Do you have a finance on your car?

[MsMiaWallace]

Only bought our car back in Feb & starting to get issues. Thinking of buying something newer but would need a loan.

I see loads of new expensive cars in the road & wondered how everyone affords them.

Do you have a car on finance & if so how much are your payments?

This. I drive an old banger. DH has a nicer car.

Every day on the school run I am surrounded by Range Rovers and huge cars. I feel more pity than envy as I wonder about their monthly repayments.

No, we buy new or nearly new and run them into the ground. Far cheaper to run that way that constantly buying on the never-never. The money we save by not having a monthly lease/loan repayment to pay more than covers the cost of the next car after, typically 10 years or so.

Modern cars don't need much money spent on them if they're well driven and regularly serviced. If you can't afford new or nearly new, then get a low mileage used car with a full service history.

Modern cars last on average 13 years, so changing every 3 years is just wasting money. Of course, it's fine if you want to change for the "glory" attention seeking of regularly having a new car, but you pay for that priviledge!

Both our current cars were bought new, mine is now 14 years old and OH's is 7 years old. Average annual "cost" of purchase depreciation, breakdown cover, repairs, MOT, servicing, etc including tyre repairs/replacements, is around £750 per year. That's typically 3 months leasing (average £250 per month) for people who always want new. So basically, we're getting "free" car use for 9 months of the year compared us replacing every 3 years!

It's a no brainer to buy a decent car (in terms of mileage and service history) and run it till it drops!

And in my 40+ years of driving, I've never had "expensive" repairs such as new gearbox, new clutch, new engine, etc. All I've ever spent on are consumables, such as brakes, tyres, occasional new exhaust part, track rod ends, occasional battery, cam belt after 10 years or so, etc. So, never had the problem of repairs costing way more than the value of the car, etc. I put that down to careful driving, and regular servicing. I.e. if you have the cam belt changed on schedule before it breaks, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than repairing/replacing after it fails!

@ProbablyPossiblyPerhaps

We look for display/ over ordered last year's model cars and buy Korean cars which are around a year old and only have with 5 or ten km on the clock (five not five hundred or thousand) and a seven year warranty at usually multiple thousand under the new price with every possible extra thrown in because they're ex display. As soon as a car has been driven even a couple of miles it's value plummets but obviously its reliability doesn't change.

That's what we do. You can also haggle for brand new cars, though probably not much at the moment with the shortage due to microchip shortage. We got a whopping 25% off list price for our last brand new car, and that was from the factory with factory fitted accessories, not out of the dealer's pound! List price was around £20k and we haggled them down to £15k.

You need to know when the registration quarterly bonuses are due, as dealers get £x bonus for registering new cars, which goes up in bands, i.e. £500 per car for the first 25, then £1000 per car up to 50, etc, so they make a killing if they go from 25 to 26 as it's 25 @ £500 (£12,500 bonus) or 26 @ £1,000 (£26,000), so registering just one extra car can increase their bonus by £13,500! (example figures only, sometimes more, sometimes less). They also get extra bonuses for registering unpopular models, options and colours when the manufacturer has excess stocks in their pounds, and also when a production line is coming to an end, as they want their pounds empty before the new model starts rolling out of the factory!

Talking to the dealer is often VERY fruitful, as they can tell you what discounts they can give if you're not too fussy about make, options and colour.

We've certainly never paid list price or anywhere near it. Usually at least 10% can be haggled, and sometimes more, but our 25% was the best we've achieved!

As I say, not as likely just at the moment due to shortages, but there are still stocks of unsold cars around of less popular makes/models where a deal can be struck!

I agree with almost everything you say, I'm just surprised by the stat of cars lasting 13 years! Even my shitty Citroën lasted to 15, and I'll be disappointed if my Yaris doesn't make it to 16.

My target cars are about 8-12 years old, and in total, my cars have cost me £60/month since I started driving - and that's with the Yaris due to last another few years.

Even if it went kaput, it would be cheaper to get a taxis daily for a month than to fork out for a PCP or lease.

