New family car

[Aug12]

Hi everyone,

We currently own an old car, bought outright. It is a bit poorly atm and the estimated repairs are in the region of £350/400. We could spend this and have the car back but I’m wondering if it’s worth it as the car only cost £2000 and we’ve owned it for a few year so in my mind, it’s more than the car is worth. The alternative though, would be taking out some kind of car finance. I’ve never done this before as I don’t like the idea of debt (besides the unavoidable mortgage) and with the cost of everything increasing, I’m not sure if it’s a wise thing to do. If we were to get a financed car, we would be looking at an approved used, it would need to be a 7seater with towing capability.. I’ve been looking at ford tourneo for around £10000.. we have an income of around £70000, however, we have 3 young children that we bring up on this so whilst we aren’t on the breadline, we do have to think carefully about our spending. Would you repair and keep the old car until it dies completely or call it quits for something newer and hopefully more reliable? Thanks

My decision would be based on a couple of other things like age and mileage of the car.
£400 on a 6 year old car with 50k on the clock yes £400 on a 15 year old car with 140k on the clock probably not as at that age and mileage other £400 jobs are soon likely to crop up.

So it’s a 15yr old car with 112000 on the clock

I had this dilemma recently. My 11yr old car needed a new clutch, brake discs and pads etc. It worked out to be about £600 in total. It has low mileage and is a second car which doesn’t travel far. I looked at buying a used car and was looking at at least £6000. I reckon I can get a few more years out of this car so I paid for the repairs. Happy days. But, if this car would have been the main family car and used a lot for driving far and wide, I think I’d have traded it in.

If you do end up getting a new car, I’d recommend getting a loan from your bank and not taking the finance deals offered by the garage.

For a £400 bill I would definitely just pay it, a new (old) car is £££ these days. At least you know the faults on your current car. I would be putting aside each month the amount you would have spent on car payments so you build up a replacement car fund. I own my car outright and set aside £200 for its replacement when the time comes, my fund is at £10,400 so far. So much better than financing

If this is the first bill for a while (other than your run of the mill maintenance tyres, brake pads services etc) and it's been an otherwise reliable car I'd probably swallow the bill on this occasion but start putting the monthly car finance money away and then the next big bill I'd probably look to trade in.

What sort of monthly payments would you be looking at?

I agree with this. If you don't expect to have to replace other expensive items in the next few months, it's probably worth doing the repairs - in the great scheme of things, a £400 repair bill isn't that much and is likely to be similar to a couple of months worth of finance on a newer car, which if you're looking at a £10k Ford Tourneo, that's going to be 5-10 years old and could need at least that amount spending on it anyway, it's quite common for problems to arise shortly after buying a second hand car because people sell them because they expect them to cost them money soon.

So if you repair your current car and it lasts another 3 months, you're no worse off than you would be if you changed your car and the new one didn't need any repairs. These days a 15 year old car with that mileage isn't that old - you see plenty of 20 year old cars in decent nick on the road, so it could have a good few years of fairly trouble free life left in it.

However, another consideration would be the impact of not having a car if your old car starts to break down more. Is it going to be inconvenient to get to work, lose you money due to lost self employment work etc, or can you happily manage by WFH, more deliveries, walking/cycling, public transport or taxis while it is repaired?

But the other thing that you should be thinking about within your budgeting is saving for the next car, so you don't have to take out finance. Then your 'car money' earns you interest instead of costing it.

Good morning all, thanks for the words of wisdom. I think paying this bill and getting a car fund going is definitely the way forward.

The car needed a radiator and intercooler replacement just a few months ago and that was a hefty chunk of cash and now this, just made me think this is the beginning of problems and bills with this one but your right, I might pay this bill and manage to squeeze even an extra 6month out of it and that would give a good window to get those savings together for another one. :)

Pay for repairs and save hard. It could be 6 months or 2 years.

Have you had it serviced every year? This makes a difference.

Where did you manage to get all that work done for £600? !

I need the number of your mechanic.

I just got quoted £625 for discs and pads at a Halfords . .

It was £350 for the clutch and £250 for the brake discs and pads. I’m in the west mids and did shop around for a good deal. It was a local independent garage. Plus it’s only a Citroen c1.