AIBU to resist replacing our old cars despite my mother-in-law's comments?

[ISO3456]

To be honest, we’ve had some bad luck recently with our cars…

This week our car broke down this week on the motorway with a snapped belt (£400 fix)

Only 2 months ago an engine light came on the other car (our main car). Both cars are >10 years old & both just over >100k miles t

Both situations were stressful as they were on the motorway & 1 year old in the car. We had to sit at side of motorway for about an hour. Imo just unfortunate events & bad luck

Now my DHs mum (MIL) is pushing us to get a new car. It’s her comments which have annoyed me most & I think I need a AIBU check

We’re in our mid 30s & have ~100k between us in investment ISA but only <2k actual cash. Infact we do owe still for our main car 3.5k.

She’s mentioned it a few times since breakdown #1 but this week her comments were “what’s the point in having all that money in the bank & driving around in broken down cars”

My opinion is that our investments aren’t “money in the bank’, instead it’s our future income or early retirement
if we had decided to buy 2nd homes or pay off our mortgage instead, it wouldn’t have been seen the same so why should the stocks

Since she’s been going on about it, DH now talking about cars.

Maybe I’m just out of touch. So looking for opinions

AINBU - MIL keep her nose out (and talk to husband about NOT getting a new car)

AIBU - you need to buy a new car

We have actually been in the same situation recently, after a small repair, with a big one on the horizon, we bit the bullet; but have decided to lease rather than buy. In the past, we have always just kept our cars forever, but a couple of friends have been leasing for several years, and it seems to work well.

I think there’s a happy medium on this.
People who always have new expensive cars but don’t save for the future are fools.

But not spending quite enough for current needs isn’t wise either. We’ve always saved but also aimed to have sensible reliable cars. We’ve budgeted to buy them outright and then keep them until before they’re likely to have problems.

First thought that came into my mind too after reading the OP. I’m going to +1 the leasing suggestion as something to look into for the future. I’m likely going to do it in the future.

This

The camper is a 7m motorhome so we try to avoid driving it

We bought it in September a 3 month trip around Europe while on mat leave. Did 1 week in Europe so far this year & 1 weekend away.

both work from home so only use cars for pottering to nursery & David Lloyd during the week & going to MIL 2 hours away every 1-2 months

Kia Sportage 105k miles 2012 diesel
Ford fiesta 2013 117k miles diesel

We have a VW EOS but it’s SORN, it’s unsuitable now we have a kid as the boot is tiny. Was waiting for summer to sell it so need to sort that soon

None of her business. If she’s that bothered she can buy you a new car

The problem was they were reliable until they broke down once.

I suppose the question is, Does 1 breakdown = unreliable? Or have we just had bad luck strike twice

Admittedly breakdown 2 in our 2nd car was dangerous as the car cut out once the belt snapped but now it’s fixed surely unlikely to happen again

We have just upgraded our old car which had so many issues and I wish we’d done it sooner. feels so much safer driving around with my 1 year old, lots of new safety features

was it a belt that the handbook recommends maintenance/replacement of and you didn’t do it?

for example timing belts generally get changed at 75-85k miles. not all cars have them.

id ask the mechanic to look over both and see what all needs done now/soon and get rid of the car which needs the most/most expensive repairs and get rid of your other old car you no longer use too, and buy one newer car with a view to having it for a long time.

id use the newer car to take dc out in. it should have better safety standards and be more reliable. the other old car is fine for running around in without dc. You just dont want to be endangering your child. sitting in a car on a motorway is dangerous. you dont want to be doing that.

id then run both the old car and new car until they die.

having money in the bank is great but you want to be safe so it’s ok to be investing in dc’s safety. your own safety is fine.

A few hundred quid here and there to keep an older car going is a bargain compared to a few hundred quid a month for a PCP deal on a car with an annual mileage limit that you then have to give back.

If you both WFH and hardly drive anywhere do you need 2 cars?

👆 This. One of the builders I work with just spent £17k on a new van (I'm guessing a couple of years old and he's the second owner) and the head gasket promptly went.

I always have a 2 strikes and it’s out approach

there is obviously an increasing risk of a breakdown as a car ages ( although new cars have a high failure rate too ) but usually it’s slow

thise going on about risking life - don’t get in a car ever and especially not with a baby because of the distractions they cause . Far too dangerous

3 cars plus a campervan it sounds like, even if one is currently off road!

