How did you buy your car?

[lewiscapaldi]

We're a family of three, almost 1yo baby. Driving one 2010 Focus which is increasingly unreliable.

Today the car battery packed in and I started thinking about other options. It's so cramped in there with the toddler car seat and it has no parking sensors, Bluetooth or anything like that.

My question is, how did you/do you fund your car purchase, what is it, and are you happy with it?

Husband is reluctant to consider financing anything and thinks we should continue running this into the ground. And he may well be right, but it's mainly my baby I'm thinking of now. I don't want anything fancy or new - at all - but would love something with parking sensors and potentially would be open to hybrid/or even electric.

It's just such a BIG purchase! Interested to hear about what your setup is!

We've gone for PCP for the first time after being terrified of it previously! Just over £200 per month, and we don't intend on paying the balloon payment to keep it at the end of the term.

In the past we've had older cars paid for in cash, or part cash part credit card. I just couldn't cope with the stress anymore- things going wrong, costing money, being without a car while it's in the garage, worrying about whether it'll pass the MOT. I'd panic at every little noise it made!

Run cars till they die then buy another cash never finance. Parking sensors are for vans and lorries, no car driver should need one IMO.

I won't run a car into the ground, I carry my children around in it and need it to be reliable and less likely to break down in a dangerous spot with my kids in.

Generally once I realise repairs are starting to need to be done each MOT/service at that point I get another car, so usually when they're around 10yo.

Our last 2 cars we got really good dealership loans on HCP and one car we got a bank loan.

I would say, avoid PCP at all costs!!

They might not need parking sensors, but surely its a good thing that just gives that extra protection for the occupant and other road users and just protect more against driver error.

That is a good thing, no? Anything that improves safety and the chances of reducing an accident or even a parking bump is good.

You're just being snippy.

We replace our cars every ten to eleven years. Buy new with cash, but from online dealers not main showrooms. Saves a lot of money

I brought my car outright got a Renault Captur. Had been saving for years.

If you can't drive a car safely without sensors you shouldn't be driving. It's quite as simple as that. Relying on things like sensors reduces the ability to be a competent driver.

We have two cars. Car A is small and cheap, I bought it new outright eight years ago when I was single, childless, and working 50 hours a week! It's not got bells and whistles because it was new and I wasn't paying an extra grand for satnav etc. We'll keep running it till it costs more to fix than it's worth. In retrospect, it's been a good car but I wouldn't buy new again, the premium you pay isn't worth it.

Car B is a big estate bought second hand last year, also outright, about nine years old. It does have satnav, parking sensors, Bluetooth, etc, because that's what it came with. So if you want those bits, it's not necessarily having a new car that would get you them.

I'm happy with both cars and personally would find a finance agreement very stressful.

I lease my car. This js my first lease. Got a good deal including servicing and tyres.

Work out an annual budget and start from there.

My audi A3 is 2 years old now and I pay £199 per month, plus the deposit. These kind of deals are hard to find now though. I will lease my next car also.

Previous cars have been pcp, HP and cash. This one has been the better value as it the price as the previous ones for a much better car.

I paid the pcp off and old it privately for profit.

Now you're just being ridiculous.

get AA or RAC if you are concerned.
buy a new battery.

My last one I put down about 30% deposit rest a personal loan.

Possible looking at buying a new one - car garage loan is 12.9%. ClearScore tells me I can get a 4.9% personal loan so if I do will go that route.

However at the moment I cannot bring myself to do it, the value on my insurance renewal for my current car is only about £500 less than I paid 6/7 years ago! So not sure if I can bring myself to spend knowing prices may come down....or will they?

car sensors are unnecessary imo

We’d a Seat Alhambra’s which started to be inreliable and very expensive to repair. I had to make three separate weekly trips to the garage in the 2 months (costing 2k) and hire a replacement so decided to change it as I live in the country and need a car

i decided to go for a plug in hybrid seven seater as I’ve Solar panels and I need seats for kids activities. I paid cash

I don't really understand how two adults and a toddler are cramped in a Focus. What else have you got in there??!

To answer your question, I look online for a suitable replacement (usually about six years old with reasonable mileage and full service history) and go for a test drive. When I've picked one I may get a professional to examine it as I know nothing about cars (the AA and RAC do this). I pay using savings (or historically a personal loan that I overpay). If my old car is still going, I part-exchange it but have also sold it separately including once putting it in a car auction.

