Purchasing options

[Ved]

Keep the car, fix it up so it's less of a mental burden and put the rest into savings.

[DrDeAtH]

Run it until it dies. Then replace it. Put any surplus cash into a car fund for repairs and deposit on the next one.

A 6 yr old car is not scrap if looked after.

[Siscar]

It depends what you want, certainly running old cars into the ground often is the cheapest way. But equally it's not all about money, I've spent a lot over the years but then been able to drive things that some would only dream about. It's all about what you want to do with your money, there is no single right answer.

[NPI]

I think that buying at 3-4yrs old and selling at 6-7yrs is about the worst thing you can do in terms of cost of ownership. The car carries on depreciating and you're likely to get hit by a few chunky repair bills. Even if you escape the bills you might still worry about the possibility and be nervous at every MOT.

If that's the loop that you're in, and you're happy with it cost wise, then you might as well PCP or lease a new car every 3yrs - providing you don't do a huge mileage.

[JulianHJ]

I'm in a fairly similar position, and I'm sticking with what I have (although I bought at 10 months old for 2/3rds list price with 20k on the clock) - it's been fairly reliable so far, does everything I need it to and is still nice to drive after six years ownership. It ticked past the 80k mark yesterday. It would be lovely to have something newer/bigger/faster, but I've no pressing need to change.

[va1o]

£8-9k sounds expensive for a 4 year old Octavia

Have you considered leasing or PCP? Would be a similar monthly figure but driving a brand new car every 2/3 years.

[NPI]

Rick101 said:

The only problem I foresee is come the time it so finally die.

I think the tricky part if you've owned the car for some years and have spent money on it, is knowing when to walk away. It's easy to get suckered into one more repair.

I know dedicated bangernomics people but they spend under a grand on a car and do all the work on it themselves, so they know when to cut and run.