How can anyone afford a car?

[PoisedGoldBiscuit]

So we've leased cars for the last 14 years or so. Have paid a non-refundable deposit of between £500 (for a regular hatchback) to around £900 for a SUV. I pay just under £300 p/m now for a Qashqai that includes maintenance (so services, MOTs, most repairs not covered by the warranty or caused by accidental damage). I also don't need to pay car tax.

I'm conscious of the fact that this is a debt that I'll essentially never pay off as I'm not gaining any equity in the car and just hand it back. I've looked at other options and they seem so far out of reach.

• buying cars second hand, friends who have done this seem to regularly spend £££ on maintenance issues, even for cars that are only a few years old.
• buying cars new but with a warranty, the monthly payments are huge and the car seems to drop so much in value that it's not worth the payments.

-taking out a PCP/ other scheme where you can hand the car back or pay a balloon payment, again, these seem to have huge monthly payments. Dealerships have never been able to get anywhere near the lease payments (and then have a huge balloon payment).

Am I missing something?

It's area dependant. When I drive around my home town (deprived seaside resort), there are a lot of "older" cars around, lots of anywhere between 03 and 13 plates.

When I go over to the city where our son lives (a prosperous tourist city with several big employers, two universities, teaching hospital, etc), it's clear to see that most cars are much younger and it's really rare to see cars that are 20 years old (not that many even 10 years old).

So, you can see which areas have better employment prospects and which are run down by the cars on the road.

See I’m in the NW, not in a wealthy area at all and I barely see any old cars. It’s weird!

When I visit where my family are in Scotland there's masses of new cars. Cheaper houses and other costs than in the SE.

My car will be ten years old next year. No plans to replace it yet, as long as it continues to be reliable. I bought it outright at two and a half in 2019, 5k miles on the clock, ex-Motability. I've put about 40k miles on it so far.

The last 10 older cars have all cost between £250 & 2k to buy out right

Drive, do some repairs if economically viable or scrap

Current car
New clutch
Couple of tyres
138k miles on clock & still going OK

Cars all 15 to 20 years old
Cheap insurance

Also have AA or RAC break down

No monthly costs here !

You have to know what you're buying. A Qashqai isn't the most reliable SUV so if it wasn't on tick it could cost you a lot to maintain. For around 3k you could buy a solid, decent Japanese make car (Nissan, Honda, Toyota) with low mileage that would last forever. They're easy to fix, cheaper parts etc. It's about being savvy, and I'd say 90% of SUV owners don't need an SUV, it's just that everyone else has one on insta so they 'need' one.

Same here. Given how cheap they are to buy, it isn't a huge issue if it isn't viable to repair and you have to scrap it and start over.

The tricky bit is just the decision every time you are faced with a biggish repair bill: is it worth that investment, or is it time to scrap and move on? But either way, it isn't likely to cost near as much as you are paying, OP.

Have you actually discussed exactly how much your friends are shelling out, or do you just have the vague idea that they feel it's expensive? Because I would absolutely moan if I ended up paying out a total of more than £2k in a year toward my secondhand car, and you might get the impression that I'm losing out, but it's still much less than what you're paying. Or maybe your friends are buying secondhand cars which are too new?

I don't care about cars at all as long as it works! I am driving a Fiat Punto 2004 plate that I have had for 14 years. Has barely cost me a penny other than MOT and general maintanance (mainly done by husband). It also never lets me down so I will keep driving it til it dies - still under 90k on the clock though!

Thankfully, I’ve never felt the need to keep up with the Jones’ so have always kept a car until it starts costing me money in major repairs then traded in for a newer to me but still about 6-8 years old or as my budget will allow. I’m hoping I never have to buy one on finance, if I did, it would be the absolute minimum or as others have said I would take out a loan. As long as my car looks half decent, gets me from A to B and is efficient to run I am happy. I have got far better/more important things in life to spend my money on.

I pay about £7000 for a car that's about 3 years old. I always buy from a dealer so I have a warranty for a year or two in case there is something massively wrong with the car.

I pay about £600 a year maintenance and keep the car for about 6 years when I trade it in for about £1000 with the dealer I buy my next car from. So each car works out at £1000 a year to buy and £600 a year to maintain so £1600 a year instead of your £3600 with your £300 a month payments.

Your cars are undoubtedly nicer and bigger and newer than mine are but I don't like worrying about getting wee dents in the body work like I would if I was leasing the car. I also haven't bought a car in a while and suspect the days of getting a good one with low mileage for £7000 are over.