We buy outright new or nearly new ( the last 2 have been new) and keep them until they go to scrap . We start saving for the next one as soon as we buy and because I like basic cars ( air con / electric windows is my requirement) I’m only spending about 20k . We currently have a 2011 Kia that’s very reliable , done 150k miles , just passed an MOT with no issues and a 72 MG that has a huge boot .

Me too. My Cooper S is 2004 with 120k miles and still going strong. I'm fortunate in that my husband is an engineer and happy to get his head under the bonnet. But he is well rewarded 😄

The rear facing toddler seat means that the passenger seat has to be so far forward that no one with any legs can sit comfortably in the front passenger seat. And my partner drives with the seat so far back that the rear passenger seat is ridiculously cramped also. We are a reasonably tall family. I have to sit in the back when he's driving because there's no room in the front!

I bought my car almost outright (but not quite!). I traded it in while it still had some value and then used savings plus put £1500 on a 0% credit card to pay the rest - a total of 10k and the £1500 was paid off within 9 months.

I think it's fine to run it into the ground but obviously you need a plan on what you're going to do if it does suddenly conk out for good. Would you have enough funds to immediately buy another run-around?

What other people have done isn't necessarily right for you.

Whether it's time to replace your car, what type you get and how much money you spend (and whether you get finance or buy outright) depends on loads of factors.

How many miles has your car done and how many miles do you do? Is unreliability just an annoyance - you'll have to wait for breakdown to get back from the shops, or likely to make commuting difficult/time consuming/risk your job?

Would a new battery (around £100) solve the issue or would it need a big spend to get through the next MOT?

If you want Bluetooth, you can get an adaptor that plugs into the 12V socket for about £20.

Unless you do a reasonably high mileage and have somewhere to charge at a good rate, an electric car is likely to be far more expensive.

Do you have money you could use to buy outright? If you borrowed money, or signed up to finance/PCP etc, could you do this economically and could you afford to pay it back, or are you in a position where you struggle on your income each month already?

To answer your question, I bought a 2 YO small petrol car from a car supermarket with cash and intend to run it for at least 10-15 years. Then when its old and worthless I hope that the infrastructure for electric cars will have improved and there will be a good scrappage deal to make it a reasonably cost effective option for lower mileage drivers (my current car cost £8k, the same car in electric, only a few months newer, would have been more than double that, I would have been lucky to recoup the extra cost in a decade of ownership).

Surely this is only advisable if you don't have long left on your mortgage? Poor advice to put a car onto a mortgage term of say 15 or 20 years regardless of the low rate.

It's risky but you can also overpay, so if you add an extra £10k to your mortgage, then overpay that £10k over the next 2/3 years (plus any amount that you otherwise would have done) then you're in the same position as if you'd taken out a 2/3 year loan, but possibly at a lower interest rate with more flexibility as you don't have to make the extra loan payment every month.

Obviously it requires discipline, but other than that, it could be a solution that isn't necessarily a bad one.

We bought a 1999 Toyota in 2007 and drove it until last year. Then we bought a 2006 Toyota 7 seater for €2,200 which we love. Hopefully we’ll have it for many years.

Personally, I have bought pretty old cars outright for not a lot of money, and run them to the ground each time. When I say run to the ground, I just mean to the point where a repair outstrips value of car. But they've never been unreliable and I've never really had to get a repair outside of annual servicing/ MOT.

I live down country lanes and cars get scratched pretty easily when you need move over/ overgrown hedges etc, (and I don't have the greatest record at ... not bumping into pavements when parallel parking and scratching the wheel hubs etc) so I really can't justify a newer car that I'll just unavoidably devalue.

For me, I don't care about street-cred and don't need it to look smart for work etc. My current car cost £3k, is a BMW 3 series from 2009 bought last year. It has a lot of miles but so far so good. I hope to get 5 years on it, which would come out at £600 a year, and am also plugging £1k away a year to fund the next car.

All I mean by all of this is - just find the right level for you and don't worry about 'what the neighbours have'. It's important you just work out what's right for your family and what you'd most like to spend your money on, whether it's a car or a holiday or building up some savings, or whatever you need.

We bought a second hand 2021 hybrid with low miles, we decided better to spend more on a decent car than keep shelling out for repairs. We paid half cash and took a bank loan the other half, it’s £200 a month. The interest on bank loan was half what the garage financing offered. We’re happy to borrow as it’s investing in an asset which we could sell and repay loan if necessary. I’d never do the leasing, seems a false economy a