Electric cars.

[dad_of_jon]

I buy brand new with savings cash and can then keep them as long as I like. although I did finance the wifes car to get an additional £750 deposit contribution which I paid off within a month.

Think I paid £21500 for my old cx5 and after 8 years and 76K miles sold it for £5500 so £16k depreciation over 8 years is £2K a year. or £166pm

The thing is that a £20k car only lose £20K but a £40K car could easily lose more than £20K in value so a lower rate of depreciation on a more expensive car can still cost your more.

As a comparison our 1995 sirion was £8600 and written off after 14 years so £615 pa or £51 pm

Changing cars every 3 years means you are footing the biggest loss of value in a cars life, however if you fancy a less reliable vehicle it makes sense to hand it back before it falls apart.

This is all moot now at my age and reduced milage, we're off on a 1336 mile trip to do Scotland before easter which should cost £227 in fuel. I'm getting a last few big driving trips in before I get too dodery or fed up of driving.

 

[MashBag]

That's were I am. A toyota now has a 10 year warranty. That alone makes a purchase more appealing. The manufacturer has faith in the product. It is tech (enough) and I certainly don't want automation.

Hopefully model & fuel choices will be further down the road (see what I did there) before I need to change. Fingers crossed

 

[Kit-brewer]

They had a bad reputation for rusting -

Thansk for the warning! Glad it's a mobility car and will be replaced after in 18m.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Thansk for the warning! Glad it's a mobility car and will be replaced after in 18m.

Similar experience with chinese barbeques. I replaced 2 in 3 years due to rust. Then spent proper money on a weber and it has indeed lasted 10+ years. it's starting to look a bit tired now but worked out cheaper than constant replacement. I'll buy another when this gives up the ghost. I can confidently say if it is as well build as the one I have now it will be the last one I buy.

 

[MattH1973]

Similar experience with chinese barbeques. I replaced 2 in 3 years due to rust. Then spent proper money on a weber and it has indeed lasted 10+ years. it's starting to look a bit tired now but worked out cheaper than constant replacement. I'll buy another when this gives up the ghost. I can confidently say if it is as well build as the one I have now it will be the last one I buy.

Bang on ! My Webber is 22 years not out - it's life has been preserved by a cover - which makes a massive difference. as well as stopping corrosion is leave the BBQ so dry that you can re burn the partially spent charcoal from last time - even if weeks have gone by. So it saves both cleaning and money !

 

[dad_of_jon]

Bang on ! My Webber is 22 years not out - it's life has been preserved by a cover - which makes a massive difference. as well as stopping corrosion is leave the BBQ so dry that you can re burn the partially spent charcoal from last time - even if weeks have gone by. So it saves both cleaning and money !

Mines out in the open which is also impressive, the Chinese ones the first wasn't covered the second was.

 

[hoppyscotty]

I buy brand new with savings cash and can then keep them as long as I like. although I did finance the wifes car to get an additional £750 deposit contribution which I paid off within a month.

Think I paid £21500 for my old cx5 and after 8 years and 76K miles sold it for £5500 so £16k depreciation over 8 years is £2K a year. or £166pm

The thing is that a £20k car only lose £20K but a £40K car could easily lose more than £20K in value so a lower rate of depreciation on a more expensive car can still cost your more.

As a comparison our 1995 sirion was £8600 and written off after 14 years so £615 pa or £51 pm

Changing cars every 3 years means you are footing the biggest loss of value in a cars life, however if you fancy a less reliable vehicle it makes sense to hand it back before it falls apart.

This is all moot now at my age and reduced milage, we're off on a 1336 mile trip to do Scotland before easter which should cost £227 in fuel. I'm getting a last few big driving trips in before I get too dodery or fed up of driving.

So your CX 5 actually cost you 37,500 over 8 years or 390.62 pm. And actually more than that as over that time you will have paid for servicing, maintenance repairs etc.

Over the last 10 years or so I've been on PCP's getting a brand new car every 3 years and paying around £350 - 400pm and for most of that time had zero maintenance costs as mostly you get a maintenance package thrown in or can negotiate it in, and cars covered under warranty which these days includes breakdown and recovery so saving on that too. So if you had paid 400pm for your car on a PCP and taken that £37,500 and invested it you would have made a decent return on that £37,500 and would be far better off over that time.

Never pay cash for depreciating assets. Apart from brewery equipment!

 

[JockyBrewer]

So your CX 5 actually cost you 37,500 over 8 years or 390.62 pm. And actually more than that as over that time you will have paid for servicing, maintenance repairs etc.

