!

Sounds like it's a very good job that you are NOT TobyA  

1
 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

>  eg if the VED is £300 a year instead of £30 a year 

Just want to highlight this. Years ago I used to smirk at people waffling on about how low (or free) the VED ("road tax") was, on some car they'd just bought for more than £16k. However, this was when most VED maxed out at around £130. Now that a lot of cars are £300, it does make a difference. 4.5 years ago I went from £30 a year to £300 a year (that's a different story!) but as I am potentially shopping around now at the sub £5k end, I am factoring it in again, bearing in mind the running cost across x number of years. 
I'd advise you to look at what you are paying at the moment. 
Interestingly, I see that even the diesel Citroen C3 Picasso (for example) is only £30 a year. Compared to £300 a year, that's already £810 saved across 3 years of ownership

1
 Ian W 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> You seem quite knowledgable and confident. So here’s a question. How about if you take it for an MOT 5 weeks before it’s due, and it fails? Have you just bought yourself a 5 week grace period eg for keeping it parked on the road while selling for spares and repair, as last year’s  MOT still stands?


Yes. The current MOT is still valid. Needs insurance and VED though......

Edit - you still need to ensure the vehicle is at all times roadworthy when on the road, and just having failed an MOT isn't a good look should you ever have to prove this. However if its parked up, its unlikely to ever need to be proven. If plod ever pass by and check, they'll still see its got a valid MOT so won't have any reason to think its unroadworthy, unless its blatantly obvious........

Post edited at 21:49
 wilkie14c 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

I personally think the car market is going to fall through the floor over the coming years due mostly to recent world events. 

From what you’ve described of the car, it sounds a perfect and cheap family taxi.

Lets suppose you i buy a new car for 5k today. this time next year it could have depreciated by a grand or more. Now if you spent a grand on your now car, this time next year you’d have at least broke even vs the newer one. that year wait could well help you getting something later that’s either cheaper than you’d pay now or much newer for the same money.

Who knows what and how it’s all going to pan out, these days the only car ads i see are for lease cars, does anyone even own a car now? 

In reply to TobyA:

We tend to buy decent secondhand then keep for quite a while but a big concern for us is how much safer modern cars are. Modern cars are so incredibly safe ad I would not want to drive my family around in something older than about 10 years or so.

OP TobyA 07 Jul 2020
In reply to wilkie14c:

Is leasing that common? I'm surprised, I don't watch much commercial TV or listen to commercial radio it must be said, but ads I do see/hear tend to be from main dealers flogging new cars on finance deals!

I suppose the one down side of an older car is always that slightly worry in the back of your mind, that it might just suddenly go pop and need to go to the scrap yard leaving you where ever you are! If I remember correctly something like that happened to someone I know (the head honcho of certain a rock climbing guidebook company and purveyor of fine climbing and hill walking websites!) when he was on holiday in Italy with his family! Not the greatest of ways to bring your holiday to and end!

OP TobyA 07 Jul 2020
In reply to blackmountainbiker:

A very fair point, although I wonder how much has changed in 11 and a bit years (how old my car is). It has ABS brakes, which particularly with the good all season tires I have, mean even in snow I've been very happy with how it handles, it also has airbags on all sides. Have things changed that much over the last decade?

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

Interesting point about safety. My car is more than 16 years old and I’d argue that it’s as safe as anything on the road, possibly safer (great visibility and very good brakes/ABS, airbags all round)

Plus no back seats so a maximum of two fatalities/maimings 🤣

1
 Ian W 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> Interesting point about safety. My car is more than 16 years old and I’d argue that it’s as safe as anything on the road, possibly safer (great visibility and very good brakes/ABS, airbags all round)

> Plus no back seats so a maximum of two fatalities/maimings 🤣


When Son and Heir got his first car, he ended up with a mazda mx5, as it was so much cheaper to insure,which for an 18 yo is by far the biggest expense - cost £1200 pa as opposed to £2300 for the small hatch he was otherwise considering. Why so much cheaper? The insurance type said in all seriousness that he could only kill his mates 1 at a time, rather than 3 at a time..........

 artif 07 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

I always find the 5 to 10k area the worst, too expensive to scrap and not enough for nearly new car.

