running two cars, is it worth it?
Discussion
RoadRunner220 said:
zebra said:
Running two cars is a waste.
That's why you have to run three....
I run a hatchback for day to day travel, an Elise for weekends and an Exige V6 Cup when only track time will do.
This man speaks much sense.That's why you have to run three....
I run a hatchback for day to day travel, an Elise for weekends and an Exige V6 Cup when only track time will do.
I also run three for similar reasons to those stated above. Shed for day to day, VX220 for weekends/track, race car for pretending I know what I'm doing and pouring money into.
Ozzie Osmond said:
Equally, driving an "interesting" car for an hour a week while driving a "dull" car for 8 hours a week seems completely back-to-front.
I agree but sometimes you have no choice.We're currently running 5 cars. One is a Pug 207 petrol that is for my daughters to use but seems to have been commandeered by one in particular
. Then we have the X-Trail automatic. My wife seems to prefer this even though it's 12 years old and gets used for the tip runs, the dog and moving daughters around the country.After that we have an Alfa Spider V6 that is for high days and holidays with the roof down.
And then we have my faithful B6 S4 which is the car I would still choose to drive on a daily basis but, I spend my life in a dull Pug 207 diesel as a driving school car.
I was going to sell the S4 but every time I do take it out I just can't imagine not being able to just get in it and go. I absolutely fit the back-to-front scenario.
RobM77 said:
Lots of man maths
Yes, but as in my example, the cheapest way is to run the cheaper car only. Not necessarily the best, but always the cheapest.I like my fun car. I save money by piling miles on my economical car. I'd save even more by selling my fun car. Just don't want to.
And that's what it boils down to. "I want it". Nothing wrong with that. Just admit it!
I've run two cars for the last three years and it's very expensive to do so. Unless you are loaded and money is no object, you'll feel the pain in your wallet,
The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
TazLondon said:
I've run two cars for the last three years and it's very expensive to do so. Unless you are loaded and money is no object, you'll feel the pain in your wallet,
The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
All good points, however, the depreciation factor (and to a lesser extent, the servicing, tax and insurance) can be mitigated somewhat by using an economical £900 Japanese car as your daily. The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
I've got a s
tter 307 that I got given for free for longer journeys and a clio 197 for my tiny commute and fun weekend drives. Would rather double up on insurance than pile 10s of thousands of miles onto my clio and also it's not the best winter car as it has quite wide summer tyres on all year round
tter 307 that I got given for free for longer journeys and a clio 197 for my tiny commute and fun weekend drives. Would rather double up on insurance than pile 10s of thousands of miles onto my clio and also it's not the best winter car as it has quite wide summer tyres on all year roundV88Dicky said:
All good points, however, the depreciation factor (and to a lesser extent, the servicing, tax and insurance) can be mitigated somewhat by using an economical £900 Japanese car as your daily.
some of the best fun cars don't depreciate much either. (Lotus, MK1 MX5s, Caterhams, Morgans, classic Porsche...)the poster you responded to had clearly bought new/newish cars
I've run a two car system for a while. Bought a £900 Saab and run it bangernomics. Only had tyres and mot in two years.
Whilst running the Saab I've had an Impreza, Evo V and now a Skyline GTR as toys. In my own opinion it does save money as you reduce the mileage on the toy (increases resale value, reduces servicing and consumables cost etc...) but more importantly it makes driving the toy more special. Traits that would become annoying if used every day for 40 miles (like the Evos terrible motorway manners or the GTRs straight pipe exhaust) become part of its character and charm.
Whilst running the Saab I've had an Impreza, Evo V and now a Skyline GTR as toys. In my own opinion it does save money as you reduce the mileage on the toy (increases resale value, reduces servicing and consumables cost etc...) but more importantly it makes driving the toy more special. Traits that would become annoying if used every day for 40 miles (like the Evos terrible motorway manners or the GTRs straight pipe exhaust) become part of its character and charm.
abbotsmike said:
RobM77 said:
Lots of man maths
Yes, but as in my example, the cheapest way is to run the cheaper car only. Not necessarily the best, but always the cheapest.I like my fun car. I save money by piling miles on my economical car. I'd save even more by selling my fun car. Just don't want to.
