Repair old car or pay the higher secondhand price

[Shipsteerer]

I’m not sure what to do with my car situation.
I have a 2008 Golf, 118k miles on the clock, diesel. It’s an old car, bodywork is a bit tatty, the flywheel is starting to go which means £1k or do to sort the clutch. It does still work fine for now though and has been incredibly reliable. Apart from the clutch issue, there’s nothing wrong with it. MOT until November.

I’ve been looking at spending about £10k on a newer 2nd hand golf but because of the inflated prices, £10k doesn’t seem to go far right now.

Am I better off patching up my old car and holding onto it? Or is this a false economy?
I’m unlikely to be able to add much more to the £10k though, even if I wait for a year. So in effect, the £10k will only depreciate won’t it?

Really not sure what to do.

Patch up the old for sure. In a couple of years you'll probably that for 10k!

Have you tried to see what your car would fetch via eg webuyanycar?

I had to get rid of my faithful car recently - too expensive to repair, had done 180k miles, no MOT (well, had 3 days left and was about to fail). I got £4k from webuyanycar. Couldn’t believe it. Much better option for me than spending the £2k it would have taken to get it through the MOT, as added the funds to what I had saved for my next car (still not actually bought, but that’s another story!)

You might get more than you think from selling it, and then you have more to spend on the next one?

Webuyanycar has been spectacularly shit in my experience. Recently bought a 2nd hand car for £900 with 40k on the clock. Insurance company and auto trader valued it at £1900 and webuyanycar valued at £150. (I was just being nosy about the valuation to see if I'd got the bargain I thought it was!)

If it's been reliable and only needs a clutch, I think I'd keep it. With another used car you have no idea of its reliability.

I've recently gone through this and went for a few years used car , but in hindsight I think I should have repaired the old one when you look at the amount I've spent

That’s a shame, OldTinHat. I was honestly astonished at what they offered for my car - high mileage, had a cracked radiator, a transmission issue, and a steering issue, as well as the usual stuff of needing new tyresx4, brakes needed looking at/new pads etc. my online quote was £4230, and then, after taking it to them in person, and actually looking it over, they gave me £4010 (money off for chips in windscreen, a couple of scratches, and a cracked wing mirror casing).

Thanks everyone. I’m probably inclined to keep it as at least I know the car’s history. But if I have to pay out for the clutch and an expensive MOT, I’m suddenly putting cash into a car that is only worth about £1k on a good day. There doesn’t seem to be one obvious answer!
The prices for second hand cars are so high

2nd hand car prices are silly money at the moment. Although DH would like a new (to him) car, I didn't get round to selling an 08 passat (sounds similar to your golf) before lockdown and he's been driving that instead. It's worth about 1k (at most, very tatty looking) but it costs £30/year to tax and £250 to insure and does 60mpg. Had to pay £600 last year to sort out some mechanical issues which was hard to stomach.
But, DH reasons if he had got a newer car he'd have been paying 200+ a month on finance, higher tax, higher insurance and more fuel so keeping the old one has still saved us a fortune.
Do you have a nest egg already saved to replace it or would you need to borrow? If not, why not begin saving a monthly payment equivalent and wait until conditions to buy improve. Once silicon chips start coming back in supply to the car manufacturers they will be desperate to sell new cars and the market will start to move again

Good points ducktape. I’m trying to console myself /justify not buying one pre-Covid as I’d have got more car for the money but I suppose the costs might have been higher - insurance and do on.

I’ve got money saved up but will need to dip into this to get my car patched up. That’s probably what I’m questioning- it’s hard for me to save up as most of my salary is accounted for. So, if I spend £1.5k or so on a new clutch and say, bodywork, it’ll be hard to build up that cash again.

Rock, hard place….!