Would you buy a 10 year old car?

[orangedrizzle]

I know nothing about cars. Is it daft to buy a 10 year old car for a run about? Driving about 5k miles a year.

I bought my Golf when it was 10 years old. Full VW service history, from a dealer, 2 year VW warranty - all good. It’s got 60k on the clock now.

What’s the mileage?

No, I'd prefer a bit younger tbh.

A friend of mine always buys cars of that age though but he knows cars ie how to fix them.

Yep. We currently have four cars, all over 10 years old. No issues with any of them, all low mileage and well maintained.

Same!

I bought a 10 year old little skoda for my teen. He's now 20, it's cost nothing in maintenance and he's driven it all over the country. Brilliant little car. No regrets.

Depends on your budget. I’ve always had to buy old cars - my newest was 6 yrs but generally 10-15yrs. If that’s all you can afford then frankly fine - pretty much as reliable in my experience as the new company cars my husband has sometimes had. Less kudos, admittedly 🤷🏻‍♀️

The real questions are: which 10 year old car (mileage etc.) and for what price. Every working car would have a price point that makes it worth buying.

Full service history is the key. You can get a good idea of how reliable a car is and how well it's been looked after from analysing a full service history.

Of course. There are plenty of 20 to 25 YO cars on the road still in great condition and cars are much better built than 1980s rust buckets.

A 10 year old car isn't old.

Yes I did (well it was 9 years old and it’s now 13)
It’s a trusty VW golf diesel, should do another couple of year at least, I bought it hoping it would do 5. Not had to spend any major money on it apart from new tyres.
It had one previous owner and full service history.

You need to do a good check of it’s MOT history,
previous owners, mileage etc and body condition

Lots of small cars have been driven by young lads ruining the breaks etc so bear that in mind!

My car is 15 years old, was 9 years old when we bought it. Very low mileage Honda Jazz. Fingers crossed it will do me a few more years too!

I've only ever had one car newer than 10 years old!
It's a matter of luck tbh... but we only had one that had major problems the rest have done the job just fine :) Diesels..higher mileage is fine as they are built for it and it means less chance of the DPF filter being clogged up. Petrol I go for lower mileage, fewer owners and a good MOT history (which you can check for free on the .gov website) Some MOT issues are fine, ones with repeated engine light failures etc..avoid!
Cars can be money pits ..even newish ones. I like ones with fewer gizmos...I don't want lane warnings and assists etc ..more to go wrong! But I am not worried about looks or street cred... just want a decent boot and enough torque to get me up a steep hill :)

Ours are all very street cred! Fiat 500, Mini Cooper, BMW, Jaguar. We are a bit of a classic car family though.

Exactly. You can also do loads of gear changes on a long journey. Not every long journey is a smooth cruise along an empty motorway!

I bought a 13yr old hybrid, runs brilliantly. Obviously depends on previous owner taking car of it and not using it much. I had a 30yr old car before and only gave it up to get newer tech/safety features, otherwise it ran perfectly.

I wouldn’t no , here In Ireland tax is more expensive if they’re more than 10 years old & you have to Nct them every year , whereas if they’re under 10 , Nct for 2 years .
Don’t know how it works in UK .
Also they’re more likely to give trouble .
Depends on your budget though I guess OP 🤷🏻‍♀️

I think you must actually be driving my car 😆

We once bought an 8 year old car with 80,000 miles on the clock, for dd1. That car went on for over 10 years with hardly any issues, for both her and dd2. It was a Corsa from a reputable dealer.

I dare say we were lucky though…

My last but one car was a Focus I’d had from a year old - ex demo model. I kept it until it was 21 - still largely trouble-free, except that I’d become nervous of driving it on my regular 60 mile trip to a dd - which included the 6 lane stretch of the invariably busy M25 - in case it died on me there.

Traded it in for a 2 year old - and after a good old nose on the DVLA site, dh was amazed to find that it hadn’t been scrapped, but sold on!

Probably not, I’ve just traded in a ten year old car, and despite that I’d always had it serviced regularly and it had done low mileage for its age, it was shit and ready for the scrap heap. I was the second owner and I’d had it since I was a year old. I guess it depends on the make, some might be more reliable than others - this was a Ford!

Ford have an increasingly poor reputation for longevity - everyone I know who’s owned one has had issues with it!

Thanks for the thoughts so far. We are looking at a Toyota Varso which they don’t actually make anymore. We need 3 across the back- booster seat, strap in high back seat and toddler seat. The Verso is a 7 seater and 1.6 engine. There are various levels of mileage ranging from about 30-90k. DH and I are useless with cars but have a Sharan as our main car. Don’t really want another big one as it’s only for commuting but want the option to fit all 3 kids in if necessary.

We bought a high mileage 8 year old car and so far have had no problems. We needed a car quickly as our car was written off - we saw this car in a local garage and thought we would take a chance. and then trade in when we had received the insurance payout. Two years on we still have it and it is still doing fine..

Rather than low mileage we went for a 8 year old Peugeot diesel with 115,000 miles on it. Our reasoning was that having done 12,000+ miles a year it was well broken in and any problems would have been dealt with. We checked the full service history and that things like the timing belt had been replaced (this is a 10 years/ 100,000 miles job).so that we could be confident that we would get usage out it. There is no reason why mechniucally cars cant go for 200,000 miles + if they are maintained properly.

If it's mechanically sound and the bodywork's OK, yes without hesitation.

My son just bought his first car. 16 year old Hyundai with 100k on the clock. Mostly short trips so just wanted something reliable to go from A to B. A good starter car. I wouldn’t buy one as my main car as I do regular 300 plus mile drives.