Or maybe the bloke in the X5 founded his own business at the age of 18, now employs 500 people, and was just thinking "for goodness sake, can't the old duffer just hurry up, I've got a meeting coming up that could result in another 100 well-paid jobs being created"

Assumptions : ASSUME makes an ASS out of U and ME.

Thinking that ownership and/or age - or whether or not someone can afford a car or not - has any bearing on driving competence says more about your prejudices than it does about the driving ability of others.

Is the atmoshpere on your planet mainly nitrous oxide, cos you're having a laugh

He was probably a drug dealer or part of our wonderful travelling community

If he was truly a Captain Of Industry, he would of course have had BO55 number plates, so the plebs knew to get out of his way

Low interest rates and the advent of PCP allows many of us great unwashed to drive cars we previously could only dream of. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. It's not for me, as I prefer to run slightly older cars off the steep part of the depreciation curve, but certainly, for small cars, the numbers more or less add up, for me at least anything bigger doesn't. But I can see that it works for many. Certainly the likes of Mercedes seem to be doing very well judging by the numbers of new ones on the road. I guess they are chasing volume by offering a cheapened rival to the Focus/Astra, but you still get to drive behind the badge!

As for your X5 driver, it's live and let live, but the statistics tell us something like 80% or so of all new cars are financed.

Perhaps buy the 50k car @ 3 years old when the value has reduced to a more sensible level!

Envy is a terrible thing, and it eats away at the soul if you don't try to keep it at bay.

During the course of any particular day I see lots of young folks driving much more expensive cars than mine, but it never occurs to me to fulminate at their effrontery and wonder how they can afford them.

I simply categorise them as "driving Daddy's car without permission or insurance" and carry on with my day.

I don't even try to categorise them - I've never bought on brand image because I've never bothered about my own image, almost an inverted brand snob - equally I'm never "impressed" by those who do spent their own, or their banks, money on image.

I don't really care what anyone buys, I'm quite happy driving around in old cars that I bought outright (well, one of them was new when I bought it).

I'd rather spend my money on a non depreciating asset such as a house. My only concern with people buying cars on these PCP schemes is that there may eventually be a big hole in the schemes run by the finance companies and as normal I can see the UK tax payers having to fund it. I beleive there was a warning given to the Bank of England just the other week that they need to put money aside to cover any losses caused by people not being able to pay back the money they borrowed for things like PCP schemes.

Governments borrow to fund spending plans, businesses borrow to fund expansion plans (or just survive in some cases), people borrow to drive up house prices and people borrow to get a car - what's the difference? It's all excessive borrowing that goes pear-shaped every time there's a financial crisis - 2000, 2003, 2008 - we're probably due another one!

I bought my house to eat, sleep and keep warm in. I'm not interested in having a bigger house then everyone else.

I agree, I will never wish to own or live in a large house.

I do however love my cars, nothing excessively flash, just stuff that does it for me. Life is for living not just admiring the four walls you are surrounded by. And all things depreciate, your trousers, your toothbrush etc etc.

I don't think the depreciation on trousers and toothbrushes can be in anyway compared to the thousands of pounds of depreciation on new cars.

One of mine had a new price of £16,000 but, at 4 years old and with 51,000miles I bought it for £2600. I can live with having to buy a couple of tyres and a few car park door marks. That still gave me well over £10,000 to have a nice holiday and treat myself to something I wanted.

I have to refer to the more popular thread by ORB. The BRs have put the case against PCP succinctly.

www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=119091

Not that I am any less guilty of prejudice, no !

My brother is rolling in money. Well, maybe not "rolling", but he has lots of it.

I was looking for a change of car last year and he offered to lend the money to me at the rate he was getting from his bank, which at the time was about two per cent. I hummed and harred and eventually told him thanks, but I'd decided to keep my car. Meantime my son decided he wanted a new car and he couldn't get affordable finance because of a rotten credit score, so I approached my brother and he lent his nephew the money at just under three per cent. Not an option available to most of us, I'd readily acknowledge, but it worked well for all parties currently concerned, not least because I didn't have to further plunder my paltry savings to help my son out, having recently contributed to the cost of his wedding.

Stating the obvious in present company, I know, but the idea of borrowing money and buying a new car then absorbing the depreciation seems like madness, unless you have so much money that it really doesn't matter. So I'll probably look at one of those PCP things when I retire for good in 3 years time and my income is fixed and secure (ish). Good to know you can get out of them if you have to.

Edited by argybargy on 16/07/2017 at 10:24

Advertisers know their game, and their targets.

You have to feel sorry for youngsters, who unless they happen to have sensible parents or mentors that they will listen to, are easy pickings in so many things, they get precious little common sense education from the state system.

The irony of sales patter is heavy, where freedom is being sold to the wide eyed in the form of freedom of the road * where in the real world being debt free is true freedom...and anyone who's lived through the day they paid their last mortgage payment has enjoyed that moment of real liberation, the realisation that no one has you by the short and curlies any more.

* is it i wonder just the youngsters who are captured by the in vogue sales, such as soft roader ads where the car in question sails through a utopian urban jungle without another car in sight, only hip bystanders gazing in envious awe at the vehicle being advertised going on unflichingly through increasingly bizarre circumstances.

On the subject of loans, we needed a relatively small mortgage when we bought our present home some 14 years ago, the lady at the building society seemed genuinely amazed that we had no loans or credit cards (we do have one now but only for internet purchases), i know some people of our age have ended up in dire financial straits for various reasons but you'd think that most people would have learned the lessons of loans earlier (as MT's post) and would make it their purpose never to repeat that mistake.

I have a real problem with paying interest, the people getting that interest are the seriously rich and their chums who make the rules, with those ranging from the poor to the aspirational paying the very rich to continue to live in the manner they have become accustomed to, nope, not playing that game.