List of older cars in £30 tax bracket

[AlVal]

I devised this list while working out the cheapest overall total cost of ownership, for a commuter car, to allow more change to spend on the weekend toy

criteria:

should be well rated on reliability indexes
should be less than ten years old (again, reliability)
should be less than 50,000 miles (reliability, residual value)
should be cheap on insurance
should be cheap on road tax
should be cheap on fuel
should be <£4k to buy

I'm pretty sure all the above factors are requirements to have a good chance of returning the lowest total cost of ownership.


So, it's interesting that it's almost impossible to find a list on the net of older cars (2001-2007) that fall into the £30 tax bracket, took me a lot of effort to work out the list below.

Any time you try and google for low tax cars (and I'm adept at choosing keywords wisely etc), you just continuously get thrown at marketing for new cars.

I've excluded the smart car (but not the smart roadster)

I chose the 120g/km co2 tax bracket (£30 or less per year road tax) because once you go over that, it jumps suddenly to £90 (see http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/OwningAVehicl... )

so, I built my own database from the government data available here http://carfueldata.direct.gov.uk/downloads/default... to get the proper full list of used cars that fall into this tax bracket, which are available in years from 2001-2006

I've simplified the list (in some cases exact variants of the model are required to meet the criteria, so always check), but this is basically it:

audi a2 1.4 tdi
citroen c1 1.0
citroen c1 1.4 hdi
citroen C2 1.4 hdi
citroen c3 1.4 hdi
citroen xsara 1.4 hdi
diahatsu charade 1.0 efi
diahatsu sirion 1.0
fiat panda 1.3 16v multijet
fiat punto 1.3 16v multijet (auto available)
ford fiesta 1.8 TDdi
ford fiesta 1.4 tdci (auto available)
ford fusion 1.4 tdci (auto available)
honda civic ima executive
honda insight
hyundai getz 1.5 crtd
kia picanto 1.1
mazda2 1.4 td (auto available)
mercedes a160cdi
nissan micra 1.5
peugeot 1007 1.4 hdi
peugeot 107 1.0 (auto available)
peugeot 206 1.4 hdi
peugeot 206 2.0 hdi
peugeot 206 sw 1.4 hdi
peugeot 307 1.4 hdi
renault clio 1.5 dci
renault megane 1.5 dci
renault modus 1.5 dci
seat arosa 1.4 tdi
suzuki alto 1.1
smart roadster
suzuki alto 1.1
toyota aygo 1.0 (auto available)
toyota aygo 1.4 d4d (auto available)
toyota prius (cvt available)
toyota yaris 1.4 d-4d (auto available)
vauxhall astra ECO4 LS 1.7 DTi 5 Door Hatch
vauxhall corsa 1.0 Eco
vauxhall corsa 1.3 cdti
volkswagen lupo 1.4 tdi
volkswagen lupo 1.7 diesel
volkswagen polo 1.4 tdi


aygo, yaris or fiesta it is then. (they're most reliable, and available with auto and aircon)

thought someone else might appreciate the list.

And no, this doesn't mean I'm some green eco-hippy or that I don't enjoy or don't have access to some cars with all the opposite traits to the above, so don't be too judgemental unless you know me...

Edited by AlVal on Tuesday 31st May 10:04

[AlVal]

LayZ said:

Good effort. Mind if I use this as base for a blog post?

not at all, maybe a link to the thread or something would be cool.

I'm working on building a .net based simple public website to allow people to fully browse/filter/sort the database as they wish, by everything from year to engine size/transmission/tax and all the other columns rather than be forced to use the crippling filter methods placed on the official government website, which doesn't let you browse/filter as you wish.

[AlVal]

Swoxy said:

Skoda Fabia 1.4 TDI?

was only excluded because outside the 2001-2006 timeframe, but a very good option, and glad you mentioned it.

when I get the full website up, you'll be able to widen and narrow all kinds of search parameters

[AlVal]

R500POP said:

Most interesting car on that list is the Insight, if you get a 2001 or newer it's actually free tax. May struggle on the price though.

