To want to spend £16k on a new car....

[Dru77]

...when it'll wipe out our possible savings? We don't actually have any savings but will shortly receive some inheritance money, enough to pay off one of our additional borrowing mortgages leaving approx £11k left over. I sold my car at the weekend for £3k and our other car will fetch approx £2k as a trade in.

We do need to replace our car as it's starting to cost too much to keep it on the road but I seem to have lost my head over the prospect of getting a Mitsubishi ASX or Nissan Qashqai. Both these are quite new models so used prices aren't much lower then RRP.

I've always thought a car is just a tin can to get me from A to B but I can be impulsive with large purchases! Have managed to convince DH so now having doubts and thinking it'd be more sensible to keep some £ in savings and get a lower spec car.

"used approved" is the only way to go

HellonHeels - we have decent incomes and an overdraft so can cope with the odd unexpected expense. We also tend to keep £1000 in a separate account to help with those things but that can be replenished in 2 months if necessary. We pay £15k a year for our DC school so I guess I always assume that we could move to state if £ became a big issue. We only went private because we choose badly for state in the first place so see it as a short term thing as they'll be back in state school for secondary.

malinois - I'd never buy a car with that many miles on it just because it would annoy me so much to have to start fixing all the things that inevitably go wrong in a car once it's been around the block a few times. I'd like a have a couple of years of cost free fixing stuff at least! I also live in a slightly dodgy area so having a swish car is a no no, it'd be gone before the first week was out!

Dru - wasn't recommending you buy that particular car, just an example of what you can get for the same money. In my experience, BMWs, Mercs and Audis with 80k+ miles on them have been far more reliable and had far fewer problems than cheaper cars with less mileage. That's just my experience mind.

Our current car (BMW 335i Touring) is 5 years old and has 85k miles and other than regular servicing and tyres has not had anything done to it at all. Mind you, it bloody eats tyres :) Modern cars are incredibly reliable.

All anecdotal of course - but the general gist is that a new or nearly new car is no more reliable than one that is 5 years old and has a few miles on it (unless it's a PSA or Renault of course, in which case all the electrics will go wrong in the first year anyway)

I think I'm going to be sensible. Have been looking at nearly new Merivas(current car) and they are about £6k! The one I sold was a 56 reg Citroen C1 and I loved it but it wasn't practical to keep it as our only car when we have 2 kids, a dog and are about to try for another kid!

I just popped in to agree with upahill - we have bought a couple of pre-registered cars with single-figure mileages on them over the years and saved a lot of money.
One of DH's previous cars was pretty much split new, had been sitting pre-registered in the dealership for months and he got it for just over half the list price. That was an excpetionally good deal but if you want new and you are planning on keeping it for a while then pre-reg is a way of saving quite a lot of money.
E.g my present car was about £2k cheaper buying that way.

I think it is a silly amount to spend on a car personally, especially if you are buying new (depreciation) and using all your savings. What does this car offer you that a £5k car (what ours cost, it is brilliant) doesn't?

PS: Out Audi had 85000 on it when we bought it (they go on forever), it has sailed through all MOTs, services and have never needed any work doing on it.

Oh dear, yesterday we test drove the Mitsubishi ASX, Nissan Qashqai, Skoda Yeti & Kia Sportage. The Kia was the clear winner so now I am totally in lurve.........