Historically I bought well looked after older cars usually under £3k that I knew I’d be able to easily sell on again then I’d flog them after a year or so with minimal loss, sometimes a profit.

Same here, although I tend to hold on to them for 3-5 years.

I'm not sure what I'll do next as nearly new cars seem to be plagued with more serious, more expensive problems that can't easily be fixed at home with a Haynes manual.

Apart from my first car which died due to rust after 18 months of ownership (it was 20 years old by then) and a couple of lemons I got rid of quickly, I buy new/nearly new and run until 50-60,000 miles.

This used to take 2-3 years, it now takes 5-6 as my annual mileage has reduced.

Once I had progressed from the land of total rubbish I tried to buy cars about 3 years old and with the intention of keeping them 2 years. Always endeavoured to find one owner local cars and in those days dealers were happy to pass on the previous ovmers details (no data protection). Never had a major breakdown but evn the care taken beuying did not prevent them from being a bit costly once they passed 4 years old.

So I took the decision to buy new and keep 4 years and my motoring costs stayed about the same but I had a newer car.

When my business mileage resulted in me doing probably 25,000 miles a year I took the decision to keep the car longer because at 4 years old with close on 100,000 miles they were pretty worthless. Take a Golf as an example, at 4 years old I was offered £2800, kept it another 3 years and spent probably £500 on a clutch, battery and exhaust, with close on 150,000 miles I still got £2800.

Eventually me and the Mrs decided 5 years was the limit and bought a new Golf, kept it 7 years and only had to replace a back box, so much for 5 years.

After the Golf we did stick to 5 years altough dads Micra that we inherited and ran for about a year was almost 8 when we sold it. In those 8 years it had a broken spring.

But now with us both retired with good pensions (and the government pension still to come) we have decided to swap both cars every 3 years. Cannot take it with you.

I would rarely consider changing a car that was under 5 years old unless I wasn't that happy with it and the alternative was significantly better and reasonably priced. I've never had enough money not to care about the prurchase and ownership costs.

MOST sensible reply of the day!

Edited by oldroverboy. on 01/09/2018 at 19:35

ps dunno why people don't get older cars, and bring them to retired mechanics etc to fix
...everyone's a winner....

One good reason is that newer models are much safer. A five star NCAP rating ten years ago is nowhere near five stars today, I heard three stars mentioned by someone. Another reason is that old cars don’t have nice toys such as CarPlay and a built in DAB radio, or hands free phone support with a smart phone.

In my youth I used to buy and run older cars but higher mileages meant service/repair costs started eclipsing the purchase costs - and I got fed up with running bangers.

I now buy bargain new/nearly new usually aiming for end of a model deals and keeping for about a decade doing 15,000 miles / year and then throwing away (OK I've still got/ passed onto my son an Octavia we bought new in 2001). I effectively ignore depreciation on the basis that doing high-ish mileage renders any car worthless anyway. Over the last 25 years I've kept my effective save up/capital about £100 month (I generally pay cash, usually around or less than £10k)

End of model cars are usually the most "sorted" version of any car anyway .

However my strategy may change when I retire in a few years. Once I know where I am with pensions etc and my mileage drops PCH may be a consideration?

It depends on the make though - when Nissan decided to bring their neawly developed K12 Micra to the market in the early 2000s, the run-out K11 was downgraded in many areas to be sold on the cheap - such as poor quality bumpers (paint flaking off the cheap plastic) and similarly reducing the quality of the interior plastics and just selling base spec cars, compared to the non-run out cars sold up to about 1999/2000. My 1996 model looked in far better condition visually when I PXed it in Jan 2006 than many run-out models did that were 5 years younger.

Admitedly this is probably more the exception than the rule, as most just reduce the number of sub-models in the range before going to the new one, often offering quite a few 'special editions' with decent optional extras, mainly for the lower/mid range sub-models.

I generally prefer to buy when a model has been on the market for about 3 of its 5 year lifecycle - by then, most, if not all major flaws (if it had any) would've come to light and hopefully been sorted out, or at least I would know about them before deciding whether to buy.

One of the problems I'm now facing with a 12yo car is that the main dealers are starting to say that certain parts won't be available any more (e.g. springs and dampers) from Mazda, although I thought it was 10 years after that model was no longer made, which in my car's case, was early 2009. I may use aftermarket parts for a while if they are good quality and the dealership is willing to fit (not sure about the warranty though) them.

. Consider for replacement when car approaches increasing costs after 6-7 years and 100k+ as replacement and failures start to loom. Not nececessarily major items but the aggravating suspension steering bushes, pumps and motors (a/c units, wipers, windows, seat motors), clutches etc etc.

Indeed my(er now my sons!) 17 year old Octavia had been nearly bullet proof for 16 years (just service items/brakes an exhaust, battery and a couple of bushes and a CV boot) . Has suddenly become a little needy as of late:-

Clutch

Rear drum back plate rusted through where the whole back plate assembly needed replacing including wheel cylinders, back plates, shoes, drums, springs, levers, fitting kit. This nearly wrote the car off but found a site that did fully assembled back plates for 67 Euros! (Skoda wanted over £200 just for the back plate, not with any bits - each!)

New Radiator

New Top engine/gearbox mount

Rear spring went boing (just repaired Friday!)

And now a coil pack as the car dropped onto two cylinders - fortunately not far from base. It's a wasted spark twin coil now with a big hole in the side!

Maybee should have got rid when the clutch gave up (was only cheap though) , nothing very expensive but have had quite a few in a row. My son is running it now - well he will be when a new coil pack arrives. I suppose I've a bit of a soft spot for it as I've owned from new, body is really good as well.

If the coil pack demise has nuked the CPU then it's game over anyway!

Edited by Big John on 02/09/2018 at 22:08

With my previous car, I started to look for replacements when it no longer seemed new. That was when it was about six years old and with 80k miles. Looking didn't take that long though, once I'd been told the max I'd get for part ex was about £2k, I realised I may as well keep it until something goes wrong.

Three years and about 40000 miles later I did get rid of it, and still got £1.5k for part ex. The car was up for sale on Autotrader a couple of weeks later at a small dealer for £3k. It never needed any major work in that extra three years. What made me get rid of it was a niggly problem where it didn't run right for about 2 minutes after a cold start, and I got few up of sitting on the driveway waiting for it to stop stuttering in a morning. It clearly wasn't a major fault though as the subsequent owners put another 60k miles on it before it dropped off the MOT history (so presumably scrapped) when it was 15 years old.

My current car no longer feels as good as it was when new, now it's nearly 7 years old and 90k miles. I'm not going to even bother going near a dealer this time as it will be worth next to nothing part ex again. I may as well wait until it goes wrong, which could happen any time from next week to about 5 years time, and depending on how it goes wrong I'll either get £1k for it if it still works or £100 at a scrap yard. Either way, I'm now in the cheap phase as far as depreciation is concerned.