To buy a car outright?

[tumericmasala]

I'm in a conundrum. We need a new car - our car is 10 years old we've spent a lot on it this year. The manufacturer and an independent mechanic have both said that the repairs are not with it.

My family say buy a car outright. So we're looking at 3 year old cars (to take into account depreciation but to account that it's still fairly new). My BF always leases but it doesn't make sense. I suppose we've always bought a car about 3 years old then just ran it til it's end of life.

But now I'm thinking rather than a huge £20k outlay on a new car (I want a decent and safe SUV) are we better off leasing?

I'd suggest going the buy outright route.

I'm not a fan of leasing simply because you have to pay for the car but you don't actually own it - and then you have to pay a lot to buy it. To me the only time it really makes sense to lease a car is if you only need one for a short period of time.

We always buy slightly older but not too old and relatively low mileage vehicles and we pay cash for them outright. We also run them into the ground

Personally I'd recommend seeing if you can find a Toyota. When I was buying one of my first cars I bought it from a dealership and they had a Toyota Camry that had 980,000 km on it. That's almost 600,000 miles. I'm not exaggerating. They figured it would probably still run. Obviously it wasn't for sale - they kept it as a conversation piece

Intresting thread. My car is 10 yrs old and I am currently debating leasing or buy outright .The newest car i ever brought was 3yrs old .I could now afford to buy one out right but now I can I am thinking of running the one into the ground first .When I couldn't afford it i wanted to change it now I can I am debating but it does seem such lot of money in one hit .Following the thread with interest on people's views

We've just scrapped a 17 yr old Toyota at just under 200k miles. It's needed money spent on it intermittently the last few years, but we've got a local garage we trust who've been great. We looked widely when considering what we wanted to replace it with, and considered depreciation and running costs as part of the process. If you are happy to run a car to end-of-life, and get one that you and your can keep going, then actually you can justify several hundred pounds a year if necessary before it costs more than the cost of depreciation + basic servicing of a newer car.

As an aside, we wanted an estate, and it is very obvious that there are a lot more second hand SUV and MPV types around now than estates. Quite different to 12 years ago when we last bought! We actually couldn't consider a sedan or hatchback due to inadequate headroom in the rear seats (have teenagers and we sit tall!).

Friends also recently changed car. Both of us found something suitable at around half your suggested budget, also ending up with cars about 3 yrs old.

I think you're absolutely right to decide on buying outright (a "cheap" personal loan may actually be better than lease arrangements if you have to I suspect). Don't restrict brands until you've looked at reliability, running costs, and what vehicles actually suit your needs.

Can you buy the Subaru Forester in the UK? It's a great mid sized SUV. We just took my son up to Uni with all of his stuff so it holds a lot. I have a 2009 Forester with 120k miles on it and it's never given us a bit of trouble.

You can indeed buy the Subaru Forester in the UK. I really, really want one as an upgrade from my Impreza. Trouble is the new ones are really massive and I cannot find a low mileage old style one with a decent history.

OP, of you're still considering the 7 seats because you want to be able to take your folks on breaks away with your family just be careful of how the 3rd row of seats and boot is laid out. In a lot of SUV type cars the 3rd row takes up nearly all of the boot when they are up, so it would be impossible to fit in 7 people's luggage. Really what you would need then is something like a Ford Galaxy which has 7 full seats plus a proper boot.

19lottie82, I find french cars a bit dodgy where electricals are concerned. I've had 4.
Best cars I've had for reliability have been Fords. Very few problems.