I too have noticed that cars at the bottom end of the market seem to be quite expensive. Rubbish on eBay is making good money. This is pushing up the prices of what would be a sensible bangernomic motor. Quality however isn't making any money at all so the price for a good car is not that much more than the price for something well past its best.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/item.htm?id=5604
So the rules have changed. Shoudl the canny buyer be looking at a massively depreciated 3-5 year old car rather than a completely depreciated 8-10 year old, with a view to hoping it lasts him several years?
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I have noticed you can buy a fsh, taxed,MOT, carefully maintained 12 years old Lexus LS400 with under 150k miles for under £1250...
If you can afford the 23mpg, looks like a real bargain. Of course it has to be DIY or local independent but parts are available and not often required and the users club is strong.
They are good for 250k miles + and at that money you don't change the cambelt (£400plus0, you just run and service them until the cambelt breaks .
Much cheaper and better than Mercs or Jags..
I am very tempted.
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>>and at that money you don't change the cambelt (£400plus0, you just run and
>>service them until the cambelt breaks .
But at the expense of reliability. Not sure I'd want to go on holiday abroad like that. Better to look for the fsh with the cambelt change!
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It depends on how you define bangernomics! I've just worked out that my car's cost me about £1,200 a year for the last 5 years. That's EVERYTHING too: depreciation, fuel, insurance and tax. I think that's incredible value for the freedom it gives me.
But motoring is available a lot cheaper than that. If you know what you're looking for, can spot a lemon, and know the market really well (i.e. not me) then you can afford to pay less; you'll probably make a better decision in the first place.
If you're an average joe like me, who's a bit neurotic about reliability and potential servicing costs, I think it probably pays to go with the 3-5 year old cars IMO.
Amazing auction prices though. How about that Touareg for £7900? So near...yet so far!
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Of course we all have differing needs and opinions. These are quite rightly coloured by our individual circumstances. I have long held the view due to my excessive mileage that want a car that is more than likely to be reliable for an extended period without costing the earth. So it is exactly this category you mention which I prefer to buy. Three to five years old preferably one owner with fewer than 50k miles and a good service history.
Whether by accident or design by sticking to this approximate formula I have had very few problems in running several cars to well in excess of 100k miles while not paying very much for them and therefore not taking too much of a hit on depreciation if you look at it as a cost per mile.
Edited by Humph Backbridge on 12/01/2009 at 19:55
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I worked out last year that my now 10yr Octavia cost me 21p per mile to run over thalast 90000miles(5yrs).
This was including everything including writing off totally the purchase price of £4700. So because I do about 22000miles for business every year at 43ppm dropping to 28ppm after 10k it's basically given me free private motoring.
Edited by loskie on 12/01/2009 at 19:55
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The problem with bangernomics is that you need to compare like with like. FD says it has cost him £1,200pa for five years in total. Clearly he is doing a very modest mileage and has particularly low insurance.
Unless I drive something very very inexpensive to repair, my basic insurance cost is £800 mainly becuase of where I live. I only do 9,000 miles each year, so my fuel cost is about £2,000 but would be less than £1,000 if I had a car that did an average of 50mpg.
My car must start every time, every day. I cannot afford for it not too. Hence I drive a newer car.
Compare that with my recently appointed in house accountant, who was doing over 30,000 miles each year in a CorsaVan LPG, but will now be doing less than 5,000 miles each year (with a maximum of 2,000 miles commuting). He could go for bangernomics, because the office is so close, he could (and has) walked or cycled. Given the chance he too would buy a four year old larger car, as the extra cost of the fuel would be minimal, if he could buy a nice car cheap enough.
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>>Clearly he is doing a very modest mileage and has particularly low insurance.
Yes, very low insurance even though it's on-street. I live where I do because of my proximity to work and social stuff so only tend to use the car for work.
But it's true. It's a very individual thing bangernomics. Theoretically this thread could last many years and in fact, never end.
An 'in-house accountant' espada? Maybe bangernomics is a sort of hobby?
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Depends what bangernomics means to you, I suppose. To me it means running a much better car much more cheaply than seems plausible. I guess in the current market, spending quite a bit more than the "traditional" £1,000 seems more sensible than it would ever have done previously.
Madf's eBay seller is trying to get out of his obligations as a trade seller... and to be honest, £495 for a car with 4.5 months tax (and another couple of weeks' MOT) is quite a lot of money...
Espada>> My car must start every time, every day. I cannot afford for it not too. Hence I drive a newer car.
A non-sequitur, as you know Espada... in this climate, how "new" is "newer"?
Edited by Mapmaker on 13/01/2009 at 16:26
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As I've said before, I have a friend who buys £400-£500 diesels and runs them into the ground. The only maintenance they get is barebones essentials to keep them roadworthy and MOT-able until they die or they're not worth spending the money on any more. He got about 2 yrs out of his last £500 Astra (mk3 1.7D), at about 50 mpg, and apart from Tax and MOT, spent £57 on it (new battery). He sold it on Ebay for £100.
I haven't ever known anyone do motoring cheaper.
If that Lexus passes its MOT without too much expense it could be an absolute bargain. If it doesn't though, it could be a complete waste of £500. For the cost and hassle of an MOT test weighed against the appeal that a fresh ticket would have for a potential buyer, you have to wonder why they haven't bothered.
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