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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

311 replies

SunflowerOwl · 07/06/2021 14:13

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?!

OP posts:
MrsKoala · 07/06/2021 16:53

@BunnyRuddington

Why do you want a cat to last that long. You won't need a pram to go in the boot after about 2 years.
No, then it's bikes, camping stuff, scooters, body boards, canoes, rc cars...in fact now we need all that space and a roof box/trailer!
IhateAntivaccers · 07/06/2021 16:53

@bloodynamechangethe3rd

I've just spent 20k on a 4 year old car that is exactly what I wanted, I think you are out of touch with current prices.
I paid 2 grand for a toyota celica that lasted 5 years, beautiful looking car that often got compliments and didnt break down once in that 5 years- crazy posts on here
Bargebill19 · 07/06/2021 16:56

If you want a new car - yabu
If you are happy to have a second hand car you are not being quite so unreasonable.

ElleDubloo · 07/06/2021 16:58

Our car is 6 years old, still running strong, I drive it almost daily. We bought it off Facebook for £6000! I wouldn’t necessarily recommend Facebook for cars, but we got lucky and our seller was a careful and honest lady.

I’m hoping this will last another 5-10 years. Our next one will probably be new and electric (the VW looks good) and obviously would be happy to pay a lot more for that.

JinglingHellsBells · 07/06/2021 16:59

I think you need to define what age car you want/ need.

If you want something to last 10-15 years, you need German or Japanese.

Cars can easily last 15 years (I've sold two of my old cars that age) but I bought them when they were each around 2-3 years old. So the outlay was quite high.

They depreciated around £1k a year .

If you hold onto a car for a long time, when it's not economical to repair , you need to either buy an old banger or find the money for another car only 2-3 years old.

ElleDubloo · 07/06/2021 16:59

Honda Jazz, I should say. Still looks shiny (after I clean it).

BungleandGeorge · 07/06/2021 17:01

I think you have to be a little sceptical about ‘reliability’ surveys. Land Rover always do poorly but you really can’t compare something which is often used for towing horse boxes, caravans etc and off road driving with a little city runaround used a couple of times a week. It’s useful to compare certain models as some have design flaws or within a class etc. The makes I wouldn’t buy are those that I have personal experience of problems amongst my f&f,

Volcanoexplorer · 07/06/2021 17:02

I actually think 15K sounds relatively cheap for a big car that’s going to last 15 years.

throwa · 07/06/2021 17:02

Another one here who bought a nearly new Skoda Octavia estate for 14k when it had done 5k miles and had 2y of warranty left. We will keep it until it gets to 200k miles (as we did the last one), and if it's anything like the last one it will only need scheduled maintenance (plus the traumatic £1k for a new turbo / cambelt / etc at 100k miles), and then will get a couple of k off trade in value for the same thing when we come to replace in a few years time.

Timewise, pre Covid we would hit 200k miles in 6 years or so of ownership, now without my commuting to work every day it's going to be interesting to see how long it takes us to get there, and whether the lack of motorway mileage means that the car suffers accordingly...

Why would you pay for

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 07/06/2021 17:03

I think 7.5k would be a stretch for a decent family car to last 10-15years. If you want it to last that long realistically you need a nearly new car (unless you want to be paying hefty repair bills). We got a 1 year old car, decent but not luxury japanese make, 5000 miles on the clock, for £20k, but that was 4 years ago and was the best price we could find for that model/age/mileage by at least 2 grand.

GreenFingersWouldBeHandy · 07/06/2021 17:04

Balls.

Honda CRV. Mine is 17 years old, cost me £4k 8 years ago and will be going for years yet.

Watchingyou2sleezes · 07/06/2021 17:06

I would suggest that your expectations of a vehicle to see you through for 15 years is a giant mistake. Not because vehicles can't last that long (buy an inexpensive non turbo petrol vehicle and you'll easily get 15 years) , more the changes that are happening- and continue to happen- in all things automotive. Nobody can predict forth coming tax changes etc over that period of time.

Several manufacturers are confident of having batteries with 5 times the current energy storage density to market in the next few years, a state of the art car today could well be old hat in 7 years time.

