Ok, so I have bought cars for £500 or less but they turned out to be bangers and was so long ago that the £500 would be a lot more in todays money.
In 2016 our local Nissan dealership got hold of some unregistered Nissan Notes and offered them for £9995 plus a £500 fuel voucher. The condition was that they had to register the cars for 1 day. The list price was £16k but of course there were discounts. Still, a true cost of £9,500 was a bit of a steal.
10 years later we still have the car. Apart from normal consumables - fuel, tyres, wipers and servicing etc, the only extra we have had to spend on was one light bulb and one ball joint dust cover.
The car is worth about £3,000 so £650 per year so far isn't too bad.
Cheap motoring in what is quite a driveable small car.
Shame they don't make them any more.
Hope it lasts a while longer - touch wood.
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Not quite that good...
Bought a Kia Venga from a neighbour whosw wife had her licence taken away.
June 2022 £2000
Plus 4 new tyres, new track rod ends and rear shock absorbers all done immediately.
They lived down a very rough lane,,
1 brake light bulb and 1 brake light switch.
3 mot's since and 1 oil change and 1 oil change with a service.
Excluding the maintenence about the same cost. Brilliant second car for SWMBO and great for recycling tip runs.
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Bought a Austin Maxi years ago from a old boy for £20.! He sold it because it ran rough, turned out to be a totally clogged air filter, I ran it around for a couple of years with no trouble, think I part exchanged it for a mk2 granada?
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Honda CRV 2012 - new model announced and cost new over £30K. I bought the old model for £20K. Trade-in 2023 I got £9,000. 11 years @£1,000 per year.
Mind you the new to me CRV was £35K (1800 miles on clock)
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If depreciation is the major ingredient, the way to avoid it is (obviously) to let someone else pay it by buying a good used vehicle. Over the last 25 years I have owned several Pug 205s for a few years each, spending on them mostly to fettle them to my satisfaction, not because of running failures. In almost every case I have sold for more than I paid, once or twice about double. :-)
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>> If depreciation is the major ingredient, the way to avoid it is (obviously) to let
>> someone else pay it by buying a good used vehicle. Over the last 25 years
>> I have owned several Pug 205s for a few years each.......
The other way to avoid it is to avoid frequent changes and keep a good old car as long as possible. Since I got married over 45yrs ago and had to give my car to SWMBO, I have owned only four cars, a TR7 DHC and three luxurious big Audis, total cost £27,650. Still got two of them, a 1980 TR and a 2005 Audi A8. This was possible because they have only ever needed to do around 5k miles a year; since retirement merely 2k p.a. People tend not to be aware of the Opportunity Cost of 'investing' many tens of thousands of pounds when they buy cars frequently, 'topping up' the OC every few years so it eventually reaches a huge sum after a few decades. They may also be unaware that a well engineered well maintained car should only be around half way through its distance life at 80,000 miles (both the TR and Audi have yet to see 80k....although both are close).
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To do that successfully you must choose cars whose bodywork will not turn rusty after the first decade. Pug 205s could last for a very long time if not damaged. One of mine had 145K on the clock and had its original engine removed then replaced with another. Bodywork was so rust-free that I gave it a full respray at 28 years old; SiL's brother now has it and takes it to shows, where it is admired. My present car came off the production line 35 years ago and still gets no corrosion reports at each MoT.
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I'm not so sure rust is the problem it used to be is it? Though that's quite some lifetime for any car
Last edited by: smokie on Sun 22 Mar 26 at 19:40
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I'm not the only Bangers man here then. We have an 08 reg Polo as our only car.
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>> I'm not so sure rust is the problem it used to be is it? Though that's quite some lifetime for any car >>
It used to be pretty bad until the 1980s. Peugeot made a big splash about the 7-stage coating process they used for the 205 (I still have the brochure) and time has shown it to be effective. But I suspect the bean-counters decided that corners could be cut, and some makes, not necessarily cheap ones either, still get complaints about certain areas such as wheel arches.
