To ask when you should just buy a new car

[OldLadyInPolyester]

My car is 10 years old and has been costing me loads of money in repairs over the last couple of years. Bits of it just need replacing because of age / mileage. I've also broken down a fair few times which is annoying.

I'm not bothered about having a new, flashy car but I don't want to keep paying out loads of money. I keep hearing people say that they're just going to run their current car into the ground. What does this mean? Keep replacing bits until you can't any more? Or once expensive bits need replacing they get a new car?

So I suppose I'm asking at what point does it become better to buy a new car rather than getting the old one repaired?

It's hard to predict because it's not just one cause - there are multiple supply chain issues affecting new car production.

Totally unscientific but IMO they'll remain high for some time. Obvs keep an eye on things but with waiting lists of 18 months + I'd say we're in for elevated prices for the next few years at least.

I recently sold a mouldy old Corsa for £2000. It was worth £500 pre pandemic. The trader has since out it in his forecourt for £3500. Ridiculous.

I think you just have to suck it up, if you need to change your car. It pains me as I usually haggle like mad but I've recently had to take the hit. At least it should retain its value and ultimately all cars end up losing money so have to do your best to ignore it.

We had a Qashqai that we loved. However, it had one big piece of work which was fine, for about £1200. Then when something else went, the mechanic said it would be about £1800-2200 to be fixed. We sold it for £1600 for spares and got a brand new Tuscon. We’d had our money’s worth out of the Qashqai but it just wasn’t worth fixing it.

I keep saying that I am going to run my car until it dies but they nearly all ended up having a resale value or were eventually written off.

My last one had over 180,000 miles on the clock and I was just starting to think about when to replace it when it was written off (not my fault). I got a pretty generous pay out because due to the circumstances it couldn't be inspected so the insurance just paid book value.

DH's last one went back under the 10 year warranty when it was about 9yrs 10mths old, again we got a decent payment for it.

The previous one was sold on at 14 years old because he needed something bigger but it still had plenty of miles in it.

Thanks for everyone that's replied. My current car runs fine. Probably shouldn't say that. I think I am going to just have to buy one. Current car is coming up 13 years old less than 90k on the clock but it won't run forever

My last car was 21 years old! And still going strong, but I’d got nervous in case it died on me on a frequent 60 mile drive - 3 busy motorways inc. a 6 lane stretch of the M25.

Bought a 2 year old with only 5k miles on the clock. I don’t think I’d ever buy a brand new one - they depreciate a lot the moment you drive them away. A newish 2nd hand is usually much better value.

I had this quandary with my last car. It got to 16 years old but had very low mileage for its age so was generally quite cheap to run.

However when the coat of keeping it on the road started to increase I did start to do the calculations. Then I thought "Oh I might as well keep it until it drops to hits, then replace it!"

Trouble is, that happened. I was driving along one day, fortunately not too fast or on too busy a road, when there was a horrible noise and the car stopped dead and wouldn't move at all. The "wishbone" had snapped causing one of the wheels to fall off. I had to have it towed away and scrapped.

I dread to think what could have happened if I had been on a motorway or in the middle of lights waiting to turn right or something.

I now think I won't keep a car that long again. And yes I did have it serviced regularly

Why do you think the cost of diesel petrol is almost £2 per litre and many petrol stations aren’t even selling it? Because it is the type of petrol with the highest % of oil in it. And we are phasing out oil. If you hang on to a diesel car, it will be worthless very soon.
This is hilarious. I must have missed all the announcements from fuel retailers saying they won’t be selling diesel fuel any more.
Current high prices and supply problems are due to sanctions against Russia affecting the world supply, not us “phasing out diesel” - that will be more long term.
Some people seem very adept at constructing “facts” to fit their agenda - Trump has a lot to answer for, and his follower Johnson.

We buy cars that are about 3 years old and then drive them for 12-15 years usually.

We have decided that it is the bight time to change them based on the following over the years;

• one when the local garage MOT’d it and passed it with a series of advisories and told us that they didn’t want to see it the next year. They advised us that it had scraped through and would need lots of money spending on it soon. It was 16 years old. We took it with its new MOT and traded it in for a used approved second hand car and got a decent sum off the list price for the new car.
• One which was 17 years old and had done over 150k miles and was driving fine and had passed MOT with no advisories, but garage had said it was overdue a new cam belt and couple of other items. This coincided with one of our DS’s passing his driving test and we needed a newer, smaller and cheaper to insure car. Did another trade in.
• One which was 14 years old and a rust bucket and had already had a £500 job done of it earlier in the year. Just decided it’s time was up. It had done over 120k miles and we were losing faith in it.

Once we had an old car that eventually broke down and wouldn’t go. At that point we decided to get a new car. Getting rid of an old car that won’t go isn’t so easy. Couldn’t trade it in and had to get it taken away and felt under more pressure to quickly choose new car. Pre-empting the timing of getting rid rather than having it forced upon you feels less stressful and allows you more choices. However, there’s a,ways a risk with old cars that something serious will go wrong and it will effectively ‘die’.

Lots of people buy new or on lease etc because they fear a big bill and don’t have many savings. If you’ve got some cash behind you and are prepared to spend on some jobs as they are needed, plus can afford to go out and purchase a new car when you feel you want to, you quite simply have lots more choices about these things. You can choose how long to hold onto old car for and when to get a new one. And respond to circumstances as they arise. Fear of the unknown and surprise coats is what causes many people to our chase using options which ultimately cost them much more.