£50k to spend on a family car. Go!

[themainline]

Anyone know anything about cars? We live in central(ish) London and have never needed one until now with the arrival of our second child.

Car needs to be big enough for 2 car seats to fit comfortably at the back plus a big boot for the double buggy and Ddog. Will probably only use it to do the weekly shop plus day trips out of London from time to time.

We are paying cash (as opposed to getting it on finance) does that give us any bargaining power when buying a car?

We have golf atm and outfits two car seats but it is smallish car. We have been planning to buy new car for couple of years. We have tried several and most certainly we will get Skoda Octavia. Plenty of legroom and good size boot.

@themainline - give £45k to the Amazonian forest fire fund and spend £5k on your car. Ice stealth boast though, lovey

I live in central(ish) London too. I would not buy or lease a new car here -- I'd forever be fretting about it getting dinged or damaged! The last new car we had got keyed so many times. And we have underground parking so it wasn't even on the street. Now, we run older cars; I've currently got a Saab 9-5 which is 14 years old and a Nissan Murano which is 11.

My suggestion would be a used Lexus RX hybrid. Something eight or ten years old, which will probably cost you about £12-14k. Almost comedically reliable, plenty big enough for a family and stuff, extremely comfortable on long journeys, and you won't get hit by the ULEZ. Around town it'll run a lot on battery power alone, so is very economical, especially considering its size. And it has excellent parking cameras.

Cash is no advantage any more I'm afraid, dealerships and garages want to sell finance packages (and stuff like paint protection etc). You won't lose out having cash, per se, but you won't get a discount for using it.

I bought our peugeot 2008 2018 plate care for 9k. I have 3 children and live fairly rural in Scotland so it's used alot.
You don't need a 50k car if it's only to be used a little :)

I don't understand why you'd spend so much on a car you'd use once a week locally and what maybe once a month to leave London? That's approx 64 uses per year. Let's be generous and say you kept the car for ten years, it's going to cost you £80 before fuel, tax, insurance and upkeep every time you leave the house. If that's worth it and 50K is small change to your family go for it but if 50K is a lot of money and it was hard to obtain maybe consider a lower budget.

Don’t do the VW Toureg. Guzzle gas, parts and tyres cost a fortune.

I can't believe this. £50K on a CAR is absolutely obscene. Jeez

If you're that rich, buy a normal family car and give the rest to charity.

A new car loses value before you even put it on the road, but is nice to have and guaranteed. Go for 2 year old and find a good independent mechanic. You have to use it or things go wrong, battery goes flat, tyres go rotten from standing still.
Japanese or German cars are reliable or Volvo. A vw golf is a bit small as is Toyota Yaris, Toyota do hybrid that makes its own electricity, but look up the next size in those makes, or smallish Audi, Mercedes or BMW. English and French cars are cheap and cheerful. You can get discount for cash if no car to trade in. Look at car clubs, zip car is a good one for long journeys, and cabs for shopping if you don't really need it tax and insurance are expensive.

Ignore posters on here, spend what you like, it’s your money, 50k is probably not that much to the OP, it’s all relative, but no doubt you will get someone on here claiming to be a multi millionaire but would never dream of spending more than £500 on an old banger....

That’s a crazy amount of money to spend on a car for occasional use! If you think that’s a reasonable budget however, I’ll assume you are used to nice things and have a fair bit of money. In that case, as long as parking isn’t a problem where you are, I’d recommend a couple of year old Volvo XC60. You could get a decent one for £35k. We’ve never yet run out of boot space/passenger space/dog space etc etc. It’s a big spacious car inside, but doesn’t look big at all when parked near big cars.

I've done zipcar on and off and it's so good. Does that work near you?

I won't try to sell you the car I have now as it's very small, full of dog hair and quite dented!

So many people are coming on here to express their jealousy. People are allowed to have different amounts of money. If they have more than you, they don’t have to give it to charity. It’s like saying nobody’s allowed to buy a house worth over 500K because someone else’s is only 150K...

Skoda Kodiaq.
Loads of room for kids and dogs, loads of extras and you'll spend under half your budget.

Also people on Mumsnet hate cars as well as anyone having money.. they all walk everywhere or occasionally get the bus if they HAVE to.

I’d love to have £50k to spend on a car but then I love cars... sadly we don’t have that much money and we got ourselves a second hand Kia Venga which has been amazing. We purchased it for £6.5k 5 years ago, it’s a 2013 model and it’s flown through every MOT with flying colours. Never had any issues. I absolutely love it. Best car we’ve ever had.

Nissan Leaf. Electric, no emissions. No congestion charge.

I was just going to post the same Elle

It's all relative. I speak to people every day who have 90-100k cars and happily drop 2k on servicing them
There's currently a 70k Land Rover in my parking space which looks amazing and people probably think I am flashing money. It's not mine it belongs to work!

Don't pay for parking in Central London and if you have a parking space rent it out. Use online shopping, rent a car, or cab, or public transport for days out.

Save a shit ton of cash, don't have to worry about parking, save the environment and much less hassle. Also you can have a swift half on days out because no one is driving.

When I lived in London I didn't have a car. It's not worth it.

Also, just to add. We bought our Volvo XC60 partly due to the safety record of Volvo, if that’s important to you. But it’s very comfortable and luxurious inside too.

BTW I love cars and driving but not in London.

It is insane to use a large capital sum like this to purchase a depreciating asset. Invest it and lease a vehicle. Or better still in central London join a car sharing club.

So much jealousy on here...

Do you have parking?

Never but new, lose so much money.

The Tourag is great, like shut off a shovel.

But do you really need a 4x4 in London!

The Tucson is nice but hard to get hold of and probably doesn’t have the wow factor.