However a recommendation from a recovery driver was a mondeo estate, he said he never had to recover one and even bought one himself. 

In 5k range, I'd be looking for the lowest mileage with service history.

But personally I go for bangernomics, or high maintenance classics, Mrs currently has an 02 £500 v***o v70 for three years, apart from tyres and brake checks, and a new exhaust it hasn't cost anything. 

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Ian W:

I remember you posting about this, which is where the penny finally dropped for me. regarding how the insurance on a Nissan 350Z (3.5l rear wheel drive V6 two-seater, showcased extensively in Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift!) for me was no dearer than on a humble 1.6l diesel Kia Cee'd, even in middle age with 20+ years of driving,

1
 Michael Hood 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:> >  eg if the VED is £300 a year instead of £30 a year 

Most powerful/interesting car I could find with £30 VED was a Volvo V60 D5 manual from about 2012 - quite uncommon. Found one but dealer as dodgy as sh*t so walked away (crying 😞).

Ended up with a 2014 2l diesel Astra. Not quite as fast but still quite rapid, does everything we need, good fuel economy and only £30 VED.

Low VED doesn't have to be boring.

 sg 07 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Absolutely! When I learnt that we'd definitely blown the head gasket on the drive south from the Outer Hebs to Oxford with at least 6 stops to try and cool the engine, I knew that we'd definitely made the wrong calculation about all the expenditure in the previous 6 months. Up until then I was sure our policy of running it into the ground was going well!

 Blue Straggler 07 Jul 2020
In reply to sg:

>  Up until then I was sure our policy of running it into the ground was going well!

Aye, your first paragraph in your earlier post was bang on - most of just don't know what's coming up, and we do often fall into the trap of throwing good money after bad. I think I am heading that way soon with the 350Z - all the running gear is sound and the engines run forever but the bodywork is rusting and there is creeping corrosion underneath; I spent a decent amount last summer on underpinning, including a new chassis "A frame" but I don't REALLY want to put more into it (my local mechanic after  a recent service, said it's all pretty sound apart from rusting wheel arches and some structural sills that are "getting thin". The sensible thing for me to do is sell it to someone who wants to tinker - ideally someone who wants to use it almost as a donor for a body kit - and they will get the fancy and sought-after alloys with it. This thread is making me do some sensible calculations! With the mpg from a 350Z, and my mileage, I spend about £2000 a year on fuel. This would be £1000 on a "sensible" car. If I then find something with cheap VED, that's another £270 a year saved. £2540 SAVING across 2 years, just like that....

In reply to TobyA:

We have a 60 reg Volvo V50 and are very happy with its comfort and safety overall but I think 2020 cars, like my dad's Volvo S90, are in a whole different league in terms of active safety. My dad's 83 and I feel very happy that he is driving himself and my mum around in a vehicle which is really astonishingly safe.

 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to blackmountainbiker:

What are the big improvements since 2010? 

 Timmd 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

From watching and browsing different car mechanic's youtube's channels, I don't have a car (yet?) but I find the mechanical nature of them is interesting, I get the impression that how conservatively/gently one drives can play a decent part in how long lasting the engine and drive train are, with the other things to keep mind being known faults at millage intervals, and how well looked after the car is.  It seems to be there's a point im owning a car where one has to make a decision on whether it being a known entity is worth putting more money into it than one would get in selling it, or whether it's best to sell it while the going is good. A relative one told me that one never gets any money back from cars, I guess it comes down to known knowns and known unknowns.

I might be pondering it's millage and look into any known faults which can crop up over time, and figure out which way to jump based on any of that information, maybe have a mechanic check it out as if it was being assessed for somebody to buy, and see what they say too.

I get the impression most modern cars are fine to 100.000 miles if maintained properly. 

Post edited at 01:47
 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Timmd:

Hurrah, I was waiting all day for your input on this! 

 Timmd 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

I'm not quite sure how to take that, I can assure you it's information 'from people who know', if this is along the lines that I post on things I don't really know anything about in a well meaning way. I certainly won't be posting anything more - this being the sum of what I've absorbed.  

