Car Snobs - I Despise Them

[TwinExit]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Yes, I can easily find a CAT D high mileage / stolen recovered example of any brand/model or car, and use this to scare off 50% of the casual buyers that such a car is a colossal money pit.

[InitialDave]

Oh God, who cares. Pay for your car however you want to, as long as it works for you. Just spare the rest of us having to have you bang on about how other people pay for theirs.

[PixelpeepS3]

Wills2 said:

You can get nearly 15% off without even haggling....

wow - that's fantastic. I got mine in 2014 when they first launched- i couldn't find anything near that kind of discount then

[PixelpeepS3]

TwinExit said:

And yet you lose £10k in 24 months with only the benefit of mileage limited access to the car during that period.

That extra £4k gives you outright ownership - to do what you wish with it, where as with PCP, it was never yours.

you're not getting this are you..?

the fact it was 'never mine' does not bother me in the slightest - its only ever going to lose money.

enjoy it for 2 years, get everything paid for, give it back. save £4000 and move on.

Get the correct mileage on the agreement in the first place and there is no 'limited access'

ill throw you a bone here - the only time it would have worked out more cost effective to buy it would have been if i was planning on keeping it 4+ years where i could have surfed the depreciation curve.

but i don't keep cars long these days... in fact, i've barely had the S3 a year and i've already bought a replacement.

[Hungrymc]

PixelpeepS3 said:

wow - that's fantastic. I got mine in 2014 when they first launched- i couldn't find anything near that kind of discount then

I guess the message is that there isn’t a right and wrong - who’d have thought it.

You may well have saved 4K, you might have lost a couple... depends on so many factors that are not fixed at the start. What you do have with a PCP is certainty, and a fixed period to change. If that suits, fine. If you’d rather own, also fine..... I can’t understand why this causes so many arguments.

[Yipper]

Snobbery is a core part of Britain's culture.

From the Queen and her Royal Warrant, down to Fred Bloggs with his PCP Merc A Class, everyone is a ridiculous Hyacinth Bucket.

You just gotta live with it.

[Wills2]

PixelpeepS3 said:

Wills2 said:

You can get nearly 15% off without even haggling....

wow - that's fantastic. I got mine in 2014 when they first launched- i couldn't find anything near that kind of discount then

They had great lease deals instead back then IIRC it was a bargain, so I guess you got one of those.

Great car for the money.

[av185]

ghost83 said:

Only buy appreciating assets like houses
Rent depreciating assets like cars

Houses don't always appreciate neither do cars necessarily depreciate.

[bad company]

av185 said:

ghost83 said:

Only buy appreciating assets like houses
Rent depreciating assets like cars

Houses don't always appreciate neither do cars necessarily depreciate.

OK so houses appreciate 99% of the time and cars depreciate 99% of the time.

[culpz]

And would you have it, just like that, like the OP did say, it's now turned into a lease thread. Credit where credit's due Aaron

[J4CKO]

treeroy said:

bad company said:

There’s nothing wrong with paying cash and running older cars if that floats your boat but don’t kid yourself that your 10 year old whatever is as good as a new one. It isn’t.

A 15 year old Mazda MX-5 is better than a new Mazda MX-5.

A 15 year old BMW M3 is better than a new BMW M3.

A 20 year old Lotus Elise is better than a new Lotus Elise

A 30 year old Golf GTI is better than a new Golf GTI.

Nope, as a car, none are worse than their forebears, a 30 year old Golf GTI is a 1988 with 112 or 139 bhp, current MK7 has 230 bhp and goes, stops, handles and does everything far, far better than the MK2, go and drive them back to back and then if you had to choose one as a daily driver, it wouldnt be the MK2, much as I love them and as a classic they are a good choice, but a better car, no chance.

[RobM77]

bad company said:

av185 said:

ghost83 said:

Only buy appreciating assets like houses
Rent depreciating assets like cars

Houses don't always appreciate neither do cars necessarily depreciate.

OK so houses appreciate 99% of the time and cars depreciate 99% of the time.

But that statement is still nonsense, firstly because definitive statements about economics are rarely true, but secondly because it's usually cheaper to buy a car than rent one (please keep reading and don't just quote me there..). Nowadays, with lease companies firmly established in a low credit environment and using their huge throughput to get discounts on bulk purchases, this isn't always the case when buying new, but if you buy secondhand (e.g. £10k on a 3 year old car and sell it on for £5k after 3 years, thus costing £139 a month) it's definitely cheaper than renting a similar age secondhand car (£139 a month is £4.60 a day, and you can't rent any car for that, even an old banger). The moral to this story is not to listen to catchy soundbites, but to get your calculator out. Furthermore, buying a house isn't always cheaper than renting. Houses only appreciate in the long term; there are plenty of variations if you zoom in further, plus there's stamp duty and solicitor's fees when you buy. If I was coming to the UK for a year or two to work, I'd do the maths, but I suspect I'd probably be better off buying a secondhand car and renting a house.

[av185]

Yep Robs right.

Bad Company needs to provide evidence before the highly suspect 99% he claims can be accepted.

It is simply a subjective guess

[bad company]

RobM77 said:

If I was coming to the UK for a year or two to work, I'd do the maths, but I suspect I'd probably be better off buying a secondhand car and renting a house.

For such a short period you could be right. It wouldn’t be a case of doing the maths tho, what you would really need is a crystal ball.

