used car has lowest TCO

[Trustmeimadoctor]

was thinking the other day what used car has the lowest total cost of ownership?

it cant be a car that you buy from a mate for £5 there has to be a fairly broad choice of them.

if we base it on say 25k a year what do you think would be the cheapest car to fuel insure service and have least depreciation ?

anyone got any ideas

[5lab]

probably something like a mk2 mondeo, or 306 diesel, with 12 months tax

purchase price : £500
Service price : £0 (don't bother)
Tax : £200
insurance : £300
Value at weigh-in after a year : £200

Total annual running costs : £800

either of them probably do 45mpg, so 25k in fuel would be in the region of 2.5k. Chances are something more frugal (106 diesel, for example) could be bought for the same money and use less fuel, but it'd be a hateful place to spend 500 hours

[Chrisw666]

How long is a piece of string?

Buying a used car is a lottery, every make and model ever built has the potential to die and cost a bit to repair or replace.

[rodgerramjet]

Chrisw666 said:

How long is a piece of string?

Buying any car is a lottery, every make and model ever built has the potential to die and cost a bit to repair or replace.

Fixed that for ya

[zaphod42]

If you get a good one, I'd say an Audi A4 1.9tdi will take galactic mileage and be good on fuel.

I understand small vans can be very good but you won't enjoy the 25k miles.

Depends how good with a spanner you are for TCO, or how good your local Indy/mechanic is.

For raw TCO, I'd look at those that want to save the most money - taxi drivers - so in our area, Skodas and Toyotas.

[300bhp/ton]

company car?

[Gad-Westy]

It really is a tough question to answer. I've bought indestructible bangers for £300 that have gone 2 years without any servicing but on the flip side I've got a car at the moment that I thought would be fairly bullet proof but it can generate £300 repair bills out of thin air on a monthly basis.

So my advice for really cheap motoring is to pay next to nothing for the car in the first place. Don't get attached to it. If any major work is needed, throw it away. The smaller and simpler the car the better and buy with a long MOT.