Post edited at 01:50
 Lurking Dave 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Autonomous emergency braking, more airbags, lane departure warning, lane correction, adaptive cruise control, self parking etc.

It's genuinely amazing how much has changed, each is a small increment but taken together they are a step change. 

 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Timmd:

Take it at face value and stop presuming that everything is an attack. 

1
 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Lurking Dave:

Thanks, although surely they can’t all be new in the last 10 years? I guess they became more widespread/standard though. As I’ve always had older cars I am not aware of when certain things were introduced and am prone to just assuming things go back further than perhaps they really do 

Post edited at 02:24
 Timmd 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

I didn't take it in a bad way, hence the winky smiley.

 Emily_pipes 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

If only there was a formula for this. These calculations are impossible. Here's my tale of woe.

I was driving my lovely 2005 Subaru Forester and had a fender bender in Glasgow City Centre. Some guy pulled out of an industrial estate, onto the section of road where I happened to be in that instant, and the laws of physics happened. Two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time. To make a long story short, insurance company said it would cost £4000 to repair the Subaru. They offered me £2200 if I handed the car over, or £1800 to keep the car and repair it myself. I opted for the former. I know they give insane estimates, but even if reality landed in the ballpark, it still looked like a scary bill. I cried and hugged the Subaru in the carpark at the insurance impound and bid it goodbye. Really. It wasn't dignified.

I bought a 2004 Nissan X-Trail for £2000. Big, rugged-looking SUV. Perfect climbing-mobile. Then it needed replacement wheel bearings. Not a big deal, unless everything is so rusted together that they have to saw off half the suspension arm, and that ended up being an £800 repair bill. The alternator suddenly gave up the ghost, and I dutifully replaced that. Those aren't cheap. The exhaust corroded into a hole you could see through, and my OH bodged it with duct tape and some stuff we bought from Halfords. Then it started making some horrible noises, like a drunk tractor, and I discovered that the catalytic convertor was rusting away. Apparently you can't bodge that with duct tape because rusty shrapnel can fly into your engine. Feeling increasingly depressed, I bought it a new cat. Don't ask how much that costs -- I've suppressed the memory. The car developed a mysterious intermittent engine misfire when you started it. No one ever succesfully diagnosed that, but it only happened when you did a series of short journeys, and if the car didn't start, it could be fixed by taking the spark plugs out and putting them back. The pipes connecting the radiator to the engine exploded, and it hemhorraged oil onto the road. Luckily, the road in question was the mechanic's forecourt, where we'd brought it for something else. Yes -- it got a new radiator. I'd taken out a warranty when I bought the car (the only smart thing I did), and this was one of the few parts that wasn't considered 'normal wear and tear,' so warranty coughed up the dough for that. But still.

The final straw was a spectacular MOT failure where the garage sheepishly told me it needed £1000 worth of welding. Had it been a foot-perfect car prior to that, I might have sucked it up, but I was at my wits' end and couldn't take it anymore. It would be two weeks before the MOT was actually due. I spent two weeks frantically searching for cars at local large, franchise dealers, because small dealers, it turns out, won't take an unredeeming heap as a trade-in. And like someone said earlier in this thread, driving an MOT failure around is in a dodgy grey area, so I didn't want to drive it far. I found a Skoda Yeti at an Arnold Clark, and they gave me £600 for that X-Trail and didn't ask too many questions.

And as for the Subaru, according to the MOT checker, it's taxed and MOT'd so presumably still on the road. The X-Trail is not.

Post edited at 02:38
 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Emily_pipes:

> And as for the Subaru, according to the MOT checker, it's taxed and MOT'd so presumably still on the road. The X-Trail is not.

Great post (the whole post)

The last bit, quoted here, has inspired me to check out whether my own previous “end of life” cars are still on the road. Nice to see my 2004 MG ZTT is (its dual mass flywheel died on me and I sold the car to MG enthusiasts in late 2014) 

I have to try to remember the registration numbers of some others now 

 Emily_pipes 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Yeah, the MOT checker is good. If you're buying used cars, it's a godsend. When you pay attention to it. If a previous MOT suggests that a car has advisories for corrosion on the chassis, you should probably not buy that car.

