If you can't afford to buy a new exotic
Discussion
you can't afford to run an old one.
Years ago by means of working all day then doing evening and weekend shifts on an icecream van, skipping taking holidays and other such sacrifices I had sufficient savings by the age of 25 to have bought my first house with a sizable deposit down (able to buy a house was not as impressive in the 1980s, trust me) and have sufficient savings to buy myself a good used Porsche 911.
I mentioned my intention to a wise uncle whose opinion was "if you can't afford to buy a new one you can't afford to run an old one". And so TBH has never owned a car I've considered to be exotic.
Was my wise old uncle as wise as I give him credit for or should I have taken the chance and chosen considerably more interesting used cars for the price of the new Mazda RX7 Turbo, VW Corrado, Sierra 4x4 Ghia Estate and MK1 MX5 that I ran in their place.
Years ago by means of working all day then doing evening and weekend shifts on an icecream van, skipping taking holidays and other such sacrifices I had sufficient savings by the age of 25 to have bought my first house with a sizable deposit down (able to buy a house was not as impressive in the 1980s, trust me) and have sufficient savings to buy myself a good used Porsche 911.
I mentioned my intention to a wise uncle whose opinion was "if you can't afford to buy a new one you can't afford to run an old one". And so TBH has never owned a car I've considered to be exotic.
Was my wise old uncle as wise as I give him credit for or should I have taken the chance and chosen considerably more interesting used cars for the price of the new Mazda RX7 Turbo, VW Corrado, Sierra 4x4 Ghia Estate and MK1 MX5 that I ran in their place.
Not sure if I agree. I've almost always run an older but interesting car, but I did make sure I knew what I was getting into. My favourite was probably the 10 year old Mk2 16v I had when I was 23, but getting a 4 year old 996 came close.
Where I do agree with your uncle is that you need to know that it's going to cost a LOT to run (I've had to convince people not to buy a Porsche), but ManMaths [TM] lets me offset that against the depreciation of a newer car...
Where I do agree with your uncle is that you need to know that it's going to cost a LOT to run (I've had to convince people not to buy a Porsche), but ManMaths [TM] lets me offset that against the depreciation of a newer car...
B'stard Child said:
I don't think it holds true if you are prepared to maintain yourself as opposed to engage the services of specialist or main dealer/agent
In a round about way you've just told me that as far as I was concerned my Uncle was right. Much to my shame I was/am a lazy bugger when it comes to DIY car maintenance 
If you buy a car with good reliability record and known, sensible maintenance costs you can keep the risk pretty well under control.
However, the PH myth that a car which is "expensive to run" when new can miraculously become "cheap to run" when old is pure nonsense. The parts cost stays the same and the labour hours stay the same. But you're likely to need more of each of them. And please don't put cheap tyres on a high performance car.
One key element is to buy something which has sold in fairly large numbers when new and is popular in the used market. This ensures parts supply and a decent number of knowledgeable specialists.
The "cost per mile" on exotics tends to be ferocious, whether new or old.
However, the PH myth that a car which is "expensive to run" when new can miraculously become "cheap to run" when old is pure nonsense. The parts cost stays the same and the labour hours stay the same. But you're likely to need more of each of them. And please don't put cheap tyres on a high performance car.
One key element is to buy something which has sold in fairly large numbers when new and is popular in the used market. This ensures parts supply and a decent number of knowledgeable specialists.
The "cost per mile" on exotics tends to be ferocious, whether new or old.
RobinBanks said:
jas xjr said:
A golf , a two door. Probably
Leins said:
Ah come on, everyone knows that refers to a VW. My bet is a Jetta 
Quite possibly. In my head I had XR2i or XR3i. But there are plenty of cars which were available in a second generation form with 16 valves!NNH said:
RobinBanks said:
NNH said:
10 year old Mk2 16v
That could describe more cars than I can name...What was it?
RobinBanks said:
Quite possibly. In my head I had XR2i or XR3i.
I don't remember either of those being 16v and MK2 tends to refer to a very different Ford Escort for me. It was a Golf in my head, either in red or oak green but that's me getting my geek on.Back to the OP:
I kind of agree with your uncle but it can be budgeted for. Man maths tells me the extra maintenance is taken care of by less depreciation, reality tells me that buying the car new gives you a warranty for anything big and scary but once it's outside that it could chuck up some proper bills. For something exotic I'd want someone professional to maintain it so I'd have to factor in that cost, I'm a bit of a coward with money risks so I would only do it if I knew for certain I could afford any bills it might create.
Whether Golf, Astra or Fiesta, I'd still rate the day of getting a Porsche as a bigger event and that's before factoring in the fact the Porsche was four years old and the tarted-up family wagon was ten. I 'get' the whole bug for a particular marque or model to some extent but anyone who sees it different clearly needs mental assistance.
57Ford said:
Whether Golf, Astra or Fiesta, I'd still rate the day of getting a Porsche as a bigger event and that's before factoring in the fact the Porsche was four years old and the tarted-up family wagon was ten. I 'get' the whole bug for a particular marque or model to some extent but anyone who sees it different clearly needs mental assistance.
I guess it's because the Golf was a bigger step for me at the age of 23 than the 996 was at 35. I loved them both, but the Golf was my first fun car.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff