Cost of Motoring, 2023
Discussion
This is going to come across as a bit of an "Howwww muuuuch!!" eey-by gum thread, but since my car lunched itself last night and a replacement has been on the cards for over 12 months, thought it'd be good to look at some newer ones.
Not only is insurance stupidly expensive, insuring even something bog standard like a 320d is now over £1000 per year, but also the tax on anything fairly new is £590 or whatever it is for the first 6 years. A few years ago I bought a nice 4 year old car for £14k, which cost £200 a year to tax and £400 a year to insure. Now, with more NCB and more age, it's going to be £590/year tax and £1200 to insure, on top of the £20k to buy the equivalent thing. Not sure wages have gone up that quickly!
And that is before the mechanic has given me his bill for repairing the old one!
Not only is insurance stupidly expensive, insuring even something bog standard like a 320d is now over £1000 per year, but also the tax on anything fairly new is £590 or whatever it is for the first 6 years. A few years ago I bought a nice 4 year old car for £14k, which cost £200 a year to tax and £400 a year to insure. Now, with more NCB and more age, it's going to be £590/year tax and £1200 to insure, on top of the £20k to buy the equivalent thing. Not sure wages have gone up that quickly!
And that is before the mechanic has given me his bill for repairing the old one!
On a similar note, I drove past the local Fiat dealer and saw the sticker price for a Fiat 500 of £27,500. I had to triple check I wasn’t going mad.
As a bit of a fan of old Hondas, I realised I didn’t really know the current line up of cars they sold, so went onto the Honda website. The cheapest Honda starts from £25,900! That’s about £10k more than I was expecting the cheapest Honda to start at.
As a bit of a fan of old Hondas, I realised I didn’t really know the current line up of cars they sold, so went onto the Honda website. The cheapest Honda starts from £25,900! That’s about £10k more than I was expecting the cheapest Honda to start at.
SkodaIan said:
The tax on a fairly new "premium" car is, but most ordinary cars still have a list price below £40k, which means they are the usual £180 per year.......
"Most ordinary cars" include many which are above £40k, it's easy to get a Peugeot 308 above £40k if you have it as a hybrid, and you need to be buying the very cheapest A4 or 3 Series with no options to get under £40k. Condi said:
SkodaIan said:
The tax on a fairly new "premium" car is, but most ordinary cars still have a list price below £40k, which means they are the usual £180 per year.......
"Most ordinary cars" include many which are above £40k, it's easy to get a Peugeot 308 above £40k if you have it as a hybrid, and you need to be buying the very cheapest A4 or 3 Series with no options to get under £40k. andy43 said:
Perfect example of fiscal drag to increase tax take. A 40 grand car isn’t a luxury car anymore…
I wonder if that may change, given that low interest rates made £40k everyday cars possible (even a Golf is £25-30k without speccing). Given that low interest rates are behind us for a while, will we see a shift in the cost of new cars? Or will list prices stay high and we return to heavy discounts being applied?I've been doing the annual car insurance quotes and whilst everything has gone up, some insurers have doubled (with no other risk changes) and others have only gone up only slightly.
Insurance is the main one for me.
Paid 850 last December on my M5, I ran some pseudo-quotes yesterday for renewal time and it's looking more like £1.7k this time around - with twice the excess. Hoping my current insurer pulls through with a palatable renewal.
The car's warranty runs out at a similar time too, which I was going to extend at £85 a month. But doing both would mean my overall costs increase by a fair amount each month. Appreciate the warranty price likely hasn't gone up but still...
Paid 850 last December on my M5, I ran some pseudo-quotes yesterday for renewal time and it's looking more like £1.7k this time around - with twice the excess. Hoping my current insurer pulls through with a palatable renewal.
The car's warranty runs out at a similar time too, which I was going to extend at £85 a month. But doing both would mean my overall costs increase by a fair amount each month. Appreciate the warranty price likely hasn't gone up but still...
Something I’ve never understood, the difference in prices for new cars in the UK versus the US; base Honda Civic; US $23,450, UK £31,935, is the difference, purchase tax, specification or the fact the US is a much bigger market?
Of course it could be a combination of all 3. Looking at new car sales tax in the US it depends on state and varies from 0% to 11.5%, but that still leaves a fairly big difference.
Of course it could be a combination of all 3. Looking at new car sales tax in the US it depends on state and varies from 0% to 11.5%, but that still leaves a fairly big difference.
daqinggregg said:
Something I’ve never understood, the difference in prices for new cars in the UK versus the US; base Honda Civic; US $23,450, UK £31,935, is the difference, purchase tax, specification or the fact the US is a much bigger market?
Of course it could be a combination of all 3. Looking at new car sales tax in the US it depends on state and varies from 0% to 11.5%, but that still leaves a fairly big difference.
Strength of the currency will have a lot to do with it. The Pound is worth less than it used to be and cars/raw materials are imported. Of course it could be a combination of all 3. Looking at new car sales tax in the US it depends on state and varies from 0% to 11.5%, but that still leaves a fairly big difference.
MustangGT said:
We just got a 2020 Mercedes A35 AMG. 300bhp, 0-60 4.9seconds. Road tax is £180, insurance £400 FC, with business class 1 and NCB protection.
Perfectly easy to find a decent car without the premium RFL.
It must have been just under the additional tax bracket then, in 2020 they started at £36k, a new one now would be £46k. Perfectly easy to find a decent car without the premium RFL.
daqinggregg said:
Something I’ve never understood, the difference in prices for new cars in the UK versus the US; base Honda Civic; US $23,450, UK £31,935, is the difference, purchase tax, specification or the fact the US is a much bigger market?
It's a bit of everything.Base model cars in US are typically lower specification than in UK/Europe. Often this is most noticeable with the interior where "hard plastics" ate commonplace in the US. I once rented a Ford Focus in the US and was astounded by just how basic it was.
In the US a car's advertised price usually excludes the cost of delivery to the dealership (distances can be long) and local sales tax (which typically adds 6 or 6% to the price you pay). In comparison UK's hefty 20% VAT has to be included in the advertised price and really pushes it up.
But don't think it's all roses out in the US. A Lotus Emira lists at $94,000 before any of the additional costs are added. An entry level Cayman is about $70,000 plus the tax etc.
Leaving all of that aside the increases of UK car prices over the past three years have been huge.
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