I should have added that the Subaru was initially written off in May 2016. The trauma drama with the Nissan rolled on until its MOT in May 2017. So that old Subaru has been happily driving around for over *four years*! I should have kept it and fixed it (that said...the Yeti has been a solid car -- knock on wood -- and has fuel economy, which the Forester did not. No matter how much I loved it or how optimistically I imagined it getting more than 30/g, it probably got less unless you drove it like a granny, and it had a 2.0ltr petrol engine with a turbo, so who is going to do that).

Post edited at 03:58
 Mike Stretford 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

> Is there any rule of thumb when a second hand car is at the optimal point of price depreciation with age against likely good condition? I'm sure that can change with type of car, but I'm talking about a boring middle of the road family estate type of car! 

Nah, too much luck involved at this stage! But I do think you are past the point where deprecation matters, more about the potential hassle to you of a terminal failure eg if the car breaks down beyond economic repair while you're on holiday? Does anyone in the family need a car for work ect or could you all manage for a few weeks while you looked for a replacement?

As someone else said the 5-10k (~3-6 year) bracket is tricky and uncertain. Sounds like you did well last time but you can end up with a car that needs costly work after a few months.

If you could somehow stretch to nearly new (sweet spot IMO), then this would be easy, do it as soon as you have time, then there's one less thing to worry about. Manufacturers warranty for a few years, and you'll know much more about the cars history. Even considering loans, I reckon buying nearly new cost roughly the same as buying 2 older cars in a row, but less hassle (if that makes sense!)

 Michael Hood 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Mike Stretford:

Medium age/value cars are a problem to buy. That's what I found out when buying just before coronavirus.

New or nearly new, use a dealer or large franchise seller and you have some peace of mind (and comeback) because they have a reputation and image to protect. You pay a bit over the odds to reduce the risk.

Old and cheap, get from "dodgy John's motors" or a private sale. You pay a bit under the odds but take all of the risk.

In the middle, there's nowhere obvious to go with an acceptable balance of price and risk. You tend to feel that you're back at "dodgy John's" but spending more than you want to at that type of establishment.

I got lucky, bought from Ford's of Winsford (large reputable "image" company), but found a car that I wanted that was a bit older (and cheaper) than their normal range of stock.

 Kalna_kaza 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Emily_pipes:

That sounds like rotten luck. I know that feeling where you're excited to have a new car (new to you at least) then something needs fixing. You think "that's ok, I expected a couple of little niggles but then it'll be plain sailing". Then a little bit later there's another thing, and then another. I've had 3 cars under £2000 and they all caused serious problems within a year to 18 months. 

The worst I had had been remapped although I didn't know it at the time. The guy who sold it to me was a second hand car fixer upper and had done several of the previous MOTs so I thought, great. When things started going wrong I took it to my local garage and the mechanic said it was a total dog. The remapping wasn't declared but had increased the BHP from 115 to over 150 and been driven accordingly. Brakes were dangerously worn, turbo was over worked (broke 2 months later) and numerous other issues. The mechanic also said the the car couldn't have passed an MOT in the last few years legitimately. Reported the guy to trading standards but nothing ever came out of it.

It's a risk!

 steve taylor 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

You all know the answer already.

Skoda.

I bought an Octavia 2.0TDi with 60k on the clock and drove it to 165k and only had to replace the EGR ($70). I paid about 5k and sold if after 5 years for 2k. It's still going 6 years later.

I'd probably get a Yeti now if I were in the market with 5-10k to spend. 

Honest John is a good website to trawl through if you want to check the history of makes/models to hear real-life stories of how reliable or not some cars are.

Scrappage - our  Qashqai died earlier this year and my son managed to get $400 from a scrappy for it. It was only 2009, but needed a new engine. Never buying one of those again.

 Toccata 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

Tuppence worth from someone who regards cars as nothing more than tools and tries to spend as little as possible. Balance of reliablity : depreciation important.

Family car - 18mths old, 15-20k. Usually half list price from Motorpoint or similar. Run until dead (10-12 years).

Commuting car - 3-4yrs ex fleet 60k miles. I do 30k miles a year and usually pass 200k with few issues. Honda/Toyota only.