And that's what it boils down to. "I want it". Nothing wrong with that. Just admit it!
, those are actual figures from three years of running those two cars and comparing with the cost of running one nice car, as I've tried in the past and as my some of my friends do now.However, yes, I do actually much prefer the multi-car solution and as I said in that post I would pay a premium for it. The truth is though that it normally works out cheaper, because the majority of any car's cost is either directly 'per mile' (fuel & tyres), or has a strong per mile correlation (servicing, repairs etc).
Ozzie Osmond said:
Equally, driving an "interesting" car for an hour a week while driving a "dull" car for 8 hours a week seems completely back-to-front.
But if most of those 8 hours a week are sat in traffic than I'd rather have a 'dull' car with an auto box, comfy seats, good stereo etc. than spend 90% of my driving time uncomfortable.SWoll said:
Ozzie Osmond said:
Equally, driving an "interesting" car for an hour a week while driving a "dull" car for 8 hours a week seems completely back-to-front.
But if most of those 8 hours a week are sat in traffic than I'd rather have a 'dull' car with an auto box, comfy seats, good stereo etc. than spend 90% of my driving time uncomfortable.
It's about the best car for the moment. For example, Mercs and BMWs do well on motorways with the odd bit of A and B road, Elises and Caterhams do best majoring on the B roads. If you have both it costs less and gets you a better driving experience most of the time. I had an Elise as my only car for three years and it was and still is my favourite road car ever, but motorways were a chore and something much better dealt with now by my £2k 3 series.The key to two cars is to make sure that they're all good, just in their own field. There's no way I'd ever buy something that I didn't enjoy driving in its native environment. If I had to have an old Mondeo or Audi for example in order to afford an Elise, then I wouldn't do it, which is why when I was younger my Elise was my only car. As soon as I could afford something nice as well, I went for the two car solution straight away.
Until recently I was running 4 cars, now I'm down to two. I think two can absolutely make sense depending on what they are. The extra costs can be minimised:
- Tax - This is unavoidable but a fairly small cost in the scheme of things
- Insurance - Two cars cost more than one but not twice the cost
- MOT - An extra £50, the time and faff is a greater issue than the money
- Depreciation - Two shiny new cars will lose a lot of money, two cheap old cars will not
- Servicing - Drive a car half as much and many components will last twice as long. If your mileage is low then maintaining two cars will cost more (time based servicing), if it is high then it may not.
- Fuel - This can actually be a saving by using cars for their intended purpose. Use the little car for urban driving and keep the luxobarge for the motorway where it belongs.
There is something to be said for driving an old banger and keeping your P&J "for the weekends" etc. - I have an old Peugeot 206 that I use as a work van. I'm not precious about it and can park it anywhere without worrying about other people bouncing doors off it, scratching it etc. If my work takes me to a rough part of town, I'm not concerned about coming back to find it's been keyed, had bits stolen off it or anything like that.
I can chuck anything that will fit in the back and not worry about wrecking the interior, I can lend it to anyone and not give it a second thought and I can do things I wouldn't risk in a "nice" car. On top of that, even being driven with zero sympathy and poorly-maintained, it's giving me 45mpg (real calculation - it has no rev counter, let alone a trip computer) around town - c450 miles to the fuel light coming on!
It also means that if I have a big job to do on the Land Rover, I don't have to worry about putting it back together so I can go to work the next day. Finally, saving the wear and tear (lots of short journeys) on my TD5 Discovery is definitely saving me money!
Finally, it's a fairly simple car that I can practice doing increasingly bigger repairs and maintenance jobs on without worrying about making mistakes and causing expensive damage. Once I can do said jobs properly on a banger, I can then try them on "nice" cars.
I can chuck anything that will fit in the back and not worry about wrecking the interior, I can lend it to anyone and not give it a second thought and I can do things I wouldn't risk in a "nice" car. On top of that, even being driven with zero sympathy and poorly-maintained, it's giving me 45mpg (real calculation - it has no rev counter, let alone a trip computer) around town - c450 miles to the fuel light coming on!