You don't seem to understand that it's not about keeping up with the Jones! That sounds a bit of the green eyed monster. People buy what they want, what they can afford and what they want. I like my luxury SUV and I can afford it. It's for my pleasure and nothing to do with the Jones 😂

also haven't bought a car in a while and suspect the days of getting a good one with low mileage for £7000 are over.

Long gone I'm afraid. The second hand car market has completely changed since Brex/Cov. Not just in terms of cost but also in terms of the practicalities of buying cars - there are so many middle layers, warranty disclaimers and other opacities - it's a minefield trying to navigate them. A lot of the mid sized local bricks and mortar dealers have gone bust. I think that's behind a lot of the leasing market - you just don't know what you're getting/who you're buying from/what comeback you have any more as a buyer and the initial cost is much higher than it used to be.

Exactly, so I buy what I can afford without getting into debt over it. 😂

Yes but you had a nasty little dig at people with new cars suggesting that they were buying to keep up with the Joneses - there's no need for personal attacks.

That's what I've always done.

My last one was a dream: 2001 Audi bought for £1250 in 2014. It never cost more than than about £300 a year in bills until 2024, when I had a £500 bill. Then a few months later it started to use a lot of oil and was clearly going to cost a lot, so I bit the bullet and bought something newer.

I sold the Audi to a dealer for £400!

I have a 10 tear old fiesta. Wet belt needed to be replaced and catalytic convertor too. Add to this service, MOT and tyre sensors- I have spent nearly 2,600 pound this year🙄

@octopustheslapper yes, it was such a “nasty little dig” 😂

We buy cars at approx 10 yrs old with as low mileage we can. At the mo got a 03 plate rover 75 estate and a 2010 plate Audi A6 allroad. The A6 was £7500 in 2021 and is still going strong at I think around £110k miles. The rover is falling apart and now on eBay 😂 We're now looking at ~15 plate Skoda superbs or another A6 with a budget of around £8k.

That's ok. You've shown your bitterness. 🤷‍♀️

I usually have a scout on autotrader now and then, I did again yesterday, I upped my max purchase price from 5k to 7k interestingly, and then saw this post!

There are tons of cars with low mileage and what I would consider 'good'. All the things that I would want which is comfort, reliability, sat nav built in, parking sensors, ideally a panoramic roof, particularly needing good boot space and, sounds insignificant, but extremely reliable and ergonomic drinks holders. I want low (ish) tax and good efficiency.

I found tons of them. Even at the slightly lower max purchase price of 5k.

They're old of course, around 10 - 13 years old. Many had low mileage however I am suspicious of low mileage, I like to see that a car has been well used and reliable for the owner.

Today is rightmove day!!!

@octopustheslapper gosh, you certainly like to start an argument, as I can see from other posts on here. I’m sorry my explanation riled you so much and you seem to have taken it so personally. Maybe you ‘doth protest too much.’ To show I’m not bitter, I’ll let you get the last word in though, as you seem to like to do so. 😂

Agree completely.

They're old of course, around 10 - 13 years old.

Exactly. The pp quoted £7k for a three year old car. You will not get a three year old car for £7k now. You will be lucky to get a 10 year old car for that.

As for £5k, forget it. I searched within 75 miles of me for under 100,000 miles, no previous write-offs, ten years old, vehicle tax under £200 with parking assistance and got 15 hits, all either ford ecos (so you'll need to buy a wet belt at £2k) or dealers from a particular area notorious for fencing. Seriously not one car within 75 miles that's legal and roadworthy, for five thousand pounds.

A lot of the people in this discussion talking about how great and cost effective second hand cars are have clearly not bought one in the last three years.

Avoid monthly payments, either by buying an 'old banger' outright every couple of years and replacing it whenever it becomes uneconomical to repair, or saving enough to buy a very basic and small new or nearly new car outright and keeping it till it becomes an old banger.

You can have a car affordably, what you can't have is a 'status' car affordably. If you are happy to be the one in a car park full of shiny SUVs to be manually unlocking a tiny, ancient car with assorted dents in it, you can do it. That's what we have always done. As long as the car gets us and our belongings from A-B in acceptable safety and tolerable comfort I don't care what it looks like or what others think about it.

You and Yours last week had an interesting section on car finance with a good explainer of how we've got into this situation re buying cars.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002g4ld?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile