>> Hold on a sec -- £3000 for a nine year old car?

>> Don't do it. Just ... don't.

I don't regret £4k for a seven year old car last year. It has given me a year of 50-60mpg motoring with impeccable reliability and a total maintenance spend of £300 (including a pair of front tyres). If the plate bothered me (and I couldn't care less), I could stick a private plate on it, and nobody would never guess its age. It's still worth within £200 of what I paid for it today, and I wouldn't bet against it still being worth £3k in a couple of years time. Minimal depreciation, cheap to tax, cheap to insure, peanuts to run. Initial investment aside, motoring (so far) does not get much cheaper when you factor everything in to the equation. And it's a car that we enjoy owning and driving, getting on in years or not.

I am not a believer that VW engineering is still superior to the opposition, but neither do I accept it's much worse than the Japanese, and if the chap in front of me in the motor factors the other day buying discs and pads for his Celica were anything to go buy (he left £170 lighter), a VW is a darn sight cheaper parts-wise.

What your argument misses is one very important point. Slow depreciating cars will continue to be slow depreciating. That means a lower total cost of ownership, and a nice easy resale when the time comes. Various friends and relatives have sold diesel Golfs in recent years for top money, within hours of placing adverts. People want them. You can argue whether that's justified or not, but it is a fact. It's your disadvantage when buying, but you benefit from it when selling. And a well maintained nine year old car will look and feel far younger, and will provide reliable motoring.

A modern French car (by which I don't mean the bulletproof old 405's, 306's, ZX's etc)out of warranty and with a few years/miles on it is likely to be a living nightmare, but that doesn't apply across the board.

The golden rule is surely to buy what you want, but buy on condition!

Edited by DP on 28/03/2010 at 11:11

@primeradriver:

Well, thanks for the advice - it has certainly made me think a bit about the question of age over presumed reliability and fuel economy. Obviously the Total Cost of Ownership is what is important, and as I do less than 10K miles a year maybe obsessing over MPG is a little misguided.

On the other hand, it's probably more a 7-8 year old car we're looking at since the CDTI Civic came out in 2002, and I'm now thinking more Honda, Skoda or Toyota than VW. I'm not very swayed by image which is why the VW's seems overpriced to me now. I'd gladly have my Dad's Almera if it didn't make my spine compress.

I don't know much about Kia, Daewoo etc except that people seem sceptical of their build quality. I'm looking for a car to keep for the next 5 - 10 years so I want something with proven engineering.

But I do take your point, and maybe something like a Primera wouldn't be such a bad idea:

www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/20101235556...p

Its a bit of a bummer living in North Norfolk as it makes so many cars I find on Autotrader a bit too far away unless I knew I was going to buy, which I wouldn't do without seeing it.