OP TobyA 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Lurking Dave:

My mate's Volvo reads speed limit signs and then tells you if you are speeding. I had to pick it up from a shipyard in Tromso once, having just flown in. Driving a left hand drive car for the first time in a few years around a snowy city I don't know particularly well, in a country where I don't know the traffic laws particularly well, this was just genius. It also has the lane correction and stuff like that. You do get the feeling you're driving a computer more than a car though!

 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

I had a rented Peugeot thing for a work trip two years ago, it had all the lane sensors etc plus possibly another sensor that just seemed to pick up if you were driving erratically even without lane markers (I can’t be sure; maybe there were lane markers there)...I exited a dual carriageway onto a rather weird slip road which had an adverse camber and a slightly tight turn, which briefly confused the car enough to make it flash up the KITT-style patronising warning “Hold the steering wheel” 🤣

I said “bugger off, France”, because I am all grown up 

 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Mike Stretford:

> Does anyone in the family need a car for work ect or could you all manage for a few weeks while you looked for a replacement?

A small detail to add to this...car shopping is surprisingly difficult if you aren't in some way currently running a car. If the OP's car dies and has to be scrapped "on the spot", he will have no insurance and this makes it really difficult if looking at cars for private sale (I was in this situation for a few weeks in late 2014). You can get "one day" insurance for £20ish but in practice this really put me off bothering to look at a number of candidate cars.
Of course it's different if you are buying from a dealer, and my experience was coloured by the fact that the cars I was looking at were all over the place and hard to get to by public transport, and I did not want to rely too much on friends giving me lifts to look at cars. 

 kestrelspl 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

There was also a big change in side impact testing in the NCAP tests as well as some other things around 10 years ago. This is a big part of why cars now have much bigger pillars etc. they are a lot better protected in this type of collision.

Completely agree re the tech making things a lot better. Auto-braking saved my wife from a very nasty collision where a lorry in the adjacent lane lost control and had the back swing out in front of her. Car started emergency braking itself well before she pushed the pedal and came to a complete stop about a foot away from the lorry. The car behind her also stopped itself very close behind our car because of an autobraking system. Had it not been for the tech it doesn't bear thinking about.

 Toerag 08 Jul 2020
In reply to kestrelspl:

> There was also a big change in side impact testing in the NCAP tests as well as some other things around 10 years ago. This is a big part of why cars now have much bigger pillars etc. they are a lot better protected in this type of collision.

Unfortunately you can hardly see out of them as a consequence and have more accidents in the first place

 Toerag 08 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

My logic:-

If you've got a car you love and don't need/want anything newer then consider that mechanical bits can be fixed or replaced but the shell can't, so if the shell is going to give you another x years then consider what it will take to keep it on the road for that time mechanically. If the engine isn't known for going pop unexpectedly then you're probably best to keep it alive.  The annual service on my van (120k miles, £900 'new') is less than the monthly payment on the new Forester I had some time ago; for me, running a rusty old nail into the ground makes most sense as I can commute to work by bike if I have to, and we have a second vehicle for family use. If I lived in a place with a proper MOT and needed a reliable vehicle I'd probably aim for something about 3 years old - still got loads of life, manufacturing faults are ironed out, and most of the depreciation hit has been taken by someone else.

 Emily_pipes 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Kalna_kaza:

I'm like a cautionary tale of what not to do.

First car I bought when I moved from the US to the UK in '06 was a 1996 Land Rover Discovery. It had lots of little glitches -- it was a Land Rover after all -- but gave me almost six good years. Then it developed a fault where the engine would make a lot of noise and not start. I had to get it towed back to Glasgow after a winter skills course at Glenmore Lodge (explaining where Glenmore Lodge is to a guy at a call centre in England is entertaining). I sunk about £600 into diagnostics and repairs the next week. It still made funny noises, and I drove it to a mountaineering club weekend in Torridon. On the way home, I stopped at the chip shop in Kingussie, and the car got stuck and had another flatbed ride on the A9. Three mechanics later, the car was diagnosed with a faulty fuel injection pump, which would be another £500 to fix. I decided to cut my losses and replace the car. My then-partner, who had some DIY mechanic skills, reckoned he could eventually fix it, and I could sell it as a runner, which is better than selling a non-runner.

