Saving Money. Or Not Saving Money?

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Sat 4 Oct 2003 11:53
Saving Money. Or Not Saving Money? - clariman
An acquaintance has traded in their N plate Escort 1.6 with 70,000 miles on thc clock and bought a new base model Ka, 53 plater. Reason being that the "Escort was using too much fuel". Annual mileage was under 10,000 miles I would say.

Surely, the cost to change would far outweigh the saving in petrol costs over many years to come - even allowing for the most generous discounts and trade-in allowances?

I think he's crackers.

Discuss.
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Sat 4 Oct 2003 12:16
Saving Money. Or Not Saving Money? - Paul Robinson

It's the same school of economics as the people who have told me they spent a lot of money buying a new car because the old car might have started to need money spending on repairs!
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Sat 4 Oct 2003 13:26
Saving Money. Or Not Saving Money? - DavidHM
Probably not saving money, but that Escort is more than seven years old now and won't be around by the time they consider changing the Ka. The Ka also has a three year warranty and parts are probably even cheaper than for the Escort.

So given that, at some point, they'd have to spend maybe £3500 on one of the last of the Escorts, or more on a Focus, it might make psychological sense, as the Ka can be had for £5k now and they might have got £1200 for the Escort privately (if they were lucky but there's still a market, just) meaning that their cost to change is similar to if they were going to scrap the car in the first place.

Is bangernomics cheaper? Yes, but not everyone wants to do that and the real cost difference between running the Escort into the ground and replacing it with one a few years newer and driving around in a smaller, brand new car, is actually quite small if they keep the new one long enough.

(Or maybe even if they don't, given how much of the new transaction price Kas retain secondhand).
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Sat 4 Oct 2003 14:07
Saving Money. Or Not Saving Money? - Hugo {P}
He may have got his first year's insurance paid as well.

My aunt decided to go for a new Ka, despite the fact that her old J reg Metro only had 59K on the clock. I just guess she wanted to treat herself - nothing wrong in that.

I paid her what the garage offered for her Metro, and sold it on. Result - 2 new bikes for the chilren and money to spare.

Everyone was happy :)

Hugo
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Sat 4 Oct 2003 15:52
Saving Money. Or Not Saving Money? - volvoman
Does he drive an extra 20 miles to save an extra 1p a litre on his petrol too ? :-)
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