Over the last 10 years or so I've been on PCP's getting a brand new car every 3 years and paying around £350 - 400pm and for most of that time had zero maintenance costs as mostly you get a maintenance package thrown in or can negotiate it in, and cars covered under warranty which these days includes breakdown and recovery so saving on that too. So if you had paid 400pm for your car on a PCP and taken that £37,500 and invested it you would have made a decent return on that £37,500 and would be far better off over that time.

Never pay cash for depreciating assets. Apart from brewery equipment!

Eh? Where did you get £37500 from?

 

[tigertim]

There are some interesting posts here from EV owners , but it seems they all can park up at home and recharge , or are there any owners who can't and have to rely on public chargers ?

My motoring history has been moderately petrol-headed. I started with a string of modified Minis, tried to grow up a bit with a Saab 9-5 Turbo, then went on to a BMW E36 328i Sport, all of which I enjoyed immensely. I've also had a string of motorcycles which took care of all my commuting and European touring.

However, I travelled to Geneva and back for a business meeting with my boss in his Tesla Model S in February 2020 which just dropped my jaw in terms of the viability of EVs. The fact that we drove from the Midlands to Lake Geneva and back, and it only ever really felt like we were stopping to charge at times when I *really* wanted a break from being on the road anyway. He also had free Supercharging so the journey was practically free in terms of fuel.

I then decided to adopt a subscription EV from ONTO for two years as a salary sacrifice scheme and I was totally won over. I drove both a Renault Zoe ZE50 and a Volkswagen ID.3 in that time, both of which had a real world 180-220 mile range depending on conditions. With an ONTO subscription, free public charging was included so even though it was possible for me to charge anywhere including at home, I avoided doing so because it would have added unnecessary cost.

So I drove around 1750 miles a month for about 2 years using nothing except public chargers. Admittedly, I did most of my driving in the late evening which certainly helped with charger availability, but I never had any real problems. In all my time driving EV, I obviously came across faulty chargers, but I never got stranded and I also never once had to queue to charge - I never did any insane levels of planning; I just used ABRP to work out my charging stops for me.

I'm now driving a Mini Cooper S Clubman as a stop-gap which is technically speaking a very fun and pretty fast car and would have been an ideal choice for me a few years back - but I just can't gel with it. The engine noise, the exhaust note and the manual gearbox were all things top of the list for me a decade ago, but now I just yearn to have an EV again.

I now have the ability to charge at home, I do well under 100 miles a day most days and, for the longer journeys, public charging doesn't scare me because I have actual experience of it, rather than just reading The Sun and watching clickbait YouTubers wringing their hands for views.

So I'm now I'm planning to buy an Hyundai Ioniq 38KWh. Possibly the most efficient production EV ever made (which is relevant when I'm paying for the electricity) an easy real world mileage of 190-220 depending on usage, and good ones can be had for £12k which is a far cry from the £32k+ it was when new.

Much as I criticise the click baiters banging on about EV fires, dysfunctional public charging, children mining for cobalt, powered by coal and generally creating an EV bin fire, they've created great opportunities on the second hand market right now, before prices stabilise when people realise they were spouting utter toss.

 

[JockyBrewer]

I buy brand new with savings cash and can then keep them as long as I like. although I did finance the wifes car to get an additional £750 deposit contribution which I paid off within a month.

Think I paid £21500 for my old cx5 and after 8 years and 76K miles sold it for £5500 so £16k depreciation over 8 years is £2K a year. or £166pm

The thing is that a £20k car only lose £20K but a £40K car could easily lose more than £20K in value so a lower rate of depreciation on a more expensive car can still cost your more.

As a comparison our 1995 sirion was £8600 and written off after 14 years so £615 pa or £51 pm

Changing cars every 3 years means you are footing the biggest loss of value in a cars life, however if you fancy a less reliable vehicle it makes sense to hand it back before it falls apart.

This is all moot now at my age and reduced milage, we're off on a 1336 mile trip to do Scotland before easter which should cost £227 in fuel. I'm getting a last few big driving trips in before I get too dodery or fed up of driving.

I'm in a similar position. Paid £12500 for a 3 year old VW Golf in 2014, and apparently it's still worth £4k.

I don't do a lot of mileage, so I'm basically driving it until my needs change (unlikely) or lots of things start to go wrong and it becomes more of a pain than parting with a chunk of cash for the next car.

The next car will almost certainly be an EV, I'm just leaving it as long as possible to allow the technology to mature.

 

[tigertim]

So if you had paid 400pm for your car on a PCP and taken that £37,500 and invested it you would have made a decent return on that £37,500 and would be far better off over that time.

Never pay cash for depreciating assets. Apart from brewery equipment!