If I were coming to the UK for a year or two I would lease/contract hire a car and rent a house.

[bad company]

av185 said:

Bad Company needs to provide evidence before the highly suspect 99% he claims can be accepted.

House price inflation:-

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpricein...

Edited by bad company on Friday 12th January 10:33

[RobM77]

bad company said:

RobM77 said:

If I was coming to the UK for a year or two to work, I'd do the maths, but I suspect I'd probably be better off buying a secondhand car and renting a house.

For such a short period you could be right. It wouldn’t be a case of doing the maths tho, what you would really need is a crystal ball.

If I were coming to the UK for a year or two I would lease/contract hire a car and rent a house.

Yes, nobody has a crystal ball, but that's not an excuse to stop thinking; most things just have a probability or risk associated with them and it's a case of working that out and matching it against your attitude to risk. Very few things in life are certain, but some things are more certain than others.

For example, although this usually isn't the case now, traditionally a fixed rate mortgage charges you a little more than a tracker to have the same monthly payments every month over a term. This is analogous to paying a fixed monthly payment on a lease car, which will be more expensive than buying a secondhand car as I described above, but with less risk. However, this level of risk changes over time and quite often the risk is pretty small and manageable. In the mortgage example, the BoE has been pretty open about it's plans for the base rate over the past ten years, and it's been possible to say with quite a high degree of certainty what the base rate will be in a year or two's time. Therefore, taking out a cheaper tracker mortgage (when they were cheaper!) has been a pretty safe bet, and you can even optionally pay that little bit extra, but unlike the fixed rate mortgage, that extra is lining your future pockets, not those of the bank. The risk on doing that has been tiny, and sure enough, the BoE have done exactly what they've hinted they would and what we all expected. Taking that tiny risk, as I did, has paid off to the tune of tens of thousands of pounds. Similarly with the car analogy, the reason I would plump for a secondhand car is that if you buy wisely, it's pretty unlikely to have anything go wrong. It's a personal choice though, based on risk - no crystal balls needed, just an understanding of risks and benefits. People who take ludicrous gambles normally end up broke, but people who refuse to take any risk at all, no matter how tiny, normally end up substantially worse off.

[RobM77]

bad company said:

av185 said:

Bad Company needs to provide evidence before the highly suspect 99% he claims can be accepted.

House price inflation:-

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpricein...

Edited by bad company on Friday 12th January 10:33

So in Figure 1 in that link, what percentage of time is spent +ve and what -ve? From the graph (I don't have time to download the figures) I make it 14 months in the -ve vs 144 in the +ve. That's 90% in +ve. Unlike the base rate example in my post above, the risk on this sort of investment in the short term is quite high (10% of that time period say declining house prices). Houses make a lot of sense in the long term (i.e. over the total period in figure 1 there is a +ve increase), but the risk is much higher in the short term. Furthermore, in my example of buying a £300k house, the minimum cost of moving was about £7,500, or 2.5%, so that effectively moves the x axis up by 2.5%, reducing that profitable period to around 80%, or one in five.

As I said before, no hard and fast answers, just a matter of getting your calculator out and understanding your attitude to risk.

Edited by RobM77 on Friday 12th January 12:38

[Petrolhead95]

bqf said:

Which 18 year old could lease a golf R? The insurance would be astronomical wouldn't it?

You'd be surpirsed. I can insure a Golf R for cheaper than a Focus ST.

[thatdude]

I find it helps to not worry about other people. So, they own (well, sort of look after and use if leasing) a shiny new car. But they are losing lots of money, and if they are leasing then after 3 years or so, they have to cough up a st load of money to buy the car outright or they have to move onto another lease deal. But when you have a "lesser" car, at least you own it. Whatever car you have, it still needs fueling, it still needs servicing, it still needs regular checks, it still should be cleaned.

OP, I'm approaching 32 and I own a 2005 model year honda civic 1.6 "sport". It's closing in rapidly on 100,000 miles, is worth not a lot (I could probably get £1000 for it if I'm lucky) and looks a little cosmetically challenged (no problem by me). But...tyres are relatively cheap. The car is easy to service on my own. It's quite fuel efficient for what it is. I dont have to fuss too much over it (a little ding or mark here and there dosnt bother me). It's the only car I've personally ever owned and I am oping to keep it for another 5 years or so. Hell, if it's still alright then, I'll carry on with it.

If other people are "laughing" at you because of something you like but it's old and "unfashionable", then it's them with the wrong priorities in life, not you.

I probably could afford to lease a shiny new car, or get something on hire-purchase. But I'd rather spend my money on other things (house improvments, holidays, motorbikes, other hobbies) because at the end of the day, it's not a big deal.

Also, that honda civic is a fking beast of a car. It'l make a good platform for a track car when I eventually need to get something more suitable for family duties.

Edited by thatdude on Friday 12th January 12:25

[Camelot1971]

thatdude said:

I probably could afford to lease a shiny new car, or get something on hire-purchase. But I'd rather spend my money on other things (house improvments, holidays, motorbikes, other hobbies) because at the end of the day, it's not a big deal.

And there lies the beauty of money. It's only useful if you actually spend it on something, be it a car lease, a holiday, food etc etc. I'd much rather have the memories of a car I leased, or an amazing holiday I had, than having money sitting in the bank I didn't spend when I'm on my deathbed. I don't plan on leaving a single penny when I die!