With cars developing as they are at the moment have you even looked at leasing. There are some leases out there that are all but giving the things away. Obviously some people are not comfortable with the idea of a spend with nothing to show for it at the end and it isn't the solution for everyone, but:
new car, no aggro, warranty, chuck it in in 2/3/5 years etc
Some "average" cars bought today will be all but worthless in just a few short years.
1 last thing, your fella might be the type that feels what he drives is part of what defines his identity so a "decent" car could have certain unquantifiable values

Dobbyisahouseelf · 07/06/2021 17:06

You are massively out of touch OP. I spent £12K on a 1 litre VW Polo for my 17 year old daughter which was 6 months old.

I think you would have a hissy fit at the cost of my boring family estate BMW.

Hankunamatata · 07/06/2021 17:07

I think we spent around 12k on Vauxhall zafira and it's still going strong 10 years later

JinglingHellsBells · 07/06/2021 17:07

@Dobbyisahouseelf

You are massively out of touch OP. I spent £12K on a 1 litre VW Polo for my 17 year old daughter which was 6 months old.

I think you would have a hissy fit at the cost of my boring family estate BMW.

Maybe you are out of touch! My DD had 2 VW Polos and she paid about £1K for them- sold her last one when it was 14 years old.
TwinkleToeMatilda · 07/06/2021 17:12

Completely depends on what you want and if you want a brand new one or one that’s a couple years old. When I was looking 15k couldn’t get me what I wanted and I was shocked at how little you get for that type of money. I ended paying 21k on a car I absolutely love.

ZZTopGuitarSolo · 07/06/2021 17:14

@MargaretThursday

8 years ago we paid £6k for a 2yo zafira, which is still going strong. Had almost no problems with it at all.
I bought a 1 year old Zafira for £10.5k and within a year the clutch had had to be replaced, and some other sensor went meaning it couldn't do more than 20mph.

Fortunately I'd bought a 1 year warranty.

ShanghaiDiva · 07/06/2021 17:16

@Narwhalsh

OP if you want VW Passat but want to save some ££ then go Skoda Superb-it’ll be cheaper and it is about the roomiest estate out there (more boot capacity than the Passat)
Agree with this.
bridgetreilly · 07/06/2021 17:16

I’m afraid my nearly new Corsa was £8,500 last year. For a family car you’ll need well over £10k and £15k is not ridiculous.

PattyPan · 07/06/2021 17:18

@Dobbyisahouseelf

You are massively out of touch OP. I spent £12K on a 1 litre VW Polo for my 17 year old daughter which was 6 months old.

I think you would have a hissy fit at the cost of my boring family estate BMW.

I think the person spending £12k on a car for a teenager is more likely to be out of touch with budgeting Shock Our car (small Peugeot, can’t remember the model) cost £3k a couple of years old but is only a two door so doesn’t meet OP’s requirements.
Hallyup6 · 07/06/2021 17:18

Bought ours 4 years ago for £14k. 7 seater ford Tourneo Connect, 1 year old at the time. It's an ugly bugger, but needs must.

Bagelsandbrie · 07/06/2021 17:19

@Dobbyisahouseelf

You are massively out of touch OP. I spent £12K on a 1 litre VW Polo for my 17 year old daughter which was 6 months old.

I think you would have a hissy fit at the cost of my boring family estate BMW.

That is ridiculous. I mean, fine if you can afford it that’s lovely but you don’t NEED to spend that much. You can get perfectly nice second hand, reliable first cars for well under half that.
toomanydicksonthedancefloor1 · 07/06/2021 17:25

I would say for a car to last that length of time
(It's quite unusual for anyone to keep a car so long) £15,000 would be a minimum unless you're unusually lucky.

For longevity I would definitely look at Volvo. As an example a top spec V90 estate auto on a 2019 plate with 20k on would cost around £27,000. I'm using that as an example as we've just been offered that for ours as prices are very high at the moment.

motogogo · 07/06/2021 17:26

You need to budget at least £1k per year of expected life, for a modest car. Larger, higher end brands are more!

FedNlanders · 07/06/2021 17:28

Never spent much on cars. My golf is 20yrs old!