I've often seen this said but I can personally never seem to make the figures back it up. I think it's very rare that you could find yourself in a situation where you could generate more interest on capital than a lender would be charging you. Obviously you can ostensibly get 0% finance on new cars, but we all know they're still getting their pound of flesh through the back door by merging the interest into the headline price.

One example where a PCP feels like it can have an advantage is in the case of a market crash where the car is worth far less than its guaranteed final value at the end of its term. But how often does this really happen? The lenders are very good at minimising their risk in this regard by quietly building contingency into the monthly payments.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

That's were I am. A toyota now has a 10 year warranty.

A little heads up for any Toyota owner or potential Toyota owner, when your 5 or 3 year warranty runs out they now offer an extended warranty free of charge (details below)

Up to 10 years / 100,000 mile Toyota warranty​

Every new Toyota comes with a 3 year manufacturer warranty followed by a 12 months / 10,000 miles additional warranty, with every qualifying service. Up to 10 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, letting you relax in the knowledge that you and your vehicle are in safe hands.

 

[Sneedhearn]

A little heads up for any Toyota owner or potential Toyota owner, when your 5 or 3 year warranty runs out they now offer an extended warranty free of charge (details below)

I drive a Lexus plug-in hybrid and Toyota offers the same deal to that brand as well.

 

[dad_of_jon]

A little heads up for any Toyota owner or potential Toyota owner, when your 5 or 3 year warranty runs out they now offer an extended warranty free of charge (details below)

Up to 10 years / 100,000 mile Toyota warranty​

Every new Toyota comes with a 3 year manufacturer warranty followed by a 12 months / 10,000 miles additional warranty, with every qualifying service. Up to 10 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, letting you relax in the knowledge that you and your vehicle are in safe hands.

View attachment 94258

suzuki do something similar providing its main dealer serviced up to 7 years and 100K

 

[dad_of_jon]

So your CX 5 actually cost you 37,500 over 8 years or 390.62 pm. And actually more than that as over that time you will have paid for servicing, maintenance repairs etc.

Over the last 10 years or so I've been on PCP's getting a brand new car every 3 years and paying around £350 - 400pm and for most of that time had zero maintenance costs as mostly you get a maintenance package thrown in or can negotiate it in, and cars covered under warranty which these days includes breakdown and recovery so saving on that too. So if you had paid 400pm for your car on a PCP and taken that £37,500 and invested it you would have made a decent return on that £37,500 and would be far better off over that time.

Never pay cash for depreciating assets. Apart from brewery equipment!

I can't see that.

As for depreciating assets I generally agree. I would certainly not pay cash for a car every 3 years. So the rate of depreciation is outweighed by the fact I can change my car at a time of my choosing. As for servicing only oil and oilfilters compared to an ev . Tyres wipers brakes cabin filters, brake fluid and anitfreeze were required as would be on an EV. So remembering back that far what EV's were available would have worked out far more expensive. NO repairs required on my car. I did start to see my mpg go down gradually in the last year to about 45mpg and the kids both finished uni and set up homes themselves so I downsized.

btw:

I also did a cost benefit analysis on whether to get a 4WD version on average it would have been needed 2 days a year perhaps in south wales for an extra £1200 and lower mpg so it would have been cheaper to take a taxi into work on those occasions, but then everybodys situation is different.

 

[Old Fart At Play]

Never pay cash for depreciating assets. Apart from brewery equipment!

It depends. When I was planning my EV purchase 18 months ago, I got various quotes for PCP, rental, and leasing.
I had savings, so no loan required.

Allowing for insurance, maintenance etc, the costs worked out about the same for the first 4 years, ie depreciation plus costs was about the same over 4 years as PCP cost etc.

But early in life of second lease, purchase started to work out cheaper, as depreciation slows down so much.

I kept my last car for 17 years. I anticipate keeping this one for a long time too. For me, it was much cheaper to buy.

In addition, I dont need to worry if I slightly damage it, and I have no problem with eg adding a towbar.

Each to their own!

 

[Justin Dean]

The technology is relatively young. Cheaper cars (particularly 2nd hand) will come.

Possibly but until they do….

 

[Justin Dean]

But one of the cheapest cars on the road is an EV so you don’t need to. And you don’t have to buy new.

Assuming it meets your requirements beyond being EV

 

[MashBag]

Bang on ! My Webber is 22 years not out - it's life has been preserved by a cover - which makes a massive difference. as well as stopping corrosion is leave the BBQ so dry that you can re burn the partially spent charcoal from last time - even if weeks have gone by. So it saves both cleaning and money !

I think I am nearer 30 years, might be more (yikes) I liked it so much I bought another one, to use as a pair.

 

[MashBag]

Never pay cash for depreciating assets. Apart from brewery equipment!

Pay interest instead? Confused.