It also means that if I have a big job to do on the Land Rover, I don't have to worry about putting it back together so I can go to work the next day. Finally, saving the wear and tear (lots of short journeys) on my TD5 Discovery is definitely saving me money!
Finally, it's a fairly simple car that I can practice doing increasingly bigger repairs and maintenance jobs on without worrying about making mistakes and causing expensive damage. Once I can do said jobs properly on a banger, I can then try them on "nice" cars.
Edited by Clivey on Thursday 29th September 15:39
TazLondon said:
I've run two cars for the last three years and it's very expensive to do so. Unless you are loaded and money is no object, you'll feel the pain in your wallet,
The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
The problem you're having isn't depreciation as such, it's lack of use. You have a daily driver that you bought new and only do circa 50 miles a week! As you drive it so little, the justification to keep the miles down on your weekend toy disappears, leaving the only reason to have two cars as being 'want' rather than 'need'.The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
I do 30k miles a year in a 1.6 diesel Volvo V60 which has proved to be a perfect sedate economic mile-muncher. A little dull but reliable and presentable, and most importantly cheap as it's depreciation is determined more by it's mileage than by it's pure age. I also do circa 6k miles a year spread between my Aston and classic Maserati, mileage to be enjoyed regardless of cost.
zebra said:
Running two cars is a waste.
That's why you have to run three....
I run a hatchback for day to day travel, an Elise for weekends and an Exige V6 Cup when only track time will do.
^ WHSThat's why you have to run three....
I run a hatchback for day to day travel, an Elise for weekends and an Exige V6 Cup when only track time will do.
SLK is the daily, The Lotus Carlton for the weekends and a BMW E38 740 is the tow car for the Opel track car (when I finish it's reconstruction)
B'stard Child said:
zebra said:
Running two cars is a waste.
That's why you have to run three....
I run a hatchback for day to day travel, an Elise for weekends and an Exige V6 Cup when only track time will do.
^ WHSThat's why you have to run three....
I run a hatchback for day to day travel, an Elise for weekends and an Exige V6 Cup when only track time will do.
SLK is the daily, The Lotus Carlton for the weekends and a BMW E38 740 is the tow car for the Opel track car (when I finish it's reconstruction)
The Surveyor said:
TazLondon said:
I've run two cars for the last three years and it's very expensive to do so. Unless you are loaded and money is no object, you'll feel the pain in your wallet,
The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
The problem you're having isn't depreciation as such, it's lack of use. You have a daily driver that you bought new and only do circa 50 miles a week! As you drive it so little, the justification to keep the miles down on your weekend toy disappears, leaving the only reason to have two cars as being 'want' rather than 'need'.The biggest issue for me was the combined depreciation on both cars. One was a weekend toy that lost £9K in the last four years (bought used for £17K four years ago and disposed of for just under £8K a couple of weeks ago). That was for sitting on my drive and being driven just a thousand miles a year. Add to the depreciation the maintenance, fuel, servicing, insurance, road tax and MOTs every year.
My daily driver was driven 3K miles per year. It was bought new for £18K and lost £10K in three years. Additional costs were fuel, road tax and insurance every year.
So for having two very ordinary cars sat on my driveway, and taking the last theee years into account only, I lost a combined total of £16.5K in depreciation alone over the last three years. Add to that MOT, servicing and road tax costs, then that's another few £K over three years.
I've just got rid of both cars and bought one used car so the costs of running two cars are still fresh in my mind. It was a real eye opener to see the money evaporating from both cars!
Depreciation was the real issue for me so running two cars could work if one car did not depreciate very much.
I do 30k miles a year in a 1.6 diesel Volvo V60 which has proved to be a perfect sedate economic mile-muncher. A little dull but reliable and presentable, and most importantly cheap as it's depreciation is determined more by it's mileage than by it's pure age. I also do circa 6k miles a year spread between my Aston and classic Maserati, mileage to be enjoyed regardless of cost.
Not sure why anyone would hand over £18k for a car to cover 50 miles a week and it's almost certain he could have leased the car for less than that depreciation over 3 years without handing over £18K up front and with no worries about disposing of it. As an example a Golf GTD can be leased for <£9K over 3 years and that's a £25k list car. Similar costs for an A4 TFSI that lists at £28K.
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