can't decide!

[ryme]

Currently have 2 cars, one 18 years old, feeling like it's on it's last legs, the other 14.5 years old, 160000 miles diesel, but still has some life in it I think, very, very reliable. We could survive with one car, at a stretch. So, it's not massively urgent that we buy a car, but we do need to start thinking about it.
Started looking at new cars - spent ages because I haven't bought a car for 13 years, and knew nothing.

Out of all the cars we've sat in/test drove, a 2025 MG HS stands out. Lovely feel/drive etc, right size for what we want, but it's £22K! We want to buy from a particular car supermarket because it's close by, and has an excellent reputation, fairly priced, bought from them last time etc.. They have cheaper models from 2022, and I'm happier with the price of those, but they didn't wow me as much (cheapest 13.5K). They don't have any 2023-2024 ones. MG have also recently released an MG HS hybrid which I'd love to have, but there are none on the used car market yet, do I wait until there are? Way too expensive to buy new (32K). This self-charging hybrid has better fuel economy, but nowhere near enough to offset £10K.
I always buy cars cash outright, then run them into the ground. We have money (~250K in savings, mortgage paid off), but we're not that far off retirement (50s), although we do have pensions (albeit not that great ones).
DH has no interest in cars, thinks the current 2 we have are fine i.e. they go. And he's very easy going, so just says "if you really want it, just buy it", but if he's honest, would prefer cheaper (as would I). So he's as useless as I am.
I don't know if it's because I was brought up poor, but I struggle to spend money, and this feels huge. But then am I just being a proper scrooge, sitting on loads of money and not spending it? As things stand the 2025 plate car is on reserve for us, but I think I'm going to have to pull out because I (we?) just can't decide.

We still haven't decided what to buy yet. I've seen a really interesting Vauxhall Astra, plugin hybrid, high end spec for a good price, but not sure it's quite big enough. And Hyundai Tucsons look quite good for what we want.
Mazda3 and mazda CX-5 don't look too bad either, or a Honda Civic, but the car supermarket we want to buy from doesn't seem to have any.
Toyota RAV4 ticks all our boxes but none of those available either.

@martinisforeveryone Ha! Yes. Didn’t notice that! I’m just wondering what longevity some of these cars will have now? The cars from China are largely undercutting Euro manufacturers and even Japan/Korea. I’m also interested in build quality and I think reviews in respected magazines are a better starting point. I’ve no idea which mg was driven by op but if it’s an EV it will be quicker than most diesels. Especially old woofer ones.

I do think with circa £20,000 you have enough money to buy something better but not all Far East cars are that great. I’d go and look at a car scrap yard and see what’s in there! What doesn’t last? It’s difficult to judge that with so many new manufacturers but build quality is one sign you can check by reading magazines. They always comment on it.

I agree. I had an MG a couple of years ago as a hire car, whilst my own car was repaired after someone crashed into it.

My impression of it was it felt very cheaply made and plasticy inside. It was also very gutless and sluggish. I was glad to get my own car back. Even though it was 8 years old, it felt much better made and much more powerful than the brand new MG hire car I had.

@ryme wondered if you'd picked a car yet?

If not and given how long you keep your vehicles for I'd recommend giving yourself permission to spend 20-25k as prices have really gone up since covid. I'd recommend buying a really nice low mileage japanese vehicle that is 2-3yrs old (worst of the depreciation curve has already happened) with 1 prior owner and FSH to give the reliability and peace of mind for the next 10-15yrs.

Anything from Lexus, Mazda (3,cx30,cx5), Honda (HRV, CRV, Civic) or Toyota (ChR, corrola, yaris Cross, rav4). Spending a little more on one of these is up front will likely cost less over the long term than buying a cheap astra or mg when you keep your cars over a very long ownership period.

We looked at quite a few of the Japanese ones, but none of them grabbed us, there weren't many to choose from at the car supermarket that is local to us, and they were even more expensive - more like 25-30K rather than 20K, and we didn't really want to go over 20K.
I may get flamed for this, but we went for a Skoda Karoq in the end - it's exactly the right size. They had excellent reviews in terms of reliability, Skodas are the same under the hood as VWs, SEATs and Audis (all part of the same company). It has some oomph, so drives well on motorways but also has really good mpg, especially for a petrol engine.

It took us ages to decide, must have sat in about 20 different cars, talked to about 5 different sale people, test drove 6 cars. In the end, I downloaded all the car listings, with all their info, from the website of our local car supermarket, and did a full analysis on the data (I'm a techie computer nerd!). Before I did that, I'd never even heard of a Skoda Karoq, but it consistently came in the top 5 on every measure that we were looking at.
Did a test drive and really liked it, this one was overall the best, for us and our needs. We'll use it to replace our smaller, oldest car for now, but it will also replace our larger car when that falls apart, so we could go down to one car with this one. I'm really happy with it so far.

No flaming from me. You've asked around, done all your homework and the contrast and compare and found something you like that suits you.

Happy Motoring!

@ryme Comes in at 4 on the What Car under £20,000 family suv used car list. Volvo, Kia and Hyundai come higher. So reading this list would have shortlisted for you.