New commuter car buying advice

TTBZ

This summer I'm going to have to think about retiring my trusty 2012 Golf whilst it's still worth something. Its done about 132k with relatively few problems, looking online it should go somewhere between £2500-3000 if I tidy a few bits up on it. Maybe optimistic but that's what people are currently asking!

I'm not really up for getting a big finance deal so I really want to keep budget under or around £3k if possible. That money should get me something a bit older with way less miles (ie under 30k), from a less premium brand. Firstly how old would you go and is this a good idea? What would you suggest for a motorway & a-road commuter? Priorities are fuel efficiency and reliability. 4 door so I can get the kids in if needs be, and would like something that feels solid and comfy on the motorway.

I'm looking at 2012+ Fiesta or Focus as my wife used to have one and was also solid. Just not sure what else to look at to be honest. Its a shame to move away from VW as I like my Golf but the premium brands are too expensive to get something low mileage.

phil_b

I would just hang onto the golf

ICBM

phil_b said:

I would just hang onto the golf

This. Known history - unless you know something a possible buyer wouldn't - counts for more than mileage at that sort of age and price. The value of the Golf is not what you can get for it, it's how much you would need to spend *on top* of that to get something as good.

There's no point at all in changing to something just as old and with an unknown amount you might need to spend on it, unless you need something very different.

RaymondLin

Better the Devil you know.  Especially if you are a type of person who keeps ON TOP of maintenance, preventative maintenance rather than reactive. Swapping 1 old car with another old car is flipping a coin and not a money saving exercise.

FYI I am sticking with me 60 plate Volvo because I know it's history, I know what I have fixed, the parts that I am expected to do in a few years if i keep the car and what should and shouldn't go wrong.  I can budget for it.

stickyfiddle

Yep - keep it unless you need something different, or want to spend more to get something significantly newer

Haych

As others have said keeping the Golf is the shrewd move.

You're unlikely to buy anything better for £3k, and at that price you're almost certain to buy something that was moved on because the previous owner didn't want to spend on either a problem or a big bill coming imminently down the line.

My current motor has 144k on the clock and is over 17 years old.  I don't plan on getting rid of it until something significantly terminal happens.

joneve

Yep. Keep the Golf 

EricTheWeary

I had to pick up my son from a coach station last week and a few days later had a letter saying did I realise that if this had been after 1st June my car would not meet the requirements of the Birmingham low emission zone and I would be charged £8. Yes I did realise and if I were after a city car for somewhere with or likely to have a low emission zone I would have to buy something else. So, in your position if that was likely to be an issue I'd be looking to change otherwise I'd be running that Golf into the ground ( I have driven a Golf and thought it was cramped and uncomfortable but I guess you don't have that issue).    

Haych

EricTheWeary said:

I had to pick up my son from a coach station last week and a few days later had a letter saying did I realise that if this had been after 1st June my car would not meet the requirements of the Birmingham low emission zone and I would be charged £8. Yes I did realise and if I were after a city car for somewhere with or likely to have a low emission zone I would have to buy something else. So, in your position if that was likely to be an issue I'd be looking to change otherwise I'd be running that Golf into the ground ( I have driven a Golf and thought it was cramped and uncomfortable but I guess you don't have that issue).    

Out of interest what car do you drive?  Just for curiosity and comparison really.  My car is a big old thirsty gallon guzzler, and best part of 20 years old, but somehow is ULEZ compliant!  I don't understand how, not sure it should be, but it is.

ICBM

EricTheWeary said:

I had to pick up my son from a coach station last week and a few days later had a letter saying did I realise that if this had been after 1st June my car would not meet the requirements of the Birmingham low emission zone and I would be charged £8. Yes I did realise and if I were after a city car for somewhere with or likely to have a low emission zone I would have to buy something else.

Or work out how many times you would need to do that a year and whether it's better just to pay the charge.

I'm an enviro-nazi and I hate diesels, but I still think using an old car that has already done most of its environmental damage for as long as you sensibly can is better for the world than buying a new 'clean' one... since until you get to *well* over 100K then it's taken more energy and resources to build a car than to drive it that far.

Haych

ICBM said:

I'm an enviro-nazi and I hate diesels, but I still think using an old car that has already done most of its environmental damage for as long as you sensibly can is better for the world than buying a new 'clean' one... since until you get to *well* over 100K then it's taken more energy and resources to build a car than to drive it that far.

Recall the government scrappage scheme of circa 2009?  Many very good cars went to the crusher because the government was offering £2k off the price of a new French car. 

It came out then that it was faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar better for the environment to keep an old and dirty car going as long as pragmatically feasible than to scrap it and buy a new one.

Gassage

I'm amazed no-one has tee'd about the Golf.

EricTheWeary

Haych said:

EricTheWeary said:

I had to pick up my son from a coach station last week and a few days later had a letter saying did I realise that if this had been after 1st June my car would not meet the requirements of the Birmingham low emission zone and I would be charged £8. Yes I did realise and if I were after a city car for somewhere with or likely to have a low emission zone I would have to buy something else. So, in your position if that was likely to be an issue I'd be looking to change otherwise I'd be running that Golf into the ground ( I have driven a Golf and thought it was cramped and uncomfortable but I guess you don't have that issue).    

