WWYD? Dp's car is knackered again.....................

[LoveMyGirls]

Dp's car has been off the road since october! since then we have spent in total about £400 trying to fix it and find out what is wrong with it, we have done something with the ECU and the alternater but the car will not start! We have tried to get it in an electrics garage but they won't look at it without it costing a fortune in labour costs the car was only brought for £1000 not that long ago, its a rover 400 btw.

Dp has borrowed works cars, got lifts and now is borrowing our neighbours car which is not a long term solution.

What would you do if you were us? I keep asking him and he doesn't know. We don't have the money to get it fixed, we don't have the money for a new car but he works at least an hour round trip away with no trains running to where he works and we can't afford for him to lose his job/ change job.........

Not sure hun but bumping for you xx

Bump, i know it's b oring by I don't know what we should do for the best whichever way we go we're going to have to get into more debt

Sign up for freecycle. I occasionally see old cars being offered on my local lists. Long shot but still.

We had a Rover 416 until recently. We got rid because it had so many problems and, whenever we needed to use it urgently, it wouldn't start. I was going to offer it on freecycle but the dealers from whom we bought its replacement offered us £100 part exchange and collected it off the drive for us (useful as it wouldn't start!).

Once cars start costing you money, they tend to keep on costing you money. You could get it fixed and find that the next week it needs something else equally expensive fixing.

I second what freckle said, I've seen cars on our local freecycle before and you can get really cheap ones at those auction places (but only if you either know what you're talking about or can take someone with you who knows what they are talking about)

We were in the exact same position - we live ten miles from the nearest bus stop or train station, so a car is absolutely essential for getting dp to work 30 miles away. In the end, my dad lent us some money to buy a fairly decent car and so far it has been ok.

Good luck

Alternatively would he consider a motorbike?

I'd be really worried about him going and down the M6 on a motorbike would rather he drove a fiesta or something!

I don't know what we're going to do he doesn't want to accept it's knackered keeps sayign its probably only something cheap now except it's now got a flat tyre too i noticed today so the costs are creaping up again, i htink he feel's he's spent so much he has to see it through......

I wondered about one of those places that hire cars on long term basis at least we would know and could budget for the monthly cost istead of being screwed every month! Seriously don't think we've had a full month go by the past 12mths when one of our cars hasn't needed serious money spent!

Have you considered leasing? DH had a basic brand new Vauxhall Corsa from jamjar.com (tried to do a link but it didn't work for some reason. If you put jamjar.com into Google, it'll come back with one that seems to work!) 3 years ago, for £99 a month including tax. They've got a Fiat Panda for £133 a month at the moment for 3 years, including tax and breakdown cover (they send the tax disc through the post, so no finding the money for that every 6/12 months) based on doing 10,000 miles a year. To keep the warranty valid, you do have to have the car serviced at main dealers though. But at the end of 3 years, you can either hand the car back (DHs was collected 2 weeks ago- he's having my old car!), have another leased car, or (I think) you might be given the option of buying the car off them.

I'll get dp to look into that, thanks very much!