I bought an '04 Hyundai Santa Fe with about 130,000 miles on it (whoops) for £1500, and the Disco sat SORNed on ex's (he wasn't then) driveway for three months. He decided he didn't have the time to repair it, and I listed it on ebay as a non-runner, listing all the faults I knew about and adding that it might have others. Some dude bought it for about £300 and sent a flatbed to fetch it. Flatbed driver didn't know and refused to believe that you have to put automatics in neutral to tow them, or that 'park' locks the drivetrain, and he dragged that poor car onto his truck with the wheels totally locked. It blew out the hydrolics in the flatbed, which was neat. He poured litres of my ex's motor oil and some brake fluid into it and miraculously got the car on board. Ebay buyer emailed me a week later, wanting his money back, saying I'd "misrepresented" the car and it had a lot more wrong with it than the fuel injection pump. I replied that I'd described the known faults and specifically stated that there could be others, and the idiot flatbed driver he'd hired hadn't done it any favours, plus he'd used about £40's worth of my partner's engine oil and brake fluid. Yet the car was fixed and ran for about four or five more years, according to MOT checker.

Which brings us to the Santa Fe. I had a year of breakdown-free motoring, which felt extraordinary, but then the differentials started doing strange things. The outside wheels would drag and judder when you went through a tight roundabout or made a sharp turn from a standing start out of a junction. I decided to live with that, for the moment anyway. Then the car developed a small, intermittent diesel leak. I took it to two garages looking for a diagnosis and repair, but neither found the leak. Intermittent faults suck. Ex and I took the car on a climbing trip to Reiff. On the way home, we passed Ullapool with a quarter of a tank, and I wondered if we should fill up. Ex reckoned we could easily get to Inverness, where fuel was cheaper. Theoretically, yes, but when we got to the Braemore Junction, I saw that the fuel gauge had dropped like a rock. I've done that drive countless times and know how much fuel I usually use, so that was weird. Ex said, "Oh, yeah, I saw white smoke puffing out the back. We're probably leaking diesel." Great. I drove at 56mph and limped the car on fumes into the Thank God Fuel Station at Contin. When I filled up, I looked underneath the car and saw diesel steadily dripping out from underneath the engine bay. Did we call the RAC? Of course not. Ex had a thing about being totally self-sufficient and a weird, deep-seated reluctance towards calling recovery services to get you out of a tight spot. Foolishly, we pressed on (sorry, motorcyclists). At Perth, we had to fill it up again. On the A9, not far from Dunblane, the car lost power going up a hill, and I had to pull onto the hard shoulder. Ex and I had an argument about calling the RAC. He had to be in work early the next morning. He didn't have time to wait an hour or two on the side of the A9. Rain was pissing down. The car started again, so I lost the argument, and ex took over the driving. Later, he told me that when he'd got out and looked underneath the car, and it wasn't dripping diesel -- it was pouring diesel. Again, sorry motorcyclists.

The car staggered home, and the RAC came out the next day. RAC diagnosed.... wait... the fuel injection pump. When I explained the issues with the diff, RAC man said, "We're not really allowed to advise people on whether or not they should repair a car, but I'm going to suggest you don't." So, that got sold for £300 as a non-runner. The guy who bought it wanted to cannibalise it for parts on another Santa Fe. It disappeared quickly from MOT checker. I think he scrapped it after he got the parts he wanted.

 Blue Straggler 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Emily_pipes:

I can not be the only person wondering at which point did the ex become the ex...

 Emily_pipes 08 Jul 2020
In reply to Blue Straggler:

About three years later.

 Blue Straggler 09 Jul 2020
In reply to Emily_pipes:

Wow ! 

 Roberttaylor 09 Jul 2020
In reply to TobyA:

https://www.reliabilityindex.com/top-100

This useful website gives an idea what, statistically, a car will cost to keep on the road, how often it will need work etc. 

 deepsoup 09 Jul 2020
In reply to Emily_pipes:

> Again, sorry motorcyclists.

If you're not a motorcyclist yourself, god bless you for being aware of this.


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