Why does everyone need a massive car these days?

[Britishsummertime22]

Tesco this morning. Full of people who don't know how to drive or park their fuck off range rovers.

I love that "living rurally" is given as an excuse. I grew up rurally (farmjng fanily) and our family road car was a Volkswagon Golf 😆

Obviously we had tractors and a old school tarp top landrover for your actual real farming.

DH and I have one each
We live rurally and have dogs.
And we can park them no probs. Also v good reversing camera so I have no worries about any small children standing behind that I cant see.

Also the manufacturers are part of the problem as they are making wider and wider chassis that most people don't actually want.

Many modern cars are wider than older ones but actually the interior is no more spacious. Its poor design.

AquaPeer

You’d be far better off buying a car you can afford.

Your argument with comparing a leased car to a mortgage is fundamentally flawed. House values appreciate, cars do the opposite.

Houses are long term investments of twenty plus years.. Cars aren’t.
You won’t own a car with equity at the end, you will own the house.

Leases benefit the dealership not the leaseholder.

@Ginmonkeyagain a few times every winter DH has been the only person to get to work due to having a (good) 4x4 (and takes a tow rope to help anyone he meets stuck on the way)

Although appreciate some small cars are v good in snow (edited to add this)

Because no other country on earth obsesses about class, according to those with little experience of other countries. Sorry to disappoint you but they do, one of the worst I've experienced was India where our tour guide didn't even know the name of our driver because of his, the driver's, lower status, even though they'd worked together most of the year for the last 5 years!

But if you buy a car outright you’re unlikely to have equity in it at the end either, if you run it into the ground? And if you didn’t, then you need to save up again to buy a new car. So what’s the problem with leasing? Whichever way, you lose money on a car.

Ditto with me, my VW is 17 years old, it gets me from A to B and I have no fear of it being nicked!

Which is why you buy an affordable car and not a big car you can’t afford unless you take out a lease agreement.

It’s basic maths.

I’ve got a big car. 4 of us and I’m the smallest at 5’10”, DH has nerve damage in his neck so can’t tilt it too much to get in, 2 big dogs. I could probably manage with a smaller car but it wouldn’t be as comfortable or useful. Our other car is a mini and is used when we don’t need the big car. I can actually drive my car though, unlike a lot of what I see. If it makes a difference to the MN jury (as if I care) it’s 12 years old, bought and paid for. I can take it anywhere (yes 4x4, spit. Live rurally, spit) and not worry about it being scraped or nicked.

We have 3 kids & at one point 2 had car seats so didn’t really have a choice. The problem is, once you’ve had 7 seats it’s very hard to go back to 5!

Because (due to lack of walking) they are too fat to prise themselves into and out of a small vehicle

I have a larger car than I would like. We had to get rid of our Ford Focus when we had a third baby. Very limited choice of cars that have thee isofix seats in the back, so it's safety.

For those harking back about small cars, yes back in the day you did for families of five in a small car. But none of them were in car seats!

I think people are confusing car leasing and finance. Lease is like a long term hire car, finance is like a mortgage so you own the car.

Just own it, you want them, you like them? you can afford them, you're not too bothered about the knock on effects?

I guess requiring a special driving test for vehicles over a certain size/weight would sort the parking and manoeuvring issues somewhat?

The discussion is about leasing.

The seems to be the case on many models, the 'mini' that I had in the late 70s was about half the size of the current model, the Polo is about the same size as the first Golf models.

A very small proportion of all drivers have 3+ kids, dogs, equipment in the car and even then it's unlikely to be every journey.

The average number of people in cars is just over 1 isn't it?

I think people are getting confused. I don’t know many people that lease a car, but loads that buy them a car finance.

The county where parking over the white lines I used to think was compulsory when we first moved here, where we had come from the parking attendants had started giving tickets for even touching the white line!

We had a "big" car when the kids were smaller and we needed to fit in chunky car seats, travel systems and all the paraphernalia that goes with that, but now they're older we have smaller cars as we don't have as much shite to carry everywhere with us. Alot of people with young kids, require the extra room a bigger car gives, I'd say 80% of the cars on the school run are suvs. Is assume most people driving bigger cars have a young family to accommodate tbh

School run full of them, and most of them drive like it’s a tank, unable to know if they have space to get through gaps so everyone has to wait

Finance makes little sense either. Interest payments and a balloon payment to ‘buy’ a depreciating car that may or may not be the actual value of the car means you will end up having to roll it over shortly afterwards to a new loan and a newer car any way.

Paying cash for an affordable car you will own outright is always the better option.

Everyone knows a big new car is on credit anyway so why bother trying to impress.

We have a Shogun out of necessity. Bought to replace an even older one. We don't often go into town centre - we borrow a child and their (small, cheaply taxed runabout type car) if we need to. It's over 10 years old but in VGC and relatively low mileage, and was bought cash (we don't do lease). @Fiverfiver if you buy on a lease you have a humungous repayment, if you save what you'd pay on humungous repayment each month, you'd quickly amass more than the cost of a new car by the time you need one. And a well kept shiny looking car without masses of mileage will hold its value to some extent. Shoguns are now going up in value as they're no longer made, but are so useful as utility cars. We wouldn't ever buy new and get another car once 3 or 4 years are up, we typically buy them at 2-4 years old THEN get the value out of it. A car depreciates most straight out of the showroom.

This week the car has been used for: collecting goods bought at a farm auction and also at a machinery auction (towing a flatbed trailer), while the trailer was on daughter used said car to transport 10 bales of hay. Also visited a ploughing match (4x4 needed as parking in a muddy field, daughter's little car wouldn't cut it), and I have collected paving slabs for the garden from Wickes. I've also used it to transport a builders bag of scalpings for a gateway. And been to the local supermarket and also the corner shop twice (I can park it properly, I assure you). The car has also taken 2 x largish horses to a competition (needs the size vehicle to tow 2 together legally due to weight) .
It's not a status symbol but a necessity. We live rurally. Only the supermarket trip and the corner shop trip are suitable for a smaller car - but actually I have a plan for that, I'm going to get a vintage motorcycle!

We have three children with a 4th one on the way, so my husband and me both sold our cars recently and bought a 7 seater together....