The biggest cost of a car is depreciation
Depends.
You seem to be assuming new purchase, but the title says "used car for under £5000"
If you go far enough under 5000, depreciation can be low or negligable.
To take an extreme example, I paid 15,000 NT for the Skywing (First Registered 1986). That was about 300 quid then (that's 7 or 8 years ago, and what with y'all's Brexit Brilliance in the interim its about 400 quid now) so depreciation is negligable.
Its taken a bit of fiddling to keep it going but I've only bought some some brake parts and a half-exhaust, though I need tyres now.
Admittedly this was more difficult to do under the famously anal UK MOT regime. I had some similarly priced bangers in the Yook but, with no off-street parking, if an MOT failure coincided with being short of time, they got scrapped.
I don't think I managed to keep any for more than 3 or 4 years.
Whether this approach is still viable in the UK I dunno, and I'm not much looking forward to finding out.
Most of the faults I see described on here afflict vehicle features I have never had and wouldn't much want.
The obvious alternative is to buy yourself out of the obligatory technotrap with an "affordable classic", if these still exist.
The up-front cost is of course much higher than low-tech bangers once were, so 5k may not be enough, but you should avoid the depreciation.
Edited by edlithgow on 29/11/2019 at 11:57
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