Anyone else sold their only car? Selling advice please.

[funkyrobot]

The time has come to sell the Mazda and find something a bit cheaper, for now. I am currently in the process of selling my fiancee's house and saving for our first place together. Any extra money for the deposit will help, so I'm hoping to shift the 3 soon and purchase something to run me around until settled in a new pad.

The thing is, I only have the one car which I need for work. I don't really want to get another 'overlap' vehicle and run two, I would like to shift one and get another. This obviously makes the period between owning cars a little difficult. I thought I would solve this though by hiring the most basic car I can for this time.

Is this a good idea? Anyone else been in this predicament?

Also, I've only ever bought cars valued at over £6k from main dealers before. Yes, I know, not the true PH way. So I'm a little nervous about buying cheaper. This forum helps a hell of a lot though .

My spanner skills are non existent too. This may be due to the fact that I've never had the desire to work on cars. Maybe a dip into cheap motoring will help with this?

Anyway, what I'm after are stories and advice from anyone who has done the above, especially if it has involved downgrading.

If it helps, my commute is 15 miles each way over some of Lincolnshire's finest A roads. Thanks all.

[Captain Muppet]

Until I started running a fleet I always had to sell my only car to buy a new only car. Mostly what I did was buy the new one first (using cash or a loan) then sell the old one.

It's much cheaper than hiring a car so you can do the selling before the buying.

Edit to add - before I had spannering skills I ran Citroens (spent loads at dealers getting them fixed), Hondas (serviced once a year and forgotten about the rest of the time) and Toyotas (also really reliable).

Then I bought a Nissan, and had to start fixing my own cars because the garage bills were huge.

Saving money by doing your own servicing and maintenance is fun, learning spannering by having to continually fix something that's broken isn't fun.

Edited by Captain Muppet on Wednesday 16th January 11:30

[funkyrobot]

Thanks Cap.

Incidentally, what did you do insurance wise with the vehicle overlaps? Did you take a temporary policy out on the older vehicle and then move the current policy over to the new one?

[crofty1984]

when i changed car last, Adrian flux let me add the new car to my existing car's policy for free for 30 days whilst i sold the old one. I don't know if you could do similar.

Also, keeping the old car makes it easy to view new cars and being able to buy at leisure reduces the chance of you buying a complete nail by accident because in the back of your mind you're shelling out for another day on the hire car if you don't buy one TODAY and this one just about started didn't it? And I'm sure the massive structural pot can't be THAT bad...

[rohrl]

I sold my only car a few years back and went without for a year (through choice rather than a ban I should specify). I sold the car to the man across the road for £160. NCB lasts for two years from the expiry of a policy so no need to worry there.

[McSam]

Muppet has the best answer, and it's what I do. Apart from anything else, if you sell your car before buying your new one, you can very easily end up compromising and buying a poor example because you need a car fast and are bleeding money until you get one.

For insurance purposes, you're fine adding your new car to your current policy "temporarily" - just tell them that you've bought it and need temporary cover until you can get quotes and organise permanent cover only about £30 a week in most cases!

[renrut]

Another +1 for what muppet does. Its what I did back in September when buying a CRV to replace an S-type. It works better than feeling forced into buying something in a hurry as no matter how hard nosed you think you are at car buying you will compromise.

[funkyrobot]

Thanks all.

I shall contact my insurer and see how they handle another car temporarily. I suppose the only issues with this are the fact that I'll need to have more money available to buy the second car (rather than the proceeds of the current car sale), and my current steed will need to sell fairly sharpish.

[mike9009]

I have done it how Muppett has done it - or I have arranged for lifts from friends/ work colleagues for a week or so to enable to transition from one car to another.

It is possible to live without a car given a little thought - but it just does not appeal to our inner pistonhead heart.

Obviously this depends on your circumstances (distance to work, home location (city versus countryside) etc etc.

I was banned from driving (medical reasons) for 18 months and managed to get by with friends and the wifes car surprisingly easily - just hated it though...

Mike

[funkyrobot]

Thanks Mike. I do have a problem with getting to work without a car as I work on a farm site in the middle of nowhere. If pushed, I suppose I could get a bus to the nearest town, then a taxi the rest of the way. Or I could walk, but that would take about an hour or so from the bus stop.