M5 on an average wage, is it realistic??

[hackett]

Almost 2 years ago my marriage went tits up, I came out of it with £14k of debt and decided instead of going the easy route of Bankrupsy or an IVA etc i was going to do the honourable thing and pay it all off. Fast forward to this month and i've just made my last payment and now for the first time in 7 years i'm debt free.....woo hoo!!

However.......All i've ever wanted in life is an E60 M5, and i mean all i've ever wanted. Its my lottery car, its my second everyday lottery car and its my weekend track toy (also pending lottery win)

I now have no debts, i have a 272 bhp (365 lb/ft) saab which is my baby and certainly no slouch, always puts a smile on my face, thing is its not the M5. they are now buyable for about £25k. I know i can afford it because i've paid so much out on this old debt but i'm worried i'll buy it and after 3 months think i've been stupid.

Any one on here own a car that cost more than half their annual wage? Is it worth it? do you think every day yeah this great or should i just live with my Saab that has never let me down, constantly makes me smile but bottom line is doesn't have M5 written on the back.

I'm going with the age old term "lifes too short"

Someone talk me out of this before i click the buy button :-/

[BlueMR2]

Forget buying it, can you afford to fuel it?

What if the electrics or similar break, can you afford 3-5k on repairs at a drop of a hat?

Its no fun having a great car you can't afford to use because petrol is so expensive and mpg is so lo, trust me on this one.

[mikearwas]

hackett said:

Almost 2 years ago my marriage went tits up, I came out of it with £14k of debt and decided instead of going the easy route of Bankrupsy or an IVA etc i was going to do the honourable thing and pay it all off. Fast forward to this month and i've just made my last payment and now for the first time in 7 years i'm debt free.....woo hoo!!

However.......All i've ever wanted in life is an E60 M5, and i mean all i've ever wanted. Its my lottery car, its my second everyday lottery car and its my weekend track toy (also pending lottery win)

I now have no debts, i have a 272 bhp (365 lb/ft) saab which is my baby and certainly no slouch, always puts a smile on my face, thing is its not the M5. they are now buyable for about £25k. I know i can afford it because i've paid so much out on this old debt but i'm worried i'll buy it and after 3 months think i've been stupid.

Any one on here own a car that cost more than half their annual wage? Is it worth it? do you think every day yeah this great or should i just live with my Saab that has never let me down, constantly makes me smile but bottom line is doesn't have M5 written on the back.

I'm going with the age old term "lifes too short"

Someone talk me out of this before i click the buy button :-/

Firstly let me congratulate you on paying off your debts- an honorable thing to do. You should be rewarding yourself now. Have you ever driven an M5? My ex's dad has one that i drove a few times. Undoubtedly a great car however i found the engine completely mismacthed with the car. You have to rev the nuts off it to get it to go that way it should. It would be a stunning engine in a car weighing 1500kg, in a car weighing 2 tonnes it feels...gutless would be the wrong word so i'll go with just wrong. However if its your dream car who am i to tell you otherwise. If you can afford not to get back into debt to buy then just bloody go for it and make sure you buy a good one!

[hackett]

I would have to go back into debt though this is the problem.....like i said is it worth it.

Also i quite like that people with experience can say actually it's not that great, a kind of don't meet your heroes thing.

Cheers

[vit4]

If you've got your heart set on the E60 then it probably makes no odds, but I hear the E39's are given some seriously good reviews by owners on here; they seem to be one of those cars people keep coming back to, and a bit more 'affordable' than the E60. Might be worth a look?

[MGJohn]

hackett said:

.....like i said is it worth it.

In a word ... No!

Is it all you ever really wanted in life ?

I can understand desire ~ lust even ~ but, that statement I find very sad.

Get one by all means if you can afford the total costs of running and purchase, but, there's a lot more worthwhile things in life than owning a BMW.

Well done clearing those debts. Too many shameless bankrupts in recent years.
..

[ClintonB]

BlueMR2 said:

Forget buying it, can you afford to fuel it?

What if the electrics or similar break, can you afford 3-5k on repairs at a drop of a hat?

Its no fun having a great car you can't afford to use because petrol is so expensive and mpg is so lo, trust me on this one.

Bingo.

OP - What do you call affording it? Is that just paying the entry fee, or is that post tax, bordering on single figure MPG, servicing, tyres, tax, insurance, warranty, unexpected expenditure etc? If you're paying half your income just to buy the thing, could you really afford an extra 2.5x a ton a month and then the occasional shock of £500+ for a couple of tyres, without eating 9p beans and value toast for a month solid? Or living in the car (board box)?


Personally, I know I could afford something much more exotic than my current ickle Ford hot hatch. However, if I did go down that road, I really wouldn't want the ordinary running costs, let alone the 'oops, bugger' pain of a potentially large four figure sum on, say, a new clutch, which I hadn't expected to collapse or a year or two yet.
Without being condescending, while you may lust after an M5, and I'd take a 25 yr old Salma Hayek as an agreeable substitute, we all have to be realistic. Sounds to me like an older M car or something else but just as exciting might be the sensible way forward.