I REALLY wanted one, it's a masterpiece of a car, and a piece of automotive history. the only thing which is terribly unfortunate is the insurance which makes it less viable an option than it should be. the insurance cost is primarily down to it being fully aluminium, and apparantly it's a specialist job to repair any damage to it because of that. same goes for the A2.

I guess third party insurance could make it a more viable option?

I'm perhaps mildly cautious of taking the plunge and going hybrid, and having to deal with battery packs from 2001 that are probably on the way out, and all the other complications and potential heavy bills that hybrid might bring, I'm not sure whether its an enthusiast category. charging the batteries overnight at home in the garage for an insight owner apparantly brings its running cost down even further.

I can't make my mind up about lpg conversions either. lpg converted smart car available for about £4k is another "interesting" option. again, I'd hear a little voice in the back of my head screaming if i actually went as far as being about to hand over cash for one.

There's something to be said for mainstream petrol or diesel in terms of resale value and ease of getting servicing etc, and avoiding any potential big problems that the hybrids/lpgs etc might encounter. probably unfair of me to scaremonger against these technologies, but when we're talking used cars here where you never fully know history, I'm not sure I'd go for the additional risk

[AlVal]

vladcjelli said:

Keep us posted.



"Which car can I fit 5 people and their drum kits in, while accelerating from 0-60 in no more than 8.5 secs, and using no less than 42mpg?"

SAAB 9-5 Series 5 Door Estate 2.3 HOT 250hp B235R 'Aero' ImperialExtraUrban=42.2 MPG 0-60=8.1S



or a mercedes cls 320cdi if you're not serious about the drumkits...

[AlVal]

martyn... said:

The smart is not in the £30 a year tax band, well at least mine isn't.

bad choice I'd have thought, to go to the effort of choosing a smart car, then manage to pick one that doesn't comply with the sub-120g/km emissions for tax, all the models on this list comply:

select manufacturers.manufacturer, models.model, vehicles.description, co2 from vehicles
inner join models on vehicles.modelid=models.modelid
inner join manufacturers on models.manufacturerid=manufacturers.manufacturerid
where vehicles.co2 < 121
and dbdate < 200705
and models.model like '%MCC%'
order by manufacturers.manufacturer, models.model



shows me 261 variants of the 2001-2006 smart that do comply (won't spam the whole list here)

[AlVal]

Toltec said:

martyn... said:

The smart is not in the £30 a year tax band, well at least mine isn't.

Neither is mine, published figures show they are all 121g/km except for the lhd 600cc which is 122g/km.

don't know where you're finding your figures, I'm going by the emissions data that the tax theifs use, and there's no shortage of rhd smart car models, heres just one rhd for sale that complies

http://www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-motorbikes/smar...

[AlVal]

B'stard Child said:

I'd say that was a lucky escape - I've been very carefull when buying recent cars (in the 2001 area) only one has been post march 2001 and the VED on that was only £20 more than pre March 2001 so I can live with that.

likewise, I had an early '01 S55 AMG, would have been a bit shocking if it was post-march.

In fact for any future big-litre toys, I think it makes sense in this regard to find the best pre-2001 model you can.

Almost satisfying to drive a >5L car, knowing you're only paying the same tax as a 1.6

[AlVal]

Jack Dupp said:

Just to make you lot feel better about taxing your cars in the UK here's a link to the Irish tax authorities pricing that we have to pay

https://www.motortax.ie/OMT/motortaxinfotype.do

Anything over a 3 litre is E1553 (£1358stg) per year!!!!

Even my 1997 1.4 vw golf is E333 per year and my E36 318IS is E582 for the year,
so looks like you guys are getting a relative bargain compared to us.

I'm all too aware, I have vehicles registered in Ireland Irish car owners really do get screwed in every respect, even the specs are generally poorer on the cars, e.g. aircon is often classed as a luxury extra option, and rarely standard.

[AlVal]

ian_c_uk said:

All the *roadsters* other than the early 61bhp "light" are over I'm afraid.