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"It used to be pretty bad until the 1980s"
Yes but that's like 40+ years ago, which may only be yesterday in our minds but some of today's motorists weren't even born until maybe 2008!! :-)
Strange how reputation sticks though, I know the likes of Skoda are at least putting it behind them but they had a (well deserved) reputation for poor build etc back in the last century. I have one now as a rental and it's no worse than other similar size cars. Of course whether it rusts or not I won't ever know LOL
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>>Yes but that's like 40+ years ago
Why the 'like'? It's my pet peeve and I will start talking to someone who uses it by saying:
" like, like, like. I like think, like, you like, don't mean like, like you do, like?
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Like used as an alternative to around or about?
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>> Why the 'like'? It's my pet peeve and I will start talking to someone who
>> uses it by saying:
>> " like, like, like. I like think, like, you like, don't mean like, like you
>> do, like?
>>
Where's the "like" button... ;-)
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>> "It used to be pretty bad until the 1980s"...
>> ....Strange how reputation sticks though, I know the likes of Skoda are at least putting
>> it behind them but they had a (well deserved) reputation for poor build etc back
>> in the last century.
For most of its history (Skoda cars have been around for over 120yrs) the Skoda Works made good cars....apart from a brief 'nationalisation' effect, which included a ludicrous name change from the founding engineer to a revolutionary Marxist for a few years.
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>> To do that successfully you must choose cars whose bodywork will not turn rusty after
>> the first decade.
Indeed so. My TR7 was Ziebarted from new, and has required no 'restoration' apart from a tart-up respray in 1992 costing c.£400, its biggest bill so far. The Audi A8 is all aluminium, even its subframes (20yr old 'aluminium' Jag owners beware, their's rot!)
>> Pug 205s could last for a very long time if not damaged.>>
Pugs had a great reputation for not rusting. 25yrs ago I bought my two sons a brace of old white 309s for a few hundred £s and was amazed by their lack of corrosion. I'm hoping Mrs F's Peugeot 2008 will be similar.
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>>
>> In 2016 our local Nissan dealership got hold of some unregistered Nissan Notes and offered
>> them for £9995 plus a £500 fuel voucher. The condition was that they had to
>> register the cars for 1 day. The list price was £16k but of course there
>> were discounts. Still, a true cost of £9,500 was a bit of a steal.
>>
>> 10 years later we still have the car. Apart from normal consumables - fuel, tyres,
>> wipers and servicing etc, the only extra we have had to spend on was one
>> light bulb and one ball joint dust cover.
This is exactly how I've bought cars for over 3 decades - New or nearly new deal usually on a well sorted run out model you have to keep a close eye out but they can be really worth it. Usually reliable for the 10 years I keep them for, even with high annual mileage.
Last edited by: BigJohn on Tue 24 Mar 26 at 00:00
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<< This is exactly how I've bought cars for over 3 decades - New or nearly new deal usually on a well sorted run out model you have to keep a close eye out but they can be really worth it. >>
I have only done that once, funnily enough also with a Nissan - a 1988 Prairie Mk.1 which was being replaced by the very different Mk.2. Kids were starting at Uni and the luggage space was useful for transport (and other things). Surprisingly, despite its brick shape and 1.8 litre engine it averaged over 40mpg. Kept it for 3 years until infatuated by the 205 ...
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>> This is exactly how I've bought cars for over 3 decades - New or nearly
>> new deal usually on a well sorted run out model you have to keep a
>> close eye out but they can be really worth it. Usually reliable for the 10
>> years I keep them for, even with high annual mileage.
>>
>>
Same here except that I keep them till they are no longer economic to run. 21 years so far for my current Ford and 25 years for the previous car. Not much variety but very cheap motoring. Mind you rust is not so much a problem here in Australia.
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Nissan Note - Our cheapest car per annum in real terms - ORB>>