Out of interest what car do you drive?  Just for curiosity and comparison really.  My car is a big old thirsty gallon guzzler, and best part of 20 years old, but somehow is ULEZ compliant!  I don't understand how, not sure it should be, but it is.

I have a diesel Civic which is not compliant and own a diesel campervan that is despite being pretty much a tractor. 

ICBM said:

EricTheWeary said:

I had to pick up my son from a coach station last week and a few days later had a letter saying did I realise that if this had been after 1st June my car would not meet the requirements of the Birmingham low emission zone and I would be charged £8. Yes I did realise and if I were after a city car for somewhere with or likely to have a low emission zone I would have to buy something else.

Or work out how many times you would need to do that a year and whether it's better just to pay the charge.

I'm an enviro-nazi and I hate diesels, but I still think using an old car that has already done most of its environmental damage for as long as you sensibly can is better for the world than buying a new 'clean' one... since until you get to *well* over 100K then it's taken more energy and resources to build a car than to drive it that far.

I rarely drive into B'ham city centre but if it were my daily commute I'd have to think about it. I have to drive in my job so if I had a similar job there it would become an £8 daily tax on going to work. There are several cities with LEZs now and several more planned so if I were changing car and regularly drove into a city it would be a factor. 

There was something on Radio 4 the other day about EVs and you can play with the figures endlessly but certainly a nominal figure of 100k miles. So, replacing a low mileage petrol car for an EV to continue to do a low mileage makes no environmental sense. 

ICBM

Haych said:

Recall the government scrappage scheme of circa 2009?  Many very good cars went to the crusher because the government was offering £2k off the price of a new French car. 

It came out then that it was faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar better for the environment to keep an old and dirty car going as long as pragmatically feasible than to scrap it and buy a new one.

Of course, it was nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with propping up car manufacturers who were struggling for sales due to the financial crash. The fact that most of the cars bought were not only foreign but at the time often diesel can only be described as a shot in the foot with both barrels.

EricTheWeary said:

I rarely drive into B'ham city centre but if it were my daily commute I'd have to think about it. I have to drive in my job so if I had a similar job there it would become an £8 daily tax on going to work. There are several cities with LEZs now and several more planned so if I were changing car and regularly drove into a city it would be a factor.

That's true, but be careful you don't lose sight of the bigger picture - that £8 a day (max £2K a year even if you're doing it every working day) might be less than the cost of changing the car.

It's remarkable how small a cost difference can make people change their behaviour if it's presented as a 'tax' (bad, unfair, punitive - must be avoided) rather than just a 'cost' (eg depreciation, maintenance etc - accept and get on with it). That was part of the problem with the rush for diesel - by offering the carrot of saving a couple of hundred pounds a year in road tax, the government managed to encourage a generation of people to buy what for most were really the wrong cars... backed up by diesel itself being too lightly taxed to reflect its carbon content relative to petrol.

I certainly wouldn't *buy* a diesel to use in the city, but if you've got one already I would think fairly hard before buying something else unless there are also other reasons.

Haych

ICBM said:

Haych said:

Recall the government scrappage scheme of circa 2009?  Many very good cars went to the crusher because the government was offering £2k off the price of a new French car. 

It came out then that it was faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar better for the environment to keep an old and dirty car going as long as pragmatically feasible than to scrap it and buy a new one.

Of course, it was nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with propping up car manufacturers who were struggling for sales due to the financial crash. The fact that most of the cars bought were not only foreign but at the time often diesel can only be described as a shot in the foot with both barrels.

Yes, this is true.  It was never an environmental incentive, but should still have been a consideration.

Just goes to show green is more important than green.

crunchman

I've had problems with 3 year old cars that I've bought with 30k or less miles on the clock.

Had an S Max that ended up with £900 repair bill (about 15 years ago so probably would be around £1500 now).

I had a low mileage Citroen that I bought from a main dealer that developed all kinds of electronic problems with the display on the dashboard.  We were quoted £800 for a replacement unit.  It also used a very large quantity of oil.  I was putting in the amount it should have used in a year every month.  We just got shot of it.

As everyone else has said, you are best sticking with your Golf until it breaks, unless it falls foul of low emissions zone.

TTBZ

Cheers guys sounds like sticking with what I have is a better option for now then! Doesn't sound like it would be worth replacing at the minute. It does get serviced every year and most of the expensive bits (suspension & timing belt) have been replaced relatively recently so hopefully it's solid for a bit longer!

Stratavarious

^^^ be my plan too... run them into the ground while saving. 

fastonebaz

But that new car smell mmmm

spark240

Well Bham congestion charge comes in next months....£8 per day if you aren’t exempt....other cities will follow,...you choice of vehicle will be determined by things like this in the near future...

ICBM

spark240 said:

Well Bham congestion charge comes in next months....£8 per day if you aren’t exempt....other cities will follow,...you choice of vehicle will be determined by things like this in the near future...

I’ve discovered that my old Renault Scenic has actually gone *up* value in the last year or so - not much, but definitely up not down if you look at comparable models on Autotrader. Quite remarkable for a 10-year-old French car with over 100K on it. Why? Because it’s one of the fairly rare petrol models and hence is exempt from some emissions zone restrictions - every ad has the key word ‘ULEZ’. I had been thinking of replacing it, but I think I may keep it a bit longer now. Research was prompted because a friend who runs a cleaning business in the city is interested in buying it!