WWYD - car dilemma

[NoDramaMama12]

Hi all.

Due to increasing cost of living and also DD2 starting nursery next year, DH and I have been exploring different car options.

We have two cars:
Car A - 2009 diesel estate. Drinks fuel like a breastfed baby that's slept through the night.
Car B - 2015 petrol hatchback. Beautiful car. Diamond cut alloys with an engine remap, I just love it.

DH drives Car A to work, but the cost of filling it up is about £300 per month. I use it on the days I'm not working as it fits all the kids' stuff. Used for motorway journeys BUT can't use it for driving to London or other clean air zones.

I drive Car B for work and city. Cost to fill up every month is about £100.

Option A - sell Car A and purchase another family car with the money from the sale which is more economical. It won't be a nice car, just practical. Keep Car B for myself and inner city driving.

Option B - sell both cars (probably get about £20-22k in total). Purchase a decent ish family car and a proper banger for inner city driving. I'll miss Car B though ☹️. We don't want to add extra money to the purchase of any new cars as we are saving for holiday and house reno.

WWYD? Or is there an option C you can suggest?

Anyone have any good value family car recommendations? DH prefers estate but I'm happy with an SUV, too.

£20-22k for two used cars <faints>

I've just bought a pristine 2011 ULEZ compliant 1.2 petrol estate with full service history for £2k, and that feels like a fairly expensive car to me

So I'd say, sell both, spend less than £10k on replacing both with considerably cheaper used cars, and save the rest for holiday and house renovations!

Really??

The estates I've seen on autotrader are £9k+ even if they're ten years old.

Maybe I need to expand my search options...

How much are you likely to get for Car A only?
It sounds like you're quite happy with Car B so it would be a shame to sell it.

Trade car A in for another practical car, and keep car B.

Option A but it depends what A and B are worth.
Car A definitely needs to go.

Car A was bought for £9k a year ago, so probably get a little less than that.

I don't know what the current car market is like though.

I sold my last car 10 months ago for more than I bought it for! Immaculate condition of course.

Sell both. Get a decent family car (don’t need estate get a crossover SUV type car) and a small cheap runaround. Aim to spend £10k on the family car and £5k on the cheap runaround. Save the rest.

Why does car A (the diesel) use so much fuel ? Even diesels from that day and age are pretty economical.

Didn't Clarkson drive from London to Edinburgh and back on a single tank of fuel in an Audi A8 ?

I can get 600 mpg out of my 2012 Ford diesel without trying to hard.

Anyway, whatever you are going to do do it quick before everyone else gets the same idea and the car market gets flooded with gas guzzlers (coming to you in the New Year).

Edit sorry 600 miles per tank - per gallon, that would be going some.

Do you absolutely need 2 cars? How often are they both in use at the same time?

All I know is that it has a 3 litre engine, speeds up very fast 😂 and DH commutes 1hr30 round trip 5-6 days a week. He only fills up at shell.

That literally means nothing to me cause I'm so useless with cars 😭. I shall have a Google though.

I think I just wanted people to tell me to keep Car B even though it's more sensible to sell it and buy something cheaper.

Would you consider a hybrid or electric car on a lease deal?
The lease may not cost more than what you are paying for car A’s diseal.
My electric car costs £70 per month and I used to spend £100 per week on petrol.

Yessss 100%. Both have to drive to work.

I've explored public transport for myself, but the same journey would take double the time. I also like the flexibility of having access to a car whenever I need it.

I’d keep B as you are happy with it.

That's definitely a good option!

How long do their charges last?

Just a note of caution on electric cars. Obviously charging it is not free and electricity costs have gone up. It's still generally cheaper than petrol, but just something to factor in.

OK fair enough.

I suspect Car A is doing a lot more miles than Car B which is why it costs x times more a month to fill up. But quoting £300 fill up for one and £100 for another is pretty pointless unless you are also quoting the mileage done, because I'd be very suprised if any diesel took £300 in one fill up unless it's some sort of lorry. Maybe quote the official mpg figures instead.

That may not get the result you want from the thread though.

You can use the diesel to drive into London ? It will just cost you £12 or whatever per day. Which if you are only doing a couple of times a year is no issue and might cost a lot less than the depreciation of buying a new car.

Depends on the cost but I’d be inclined to sell A and get a new family car or sell both and buy a cheaper family car. You can get 2 year old dacias with hardly any mileage for £10k around here. And I’d get a cheaper but still nice car for inner city driving

Keep car B.
Get a fuel card - we have one each for DH's work, for diesel, currently we are paying 150.5p/l (It's a Silvey Fuels Texaco one). Nearest Texaco petrol station the full price is 179.9p/l for diesel (there are others cheaper further away, and we can also use the card at all places that take UK fuels cards, there are other card firms that do Shell if that's your nearest garage)
Tell your husband to start driving more economically. One of our diesels is normally used just for towing and has a 3.2l engine, notoriously uneconomic. However on motorway rush hour driving I can easily achieve over 32mpg by just easing off the throttle, pre-planning and driving more economically.
Meanwhile research properly the next car with economy and longevity & the journeys in mind. As others say for the journey he's doing a hybrid might suit.

Why does he only fill up at Shell ? You would save a bit if he filled up at Asda or at least Tesco instead.

I wouldn't say a hybrid is a good option unless it can last most of your daily journeys.

Your husband drives for 1.5 hours a day. Assuming he averages 50 mph then he is doing about 75 miles per day. Which is outside the range of most hybrids.

I think most "large" hybrids manage about 40 miles on a single charge max.

My electric car does about 180 miles per charge.

@GasPanic yes good point. I should have included mileage info in my original post. Car À does 1000 miles a month just for work. A few extra for grocery trips etc. Car B does significantly less! My work is only 3 mile journey.

@Ariela you're right. He does need to drive more economically. Thanks for the tip about the fuel card.

@rookiemere he says the fuel is cleaner. I don't know how true that is.

Thanks for all the tips everyone! Lots of things to think through and research to be done!