You get 20 year old cars and older on motorways all the time!

Saying that OP, if I had the money I'd say cars that are 2012/13, had 100k on the clock and are starting to cause issues are ripe for replacement. (My van is from 2012 with 90k on the clock, I have had a very expensive few months with it (new engine among other things 😱) but I can't afford to replace it).

I would sell the camper van- it just sounds that you're not getting enough use out of it to justify it. You could always buy a cheap caravan instead and get a towbar put on one of your vehicles- cheaper, more flexible and less to go wrong. I would also sell the car you've got sitting on your drive and at least one of your ageing cars, pay your parents back and buy something from about 2018 onwards with say 50k on the clock or less. If you've got a driveway maybe go for an EV to cut running costs?

Apart from anything car related, why is your MIL party to you and your DHs financials? That's the bit I don't understand.

thanks, I’ll get that checked.

the guy said there was oil on the belt but no oil leak so thinks somebody split it when topping up
So perhaps on the last service

100k in the bank and borrowing money off your parents when in your mid 30s

That's sounds more entitled than people starting I'm struggling to live on my 100k salary threads.

As for the cars you've broken down twice on the motorway. If you're not going to buy a new car, at least with a young child stay off the fucking motorway. They are about the most dangerous places you can ever be in those circumstances

We had two old cars. They were both 2011 plates, one approaching 100k the other much lower mileage. We make sure that we stayed on top of maintenance getting belts replaced at 70,000 as recommended, servicing them every 10,000 or 12 months, batteries got replaced at 10-12 years old and so on.
At the end of 2024 my car (low mileage) spent 6 weeks off the road for a simple and cheap problem to fix but with a short supply of replacement parts. At the beginning of 2025 my partner car started with issues. We did the repairs but decided that as we now had two cars that were starting to need more on going repairs, and this car not quite working for us as much as it did at the start, we replaced this car. We bought a 2022 plate estate with low mileage with cash. This is our main car and my car is very much the spare car which does about 3-4000 miles a year. We have decided that we will keep my car until it breaks or our mileage per year goes up. We will probably replace it with a 5-8 year old car with low mileage. We will run both cars for as long as possible

You aren't unreasonable for having older cars but I would say you are unreasonable in loaning money from family to buy a car with so much in investments. You are leaving yourself vulnerable to life events with the balance you have in accessible and unaccessible money. What would you have done if one of the problems with the car was terminal and you had to buy another? What would you do if your boiler broke? I would be looking at moving enough out of investments to pay off the loan to your parents and to have the balance of investments to cash something like 90:12 rather than the 100:2. I would look at having one slightly newer car /lower mileage car so keep the car in the best condition currently and replace the other one with a 5-8 year old car with 40-50k on it. Plan on running both cars until they break replacing each time with a 5-8 year old car that's relatively low mileage. This should allow you to play leap frog and always have an older and newer car.
The problem we found with having to older cars was the risk of having both needing repairs at the same time. It means there is a newer car to use on long/motorway journeys. We are driving to France this summer and we would have felt more hesitant doing this in our old car. We have too children and whilst a 1 year old is fairly ok on the side of a motorway for an hour a 3+ year old is a liability.

Money is literally the only thing I talk to my mum about. She isn’t interested in anything else. Even people with normal parents probably talk about what investments they’ve made and life plans and breaking down in the motorway. Is it not normal?

We didn’t need to borrow, but was on mat leave & we bought the car in cash. Then a motorhome become available through family so they lent us money for the car to pay for the motorhome in cash

The reason I mentioned it is we don’t have ‘cash in the bank’, we’re infact in minus, the money is in stocks, similar to if we were to have this in home equity or a BTL

We have to go on motorway as family live 2 hours away, pretty much whole way is motorway. We only do it once a month-ish & have been for 10 years without an issue

Why don’t you have cash in the bank? Or is this just due to maternity leave?

Talking about investments, yes, totally normal. Talking about exactly how much money you have in investments generally not a good idea imo because people start to make assumptions as shown by OPs MIL.

"100k in the bank and borrowing money off your parents when in your mid 30s"

it all depends on how the £100k is invested and how much interest is being charged on the £3.5k. A stocks and shares ISA could be returning 8% tax free, a limited access cash ISA will be 4%+ tax free. As to buying a new car, if it's a Jaguar-Land Rover product you can almost guarantee it will spend more time being repaired than driven, that is if it's not been stolen to provide parts for another one.