From your list, the A160cdi is probably the most "grown up" for boring duties. Passengered over 100miles in one recently on Mway etc, and it took it all in it's stride, very quiet and accomplished.

ongoing maintenance costs might push up the overall total cost of ownership?

[AlVal]

Jack Dupp said:

Just to make you lot feel better about taxing your cars in the UK here's a link to the Irish tax authorities pricing that we have to pay

https://www.motortax.ie/OMT/motortaxinfotype.do

Anything over a 3 litre is E1553 (£1358stg) per year!!!!

Even my 1997 1.4 vw golf is E333 per year and my E36 318IS is E582 for the year,
so looks like you guys are getting a relative bargain compared to us.

http://cars.donedeal.co.uk/for-sale/cars/1951727

note how they tried to escape the tax....

[AlVal]

redgriff500 said:

Frankly sod that !

I've never understood guys driving utter dross all week to have a toy that they barely use at weekends.

when you're commuting twice a day in rush hour traffic in the south east, start/stop/start/stop , there's absolutely no point in having a powerful engine, it's completely wasted and wasting more fuel sitting there idling in start/stop traffic, and burning up a more expensive clutch. The drive is never going to be that enjoyable, hence I'm reckoning the one thing that will bring most enjoyment/comfort to the commute is an auto-box, due to the constant neutral/first/neutral task.

Perhaps if the commute wasn't through such hardcore traffic, and some enjoyment could be garnered from it, I'd settle for some sort of jack-of-all-trades car.

[AlVal]

redgriff500 said:

But I'd rather get a nicer car and pay more road tax but have an older one so there is less depreciation. In a years running costs £200 odd of road tax isn't an issue IMO.

I also bought an LPG car which meant I got performance AND economy - 180bhp with 50+mpg

Everyone's got their own reasoning, there's nothing wrong with yours. If one solution was right for everyone, we'd all be driving the same car!

I do like to hear the reasonings that people put into their motoring purchases, in case there are things I haven't considered. One of my reasonings is that by paying £30 instead of £200 yearly for road tax, I can afford a car worth £1000 more , assuming I'll keep it 6 years.

There's a million ways you can look at it!

I was just trying to work out in this instance what the absolute cheapest motoring can be, for those who, by choice or not, have a very tight budget for a car.

avoiding depreciation is why I'm aiming at cars older than 2007, and less than 50,000 miles , and less than £4k, with the idea that you can get good use out of, and still get something back by selling them when they hit about 85k miles.

[AlVal]

R500POP said:

I suspect in the long run it would probably be the Insight, 80mpg, zero tax, zero depreciation, ultra reliable.

It's a very, very hot contendor. The only possible downside is the specialist technology, which could prove costly. If I can satisfy myself that I'm capable of looking after the electrical/battery wizardry and getting a grid charger sorted, and that the costs involved in maintaining all that side of things can be kept under control and within budget, I think I might very well make that plunge. The more I think about it, the more I want to - it's so much more interesting/important/better a car than a lot of the boring stuff on the list. the whole aluminium no rust side of things is a huge positive also I think - this must surely increase their lifespan drastically?

[AlVal]

RenesisEvo said:

Indeed - by far and away for anything new-ish, depreciation and insurance, then servicing are the significant costs. Tax is piffling in comparison unless you are looking at the £400+ bracket.

it's the one you can easily control though, and also the one that you get NO benefit back from...you might think a £170 saving a year piffling, but I think of it as the difference between being able to afford over 6 years a car of initial £4k value rather than a car of initial £3k value.

[AlVal]

noticed 2 cars that potentially make the move up to £95 tax bracket worth considering, although a jump from £30

Volvo S40 1.6D 2006 on
skoda fabia, as already mentioned earlier

[AlVal]

thought I'd update this thread, as there are three excellent cars that now fall within the remit here -

£5k can now get you a passat or octavia normal OR estate 1.6 tdi
£8k can now get you a skoda superb normal OR estate 1.6 tdi

all in the £30 bracket, cheap motoring by any measure, and these cars most importantly mark the appearance of large cars within the £30 tax affordable used cars bracket.