Doing long miles every day

[gingerjedi]

I was in exactly the same positions. 2.5L car and 400 miles a week. I worked out it was costing me 5K a year in tax/insurance and petrol.

I did some digging about and and just decided to get a steady middle of the road workhorse. Hunted around and the best thing I could find was <drum roll> Ford Focus TDCi. I am very very happy with it. In the first two weeks I was getting over 43mpg which was approaching double my old car. Tax is £90 a year, insurance didn't change me oddly. You can get an 03 from a dealer with about 45k on the clock for a smidge over £3500. It is a great car, bit dull but does exactly what it says it should, nice alloys, couple of the mod cons. It will not only pay for itself in 2 years but hold a bit of value and eat up the miles in some comfort.

My old one was 2+2 so her indoors not best pleased but now she has a good family run around so double bonus.

Definately recommend.

Also lease cars often have a cap on the mileage so check that. Also won't putting it through the business incurr BiK on top of everythign else as it is 'available' to use for personal business?

WHS but I'd wanted something bigger than a focus, I bought an 03 Mazda6 with 30k on the clock for £3,000, superb motor.

Wanting to save money whilst spending £30,000 on a transport doesn't compute for me.

[eek]

WHS but I'd wanted something bigger than a focus, I bought an 03 Mazda6 with 30k on the clock for £3,000, superb motor.

Wanting to save money whilst spending £30,000 on a transport doesn't compute for me.

The killer on a car is always depreciation not fuel costs.

Next time I end up with a long commute I'll replace my mini with something in the £7,000 3 year 50k mark. Never had a problem running one for two years and getting shot provided you don't hit the 100,000 mark.

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

WHS but I'd wanted something bigger than a focus, I bought an 03 Mazda6 with 30k on the clock for £3,000, superb motor.

Wanting to save money whilst spending £30,000 on a transport doesn't compute for me.

Totally what I was thinking. I would always go for a car that was old but with very low mileage. Best ever deal I got was a Toyota that looked like it had just come out of the show room but was 6 years old (with 6k on the clock). The old lady had serviced it at 1,000 mile intervals and no joke the car looked like it had done even less than that. Absolute beauty. Only cost me 6k and feels exactly like a new car.

[Scrag Meister]

Totally what I was thinking. I would always go for a car that was old but with very low mileage. Best ever deal I got was a Toyota that looked like it had just come out of the show room but was 6 years old (with 6k on the clock). The old lady had serviced it at 1,000 mile intervals and no joke the car looked like it had done even less than that. Absolute beauty. Only cost me 6k and feels exactly like a new car.

But smells of wee and mothballs.

[Old Greg]

But smells of wee and mothballs.

Well it does now.

It's very encouraging to find I'm not alone in driving a not expensive car. Have a 7 year old focus but we're thinking about something bigger as it's a bit of a squash with two little ones on the back and a boot full of luggage.

[ChrisPackit]

Best ever deal I got was a Toyota that looked like it had just come out of the show room but was 6 years old (with 6k on the clock). The old lady had serviced it at 1,000 mile intervals and no joke the car looked like it had done even less than that. Absolute beauty.

Sounds like the same car my dad had in his garage a while back. Little old lady asking him to shave 100,000 miles off the clock

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Sounds like the same car my dad had in his garage a while back. Little old lady asking him to shave 100,000 miles off the clock

i'm the one laughing, every time i drive the car. Real beauty. Completely unused in 6 years. not a scratch anywhere inside or outside when bought (plenty now though).

[kermitt]

Depreciation on an new car will cost you more than running costs as I have found out.

When I got a gig much further away and decided to get something comfortable but quick and refined. Looking at 5 series diesels the SE looks terrible and there seemed to be a £3k difference between the equivalent M Sport but most of these had done at least 100k miles but for £10k +.

So in the end opted for an immaculate and fully loaded 540i M Sport V8 petrol with very low mileage, full sound system and a spare set of alloys with new winter tyres, new tyres brakes, FBSH etc all for £7k.

Now I can run this for a few years and cos its a petrol it should be more reliable than a turbocharged oil burner and subsequently less expensive to run overall. Yes it only does 20 mpg but it sounds fantastic and wont bankrupt me when something goes wrong. By the way I do 400 miles a week and it costs about £90 for a tank.

If you buy a new car for £30k then frankly IMO you are a mug because you will lose a third of its value in 6 months which would have bought you a perfectly reasonable executive saloon.

[ChimpMaster]

<snip>

So in the end opted for an immaculate and fully loaded 540i M Sport V8 petrol with very low mileage, full sound system and a spare set of alloys with new winter tyres, new tyres brakes, FBSH etc all for £7k.

Now I can run this for a few years and cos its a petrol it should be more reliable than a turbocharged oil burner and subsequently less expensive to run overall. Yes it only does 20 mpg but it sounds fantastic and wont bankrupt me when something goes wrong. By the way I do 400 miles a week and it costs about £90 for a tank.

If you buy a new car for £30k then frankly IMO you are a mug because you will lose a third of its value in 6 months which would have bought you a perfectly reasonable executive saloon.

Did you buy an older model of the 540? I like the newer shape but it'll cost around £15k-£20k for a fully loaded model.

As for the £30k I totally agree about the aspects of running it down in value. I don't have a mortgage and have sufficient savings, but even then it would only make sense to buy a luxury £30k+ car if I wasn't going to be piling on the mileage in such a heavy way.

[northernladuk]

Well it does now.

It's very encouraging to find I'm not alone in driving a not expensive car. Have a 7 year old focus but we're thinking about something bigger as it's a bit of a squash with two little ones on the back and a boot full of luggage.

Sorry Greg, we are all talking about our second cars we use just for commuting to clients site. We all have two seater convertibles or high end Beemer's and Mercs for weekend use. We assumed you were the same