Car purchase methods

[Pants]

"The fact is a large number of people see a car as status symbol, need a specific badge (RR, BMW, AUDI as examples) and need a new one every 3 or 4 years when in reality there is no need all these 3 and 4 year old cars will last another 10 years no problem with minimum costs and no loan needed or pcp payments just service them and deal with issues as they arise. The amount of money saved would be significant. The saved money can be used to save towards property, invertment or retirement but nope, 3 years up need a replacement. Additionally for many they cannot now aford to buy the car outright and instead return it and start the treadmill over again, one they will never get off.

I mean if you pcp your first car at 21 at £250 a month for 3 years, then upgrade to £300 for 3 years and then move to £400 for 10 more, then 25 years at £450 and 8 years at £300 that would take you to 70 years old and a total cost of £223,500 and of course for most there will be 2 of you in that relationship - That turns in to £447,000 for never owning anything."


A bit like mobile phones then

 

[KenL]

I am not sure a modern RR will last over 10 years. My nephew has one, just out of warranty and it needs a new engine.
I’d put much more faith in a Skoda being a reliable long term purchase.

 

[cliveb]

I'm in the "buy a 1 or 2 year old car and keep it for 10 years" camp. Let someone else take the initial big depreciation hit.
But something insidious is happening that may change things...

More and more modern cars are becoming extraordinarily expensive to fix if anything goes wrong. It seems that manufacturers are moving their mindset over towards cars being disposable commodity items like washing machines or mobile phones. It won't be long before any 1 or 2 year old car I want to buy will be in that category, so only keeping it until the warranty runs out might make sense. But of course any car of that type without a warranty will be worthless, so may as well keep it anyway and hope it lasts a bit longer before it has to be chucked.

 

[larmen]

I'm in the "buy a 1 or 2 year old car and keep it for 10 years" camp. Let someone else take the initial big depreciation hit.
But something insidious is happening that may change things...

More and more modern cars are becoming extraordinarily expensive to fix if anything goes wrong. It seems that manufacturers are moving their mindset over towards cars being disposable commodity items like washing machines or mobile phones. It won't be long before any 1 or 2 year old car I want to buy will be in that category, so only keeping it until the warranty runs out might make sense. But of course any car of that type without a warranty will be worthless, so may as well keep it anyway and hope it lasts a bit longer before it has to be chucked.

But, right to repair … ?

I just replaced a lightbulb on my car. When googling how to do it I came across that with new LED units it would be the full unit to be exchanged rather than just the bulb.
Indicator, high beam, stand light, … all working and going ‘in the bin’ as part of a total.

Going to fix my windscreen washer nozzle this weekend, hopefully I don’t need to bin the complete hood to do it.

The spare parts are unionised in newer cars ;-)