What cars do private school mums drive?

I drive a bog standard Vauxhall. When my dc first started at private school I was never sure exactly how to get there (my car being so crap it doesn't have a SATNAV.) but I always knew when I was on the right road because as I got nearer to the school as the cars in front and behind me suddenly became high-end 4x4s, Volvos, sports cars etc!! I never got lost if I followed one of them!

Good post Brenda

Most people truly don't care what other people drive. I don't care that my car stinks of rancid old dog but I know that turns some peoples noses up

Sillybilly I know the school you went to! My Aunt went there. I didn't go to secondary school on the Wirral as I went to a boarding school. I know nearly everyone took the bus who was going to Pensby or Caldy as did friends going to Birkenhead (which was private).

Brenda Having been to a top boarding school and been the kid with a family who could afford the fees without a drop in living standards, I was in the minority (of 1000 or so girls there were about 50 of us like that). Very few of my friends lived in larger homes, had luxury holidays, it was a week package holiday in a resort town in Spain or had a parent not working or things like guest bedrooms at home (which you would think would be more normal with private school families). Cars were all older and I only noticed it when I saw the car park at the local high school on parents evening which was close to our boarding school. Quite frankly I saw far more cars which were less than 5 years old. In my school an old estate, often a subaru, was far more normal. Most were clean and not caked in mud but they all had terrible rust. The school fees are crippling for most parents and especially by 6th form the difference can be seen.

It might be the case that families in cities like London don't have cars but when you get outside of major cities it's very normal, if not a necessity, for a family to have a car. There wasn't a family at my state primary school without a car and trust me when I say there was some real poverty there.

I drive a bloody massive 4X4 and I frickin love it. The car park has a mixture of cars in it, not all 4x4 but there are lots of big cars. Campervans and people carriers are most popular.

We're not in the UK and people don't have so much of an opinion on what other people drive here - they don't care.

I have a rather muddy XC90, before that I had another XC90, but it lasted me 9yrs and did 200k miles before it croaked, so hardly posh.

Round here there are a lot of 4X4 but it is very rural Derbyshire and in winter the roads are shocking as they don't grit the lanes.

Feta have you also explained to them that your DC only throw things around the room because they are exceptionally sensitive and probably bored as they so gifted.

Oh, thanks squirrel, think I had a sense of humour bypass this morning

Iamnotloobrushphobic I think Feta was being just a touch ironic.

Lavendar She might have been sneering but why should this matter to you? Try to think about something good about yourself instead of focusing on this woman. Who matters you or her? I'm sure she is inconsequential to your life.

She had a right sneer on her face. Was it because I don't have a 4x4 or was it because I was using the mirror to put on my lipstick?
Maybe she thought your lipstick didn't suit your colouring and you needed something with more of an orange tone?

Why would you deny having a tutor to the teachers feta? It is helpful for teachers to know if a child is tutored as sometimes teachers and tutors use different methods which might confuse the child.

Four wheel drive souped up only one previous ownersteptoe horse and cart

Taking DS back to his school tomorrow…. Not sure if I can get all the bags in my Lamborghini, might have to take the Range Rover, or maybe I could take the Aston and get the chauffeur to follow in the Mondeo….

Lots and lots of 4x4s but that's perhaps owed to the rural location of the school. Two of my friends drive a higher end Mercedes and a BMW (both company cars their husbands do not use as they have much fancier cars). Another drives a Clio (most people think they have a better car parked at home), I got away with a mini. IMO the ones that have more money are the ones less worried to make an impresion with their cars.

Now, if you think you can relax in trrms of provate school's keeping up with the Jones antics, forget about it. It is not the cars you should worry about but the bloody birthday parties!

Toughasoldboots what makes you say that?

Lavender I think you have a chip on your shoulder.

If someone makes you feel inferior by the way they look at you, then I think that's your problem.

One parent at school drives a Smokey and the Bandit car (I have massive car envy).

Citron Picasso

Want2Besupermum - you come across as someone who has chips in your brains.

Of course there is the odd state school where many parents have flash cars and many private school parents who do not have flash cars.

This does not reflect the obvious fact that between the 7% of the population who can afford to send their kids to private school and the 93% who do not (even though that will include a % who could afford private ed but chooses not to) there will a massive discrepancy on the % of each group able to buy expensive cars.

The state school group, for example, includes all the parents who could not afford a car of any kind, for example.

I said "And it's obvious that more people who can afford private school will be able to afford an expensive car (IF they want one) than the rest of the population". That doesn't mean that no-one outside private school can afford flash cars.

No, I don't have a chip on my shoulder. I went to a private school, my parents had an enviable Audi. And a hideous brick coloured Vauxhall Viva.

I do however find much in this thread worth of piss-take cynicism and a good old eye roll,

Snobbery, inverse snobbery, glib assumptions that we all understand that a state school is good because it is in a 'nice area', comments that imply that state school parents with flash cars are 'materialistic', disingenuous please that 'no-one cares', when so many obviously do, or give others the impression that they do.....

And why? because in the end it is all about class. Entrenched class, aspirational class, unease about class, real concern about lack of equality, the higher number of expensive 4x4s on the high st against the higher number of food banks etc etc.

Cars, per se, are desperately boring. If I were a multi-millionaire I would not spend cash on cars.

"They live 3 blocks from us and we often end up at the supermarket on Sunday morning at 7am to snag all the weekly specials."

Gosh- do they open the supermarket at illegal times just for private school parents? Who knew?

My dd is at an expensive independant school. I drive a 7 year old fiesta.

Yes i recognise the station car - dh takes it!

I drive an XC90 and I would say that the vast majority are similar. Loads of range rovers, Discovery, evoque's, BMW X5 plus a couple of Ferrari's, vintage cars and Porsches. There are also a few mini's and fiat 500's but vvvv few old bangers and those that are tend to be the 'station car' with the dad driving it to the station and the main car being much fancier