To think £15K is excessive to spend on a car?

[SunflowerOwl]

DH and I seem to disagree massively over what a 'reasonable' budget is for our new car.

Our requirements are that it will last us a good 10-15 years so not too old (I cant be doing with having to car shop again in a few years time!), is safe and has a big boot as we have a large pram and a dog.

Every car he sends me that he likes seems to be in the region of £15K whereas I was thinking we would need to spend half of that! He tells me I'm out of touch and that's just what decent cars cost these days.

Is this true? Is this really what the average family spend on a family car?!

21Flora that's more my type, our last 3 cars were
2003 Ford Ka, bought 2008 for £1.5k - drove for 3 years until we had a baby
2008 Saab estate, bought 2011 for £3k - drove for 5 years until it needed repairing and the repair we needed (turbo) was more expensive than the whole car, traded that in for parts for just under what we bought it for
2013 Vauxhall Astra, bought 2016 for £6k but £2.5k knocked off as above - still going strong, we will drive this until we get an electric so it will be our last petrol car. Which is a weird thought!!

I agree with the idea to just have a look yourself on autotrader.

Our 4 year old ford mondeo with 30k miles was £7k. No problems so far and we expect to get 10 years out of it.

We spent around £11k on an 11 plate Skoda Yeti 6 years ago. We are the second owners. We look after our cars.

We arranged our own finance and paid that off in 5 years.

We are now tying to decide on whether we spend £1,000 on the car (it needs that. Not something that makes it unsafe but an expensive noise to fix) and run it for as long as we can or buy a new second hand car. If we do the latter we're looking at around a £15k spend time find something that meets our requirements.

We could also drive the car with the noise, but the noise is just going to get worse (something to do with gear bearings).

My preference is to spend the repair money and drive for another 5 years if we can...hoping all the while it doesn't need any more big spends on it.

If you’re looking at VW, you’re already increasing the price. Look at Skoda instead, which is exactly the same, but cheaper. You said you don’t want an SUV, but a Karoq is classed as a small SUV. The boot is large and the rear seats are totally removable should you need the space, as well as folding down.

OP
My point about the Seat Toledo was its a massively underrated family car, with amazing value for money. I’m sure there are other options available for similar bargains

Someone mentioned the Dacia Duster... we test drove and I’ll just say you get what you pay for.

So my advice would be to look for something which offers great vfm

Checking out the reviews online can help narrow down the options eg

www.autotrader.co.uk/owner-reviews/seat/toledo/af4a856c5c0b41bba473e39fb494f3bb

@Foxyloxy1plus1 there are quite a few options in the VW family ... Seat is another great brand

Our previous car was a VW Golf and we felt the Seat was on par.

You could also look at somewhere like Carwow that does deals on new and nearly new cars and if you're not set on a particular model, you can tell it your requirements and it shows you the best deal.

Our new Toyota Yaris cost us about that or a bit less a couple of years ago. A good secondhand one with low mileage and warranty remaining was still about £10-11k IIRC.

That's a relatively small car too in terms of pram/dog. Though it's fine for our family.

Cheaper cars are available but we have always had a good experience with Toyota.

£7,500 will buy you something several years old, out of warranty and with mileage around 50k plus if you want a family car size.

Glad to see the love for Toyota on here 😀

There are indeed ifyoubelieve. Is the Seat exactly the same internally? My Skoda and DH’s VW had exactly the same layout, dash, gearbox, mechanics and electrics. There was a different badge in the front and mine was cheaper.

Our VW Passat estate is about 8 years old with about 80K on it. We could probably get about 7K for it max. No way will it last another 10 to 15 years!

@clary

Our new Toyota Yaris cost us about that or a bit less a couple of years ago. A good secondhand one with low mileage and warranty remaining was still about £10-11k IIRC.

That's a relatively small car too in terms of pram/dog. Though it's fine for our family.

