The other thing that makes any such thoughts virtually irrelevant is finance - PCPs, et al.

You might run around in a £50k car, but have put £5k down and be paying £400 a month. Totally different to buying a £50k car, or to buying a £50k car but getting a healthy discount off list price.

Or you could have bought the £50k car at a year old, and spent £30k on it !

Can't work percentages out, one car cost £3500, the other cost £1170, the house is worth about 300k.

The third car, which is now semi retired so doesn't really count cost £9k some 13 years ago.

As above, we can afford new, but to be quite honest there is nothing new we like and both of us prefer cars made or at least designed in the 90's so made up to about 2004/5 at the latest for a variety of reasons, plus when our two workhorses collect another dent or scrape because half the clowns out there can't park it doesn't bother us, indeed SWMBO refuses to have the damage on her Scooby repaired, as she rightly say they'll only do it again.

And neither of cares what anyone else thinks of us, we run about the oldest cars where we live.

Edited by gordonbennet on 15/12/2015 at 17:24

I once read that one shouldn't spend more than a couple of months gross wages on a car, which to me, has always made some kind of sense. However, most people are buying on the Never Never schemes these days, so maybe a better pointer would be what percentage of monthly take home are folk spending on a car? I would guess many people are heavily over-bought. Personally, I may spend up to 9 or 10K cash on something used that I would then keep for several years, until it starts giving me grief. I try and work on a depreciation and/or repair target of £1k a year average.

Currently 4 family cars outside £250K house, total value about £11K.

>>I care not a fig for people who think they can judge people by their cars - or how they service them ;-)<<

I'm glad you continue to contribute to the forum. I always like to see different opinions. You do seem to be successful with your cars.

My car is older than my house - by a few months, both are from the year 2000. At the time I bought the car (in 2007) it was 0.4% of the value of the house. I think the car (a Primera) is doing better than the house :-) although their comparative values have widened considerably.

I could easily buy a Tesla Model S - the only current new car I have any interest in, it's just not sufficient interest and my annual mileage is declining. Apart from that, I'll pop down the Kia garage for a Rio when the Primera expires. I do know that the Rio & Tesla are very different (!)

Posh cars can be hard to park, because they are big, and they annoy other road users .... the Easy Jet chap now drives small cheap cars, cos they are easy to park.

This reminds me of what was said when I lived in Canada in the mid-sixties. I owned what I believe had been the first Morris 1100 imported into Alberta (1962 I think) for rallying, as FWD was a new feature then. It took us all over the western US and later some of the eastern too, as well as Canada from Vancouver to New Brunswick in the east.

While I worked in Ottawa this vehicle was jocundly called a p***-p*t because the natives said they would rather survive a crash in a proper big car than a small one. I pointed out that a small car had a smaller collision diameter and might avoid things - and was easier to park.

Of course there were plenty of Beetles (air-cooled, useful in winter) and the odd Mini. Amusingly a Mini with a 12-volt system could be quite good at jump-starting big Chevies and Fords as they only had 6-volts.

To reply to Paul;

A good question, well presented, and deserves an answer . . .

which is . . .

I dont know, only being 90,000 into our DSG Skoda experience, BUT, (potential DSG aside) I intend to "work around" some of these pesky emissions measures with their associated electronic glitches with a local Indy.

The EGR will be removed and code re-written as soon as it proves troublesome, ditto the DPF.

With the virtually electronic free (a Bosch electronic controlled rotary IP, and fly by wire throttle bes it) 1998 SDP Van as a back-up vehicle, this, for us, is a practical proposition.

Then the 1984 DB1490 Tractor (local runs only) as an ultimate backstop!

marcus

I like the approach of 'nailit', for me it's keep the car until non routine maintenance makes it too expensive to run - hopefully over 200k miles, time will tell, and in the mean time live frugally so that spare funds are kept available for other enjoyable spends

however, no-ones thrown into the mix how to reply in a two car household - does on add the value together or use only the dearer car?

I suppose looking at choice and number of holidays is a similar way judge people, wrong of course, but who cares!

One car or two? If the need for a second car isn't there, more could be spent on the single car.

Holidays? 4-5 a year of 5-6 weeks - but annual spend is less than some spend for 14 days.

Confirming to some social "norm" does wonders for company profits but is the scourge of modern society - thankfully, this thread seems to show that BR'ers are independent thinkers and spend their own hard earned money to suit what they want, not to "keep up with the Joneses"

I live in a mansion and have a £700 car.

I have to maintain three cars which all have their MOTs March- April.,

Since last March, spent absolutely nothing, sweet f*** all apart from £20 oil for the Corsalwaysa.

Touch wood.

If you go closer downtown where all the mercs and bms are, its a different way of life innit bruv

I have owned Vauxhalls as every day transport since 1968 and still have a '52 Vectra C 2.2 petrol owned since it was two years old and have had no significant problems with any of them. It seems to be fashionable (probably due in no small way to the nonsense espoused by J. Clarkeson Esq.) to knock Vauxhalls on this forum but it is patently obvious that although Vauxhalls are always in the top sellers the majority of problems that are posted here concern Fords and what was known back then as Jap cr@p.

For value for money and as the car for special occasions nothing can compare to a Jaguar XJ8 X350 4.2 V8, sublime.

Edited by Wolfan on 20/12/2015 at 19:19