@thecatsthecats

I agree with almost everything you say, I'm just surprised by the stat of cars lasting 13 years! Even my shitty Citroën lasted to 15, and I'll be disappointed if my Yaris doesn't make it to 16.

It's an average, some last more, some last less. But realistically, cars can last up to 20 years if looked after, driven well and properly maintained. The ones that don't last so long are usually the ones with super-high mileage or badly driven or not maintained, etc. The stats will also include write offs due to accidents which will skew the average lower as they prematurely hit the scrap yard.

I change cars every three years minimum as I don't want to have a repair bill

We have always leased and I've been with my husband for ten years. He also leased before we got together he is a bit older

I have an Audi A6 and it's £340 pm incl vat
I paid one month upfront
It's not maintained so I have to pay for tyres or service

I will change it next year so I need to look now for deals

Vanarama has a car website and they do the best deals I could find and historically have found

Vanarama also have a policy and their car bit too that you can give the car back if you lose your job
I love cars and so does my husband it is our pleasure
He has a 21 plate crafter which is around £250 a month

I used to lease, but I paid the balloon payment on the last car last year, then sold it this year for slightly less than I paid for it 4 years ago, then bought a cheaper car with cash. Second-hand cars are worth more nowadays thank god.

Same here every 3 years but the one I took out this year will changed in 4 years time

No. Always buy outright, a good 2nd hand one, and then sell it and upgrade every say 2 years. I do look at and love all those with new cars, wondering whether we should too.

A number of posers above, paying for 2 cars, nearly £800 per month, although higher earners, That seems a huge amount.

We have old cars. Mine is 2011 and owned outright.

I had a bill of £1000 last MOT which was painful but still cheaper than paying £300 per month for a new one!

You say to 'buy a decent car' - other than mileage and service history, do you have any recommendations on good manufactures to buy, or any makes to avoid?
thanks!

@Antaboo have a read/search of Honest John if you're looking for a new car.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/

Honest John reviews are in some cases years out of date so I would take them with a pinch of salt .

You'd suggest...?

Try it and you will never go back to buy the old one. I used to get old cars in the past and in 2018 decided to get a brand new car and since then I have not regretted it and very happy

I bought my current car for £7k about 9 years ago. I paid a deposit with savings and got an interest free for 18 months credit card for the rest. I calculated how much to pay per month to clear the cc before the if period ran out. I chose well/got lucky and my car is still going strong without much major work needed yet. If it's bought on finance it would have cost a lot more in total.

@DogInATent doing your own research on multiple forums , but I wouldn’t use a forum that says a new model of a particular car is priced at £15k when the actual starting price now is £17.2 k

I have a 3 year PCP arrangement on a medium size, fairly high end car - £360 per month. I've been doing PCP for about 20 years now, it works quite well for me. I know I never own the car, but I don't want to. It gives me the flexibility to either hand it back or start again with another one.

I used to buy nearly new cars but decided this time to go for new as probably be my last car what with my age and retiring in a few years..

I used my existing car as a decent deposit then it's 2 years PCP at 0% interest. Balloon payment at the end is money I have sitting waiting in my bank. 7 year warranty always handy. Dealer also gave full tank of fuel, mats, boot liner and service package.

Also, premium paint.

We’ve never bought anything on a lease / payment plan except our house. particularly not a depreciating asset as a PP has said.

We were given one car, drove it into the ground before replacing then did the same again. So we’ve bought two cars in 25 years and one is the car we drive now.

We also only have one car and cycle / walk / train as required to make this work in our lives.

paying for two cars is not something we’d choose to spend money on. Would rather overpay on the mortgage!

Yes, almost paid off. £273 per month. I am going to keep this car for another 6-7 years, as we are planning to build a house, so new car won't be our priority. We bought it second hand, still has decent value as it's VW suv, so quite popular.

Forgot to add, we need to pay 1 grand and 2x273 at the end of contract to buy it out. We weren't interested in PCP, as we wanted to keep the car.