Cheaper cars are available but we have always had a good experience with Toyota.

£7,500 will buy you something several years old, out of warranty and with mileage around 50k plus if you want a family car size.

Glad to see the love for Toyota on here 😀

@clary Bar a Ford Festiva for one year, I've always had Toyotas. My current car, ironically, is a 2016 Toyota Yaris. That I bought brand new from the showroom.

@SunflowerOwl

We are thinking along the lines of an estate car, perhaps a VW golf estate or Passat. I'm not keen on going down the SUV route as I'm not a fan of them but do need the space.

VW Passat estate is a great car with a massive boot. I now drive an SUV and the boot space is pokey in comparison. I loved my Passat Estate.

I think you're massively out of your depths Ik afraid. A decent car will cost at least 15k, and 15 years is a very long time to keep a car! Could you stretch to a new car and buy it on HP, so that you spend less immediately, but get a brand new, reliable car with a warranty! There are a lot of new cars in the 20-25k range brand new that would easily last you 10 years, probably more if you look after it and service it annually etc.

Get a Kia or Hiyundai with a 7 year warranty. or for a nearly new Ford or Vauxhall.

it's not realistic to expect a car to last you 15-20 years.

A BMW, VW or Audi badge is no guarantee of reliability.

Don't forget that Carrie Antoinette is making our diesels and petrol cars worthless soon and we are going to have to buy Electric Vehicles which will be very expensive.
Also, all the time town centres are introducing charging because of emissions from normal cars. London all within M25; Bristol, Southampton.
What price a 3 year old Tesla with a tired battery system?

I would echo others that yes, that's what you're looking at if you want to buy a relatively new, very large car. I'm considering splashing out on a new car next year, but for something smaller but still "nippy", and I'm assuming nearly new will be between 10-15k. I concede I'm not aiming for a budget car.

I second all the comments re Skoda as being long lasting and great value with the most astonishing amount of storage space. We bought our Octavia new (they had a fantastic financing deal on at the time), have had it for about 7 years already and honestly, we fully expect to get at least another 7 out of it but probably far more. It's a standing joke around here that if we won the lottery we'd upgrade our second car (the smaller one) but that we love that Skoda so much we'll keep it forever if we can!

@Foxyloxy1plus1 yes, same build but we have the highest end exec option with our Toledo (leather seats and fancier dashboard) so it actually looks a lot higher end than the Golf (more like an Audi, which is also part of the VW group).

If you don’t care about the badge you’ll pay less. But a lot of people do care about the badge as cars are often purchased as status symbols.

I much preferred my Skoda to DH’s VW. More comfortable, higher seating position, nicer seats and it was a top spec.

Going to get another in a while.

My brother just bought one for 64k
I was for a week.

@Ifyoubelieveyouwill My duster was like new, had rear reversing cameras and cost £4,000. It also saved my life when I flipped it three times and fell off of the road down a 8ft drop upside down. I walked away with a bruised shin. It wasn’t a luxury car but did the job absolutely fine.

It all depends on whether you care if the trim is plastic or leather I suppose.

I'm afraid they do cost about £15k. We just bought a Mazda estate second hand and it was in good condition but cost £16k. I hope it'll last us a while though!

Ha! You could be my DH. He once bought 10 year old banger for £2k and that thing lasted and lasted and lasted. I just wanted the bloody thing to die so I would have an excuse for a new one. In the end two of the tyres needed replacing and I told DH the tyres were worth more than the car so I would be getting a new(er) one! Problem is that he now thinks anything more than £2k is vastly excessive. Currently driving a Ford S-Max Titanium. Bought when it was 8 years old for £7.5k. Low mileage and no problems so far but I'm not expecting 10 years out of it! Lovely practical family car though.

I just PM'd you OP.
I was literally you, this time last year.

My DM has had a Skoda octavia for about 15 years too, huge boot fit everything when I went to uni. Not sure how much it cost though.