Healthy breadvan?

[greggy50]

Can get a nice E39 for under 10k nowadays the E60 is only going to go the same way....
Give it a couple of years and could get a nice one for 15k I would think with the launch of the new model maybe less. For now maybe get a nice E39 in the mean time to get a taste of what running cost's will be like. With the money saved on purchase they will be some left behind to run it and it will allow you to see if actually have a chance of running the E60 when it has dropped to a more sensible price in a couple of years time

[exgtt]

I think you should go for it, youve already proved you can pay debts off, so i wouldnt worry about going into debt again - obviously go for something with a bmw warranty if possible.

Fuel tyres etc etc all massivly expensive, but if you can live without "essentials" every month: sky tv, beer, treats for the mrs etc etc it should be more than doable if you can get a warranty to look after the big stuff. Go for it! If i were in the same position, id be looking for a quattroporte in black or a Lotus Carlton. The Lotus would bankrupt me though no question.

[Baryonyx]

This is something that could seriously leave you in debt. They're lovely, but even filling it with fuel will hurt. If something goes wrong, the repair bills can be fairly monstrous (£1000 a corner for suspension trouble on an M5 is the 'outrageous repair bill' stat that always comes to mind for me).

Enjoy your Saab, which sounds great. I know what its like to sell a perfectly good car on a whim to buy something and have it turn out to be a case of 'the grass is greener'.

[Fleckers]

coming out in so little debt, well done, even better for pay off so soon, took me 5 years to pay mine off.

I then spent 2 years in zippy and 4x4 things so i could have some fun and games and still afford some nice holidays, TV's general good living

then worked up to my Jag, but I made sure I could buy it, then run it, service it etc and am enjoying now like I did when purchased 26 months back.

as someone said above, its £25k now, their value will drop soon, do you want a loan for more than the car is really worth ? now that is a debt

[jbi]

BMW = Break My Wallet

Fueling isn't as big a deal as replacing the bits that fall off

If you want value for money performance that you can afford on an average wage than your going to want to look at the yank stuff.

[Hell27]

Why not work up to the cost with a less than 80k BMW 545i?

Save a minimum of 10K on the purchase price, V8 rumble, 333 BHP, and if it's not enough, you can always sell it?

Or sod it and get a Jag XJR. Similar performance for a 1/3 of the price.

[gangzoom]

I guess it depends on your definition of average wage

If you can afford to buy one out right, it may be quite managable. But make sure you know the running and repair costs, I looked into one very briefly but ended up buying a 335i. Single digit MPG is only the start, high insurance costs, and I would budget at least £1K a year on servicing, and another £1K on repair costs (excluding tyres). The E60 is complex piece of kit, and remeber it was nearly £70K new so marketed for people who don't have to worry about such unimporatant things a money

Still an amazing piecie of kit, but the new F10 M5 with the possiblity of a manual box, and double the mpg despite having more power does make the E60 look rather "old"

[thinfourth2]

Any car that shares its body shell and a large part of its internals with a diesel estate doesn't really sound like a good dream car.

If you are going to take a financial risk do it with something a bit more interesting.

For the same cash you could have a snottier and something truly interesting.

[172ff]

Don't do it. Go out and enjoy being debt free for a bit.

From experience. Who knows what could happen in the near future? All I know is that not having mountains of debt makes life a little smoother when chucked a curve ball.

How about save the first years worth of installments up and see how you feel in a years time?

[PaulB81]

I would say at least for a few months, keep what you have got. Spend your new disposable income on some track days, experience days, fuel for some nice long drives to scotland / wales for B road blasts. Just live a little but before you decide on whether or not to go back into debt.

[DJC]

OP; congrats on paying off your debt.

I think it is down to your priorities.

Firstly, do you need to get back into debt to buy the M5? If so, I'd not do it - you've worked hard to be debt free - enjoy it, don't land yourself in more debt than you had to start with (even if it is justifiable...!).

Secondly, it comes down to your personal circumstances. Assuming you have average outgoings, If you're on ~£25k and you do 25k miles a year it'd probably be fairly unaffordable. If you only do 5k a year and work from home it becomes a more realistic prospect.

I have in the past spent my annual income amount on a car, and a considerable portion of my income running it. I was happy with this as I had very low outgoings and no other real priorities. Fast forward ten years and my car is worth the same as the weekly take home - but I have many other costs to consider now and my priorities have shifted (mainly into paying off the mortgage by the time I'm 35!).

[r1ch]

Do it. You've paid your dues, and obviously been through some relationship drama. Live a little. Get an M5, if things get sticky financially stick it up for sale. Even if you run it for 6 months then you've owned your dream car. If it were me i'd save up for a few months for some back up money in case you have problems etc.

[Gun]

thinfourth2 said:

Any car that shares its body shell and a large part of its internals with a diesel estate doesn't really sound like a good dream car.

I would say an M5 is probably on a good majority of peoples dream car lists, I know it's on mine. They're there because they are almost an affordable proposition but not quite.