Parking money in a car
Parking money in a car
Author
Discussion

Jcwjosh

Original Poster:

963 posts

141 months

Wednesday 17th July 2019
quotequote all
Good Morning,

I have read a lot of 'depreciation proof' car threads asking for suggestions etc, i just wondered if there are any success stories of anyone parking money in a car for 2-3 years and not actually losing anything besides running costs ?

I am aware the majority of cars depreciate over time and it will all depend on what you are parking the money in, mileage etc.

So who has achieved this,

what did you buy ?
for how much ?
how many miles did you do?
how many years of ownership?
what did you sell it for ?




Fermit and Sexy Sarah

13,240 posts

129 months

Wednesday 17th July 2019
quotequote all
Jcwjosh said:
Good Morning,

I have read a lot of 'depreciation proof' car threads asking for suggestions etc, i just wondered if there are any success stories of anyone parking money in a car for 2-3 years and not actually losing anything besides running costs ?

I am aware the majority of cars depreciate over time and it will all depend on what you are parking the money in, mileage etc.

So who has achieved this,

what did you buy ?
for how much ?
how many miles did you do?
how many years of ownership?
what did you sell it for ?
Yep, once. 2007 Focus ST3. Bought for £7300. Gave it a Pumaspeed 280bhp remap, £300andsomething, a 4 alloy refurb, £240, spent a lot of time detailing it over my ownership, making it cosmetically as mint as I could, sold it a year later for £7900.

I was pleased with that. Some jammy sod (but a nice lad TBF) was bought it by his Dad for his 25th!

Edited by Fermit and Sexy Sarah on Thursday 18th July 11:02

Jcwjosh

Original Poster:

963 posts

141 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Thats not bad going, it does make me wonder how many people manage to acheive this.

I guess its a mixture of luck and buying the right spec and price.

kiethton

14,634 posts

209 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Done it a few times....

2003 E39 540i Sport - bought for £2800 from BCA, was written off (non-fault) 3.5 years and 18k miles later and was paid-out £5,500. I bought it back for £550, fixed it on the cheap for £900 and sold it again 4 months later for £3,200.

Honda CBR125R - bought for £1,200 from a slavage yard with 3k miles, was written off 3 years later with 16k miles and was paid-out £2,000. I bought it back and sold it on again (still damaged) for £950

Lotus Exige - bought 2 years ago for £24k with 30k miles, now on 36k miles still have it but have been offered more than I paid a few times now

Peugeot 106 as a first car - bought it from a colleague as his wife had stopped driving - all paperwork lost and sat for 2 years, 10 years old but with just 32k miles. I paid £200, changed the oil/battery and drove it around for a few months, realised I wasn't a great fan of the thing and sold it on for £1.2k.

Jcwjosh

Original Poster:

963 posts

141 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
kiethton said:
Done it a few times....

2003 E39 540i Sport - bought for £2800 from BCA, was written off (non-fault) 3.5 years and 18k miles later and was paid-out £5,500. I bought it back for £550, fixed it on the cheap for £900 and sold it again 4 months later for £3,200.


That is pretty epic ! So running costs aside £4450 up ?


Honda CBR125R - bought for £1,200 from a slavage yard with 3k miles, was written off 3 years later with 16k miles and was paid-out £2,000. I bought it back and sold it on again (still damaged) for £950


Lotus Exige - bought 2 years ago for £24k with 30k miles, now on 36k miles still have it but have been offered more than I paid a few times now

That is kind of what i am toying with this sort of price range and mileage do you think Lotus in general hold their money pretty well ?

Peugeot 106 as a first car - bought it from a colleague as his wife had stopped driving - all paperwork lost and sat for 2 years, 10 years old but with just 32k miles. I paid £200, changed the oil/battery and drove it around for a few months, realised I wasn't a great fan of the thing and sold it on for £1.2k.

p4cks

7,480 posts

228 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Bought a VX220 Turbo for £5500 which needed a new dash panel, the airbag light resetting and a few other relatively simple jobs to make presentable. Think it cost me about £400 to get right and I then put a £250 remap and a precat pipe and after a few months sold it for £10,500.

I knew what was needed and the costs to get it right, unlike the guy I bought it from who didn't have a clue.

ETA: Special mention to the 996.2 I had that needed an engine rebuild within a month of me buying it. All in I was only £700 down in the 10 ruinous months I owned that complete POS. I'm still proud of that one.

Edited by p4cks on Thursday 18th July 11:20

RDMcG

20,832 posts

236 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
997.2 GT3RS.

Bought it for list and sold it after four years for about 10% over. Ran 11,000km and lots of track.

Was in Canada so pricing different obviously.

kiethton

14,634 posts

209 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Jcwjosh said:
kiethton said:
Done it a few times....

2003 E39 540i Sport - bought for £2800 from BCA, was written off (non-fault) 3.5 years and 18k miles later and was paid-out £5,500. I bought it back for £550, fixed it on the cheap for £900 and sold it again 4 months later for £3,200.


That is pretty epic ! So running costs aside £4450 up ?


Honda CBR125R - bought for £1,200 from a slavage yard with 3k miles, was written off 3 years later with 16k miles and was paid-out £2,000. I bought it back and sold it on again (still damaged) for £950


Lotus Exige - bought 2 years ago for £24k with 30k miles, now on 36k miles still have it but have been offered more than I paid a few times now

That is kind of what i am toying with this sort of price range and mileage do you think Lotus in general hold their money pretty well ?

Peugeot 106 as a first car - bought it from a colleague as his wife had stopped driving - all paperwork lost and sat for 2 years, 10 years old but with just 32k miles. I paid £200, changed the oil/battery and drove it around for a few months, realised I wasn't a great fan of the thing and sold it on for £1.2k.
Yeah for the BMW it was something like that - however I did have a couple of rust spots tidied, the autbox rebuilt and a few other jobs done (alternator/diff seals) alongside servicing so allowing for insurance/tax etc. i was probably even overall.

The lotus is perfect and exactly why I bought it - know it'll have to be moved on in a year to two to pay a rather large SDLT bill when we next move....

davek_964

11,211 posts

204 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
It's generally luck with the market, but I've done it few times :

Porsche 996 turbo, bought it from a dealer for ~£36k @ 21k miles. Kept it for 5.5 years, sold it at ~63k miles for about the same.

Ferrari 348, bought from a dealer for £28k, sold 18 months later for the same - although it's not a good example for this thread, since it's probably worth £50k now.

Done better with the 360 I currently own - bought in Nov 2013 for £39,500 @ 21k miles. Prices are beginning to drop on these, so it's hard to predict but I'd certainly expect somewhere between £55k - £65k now (think it's got ~35k miles on it now).

EarlOfHazard

3,630 posts

187 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Bought an L322 Rangie a few years ago from a work colleague. Compressor was knackered so i only gave 2k for it. Had that and some valve thing fixed for about 1100, and sold for 4k. Could have got more, but sold it to a car dealer and thus there were no comebacks.

Also bought a 330i for 2k from another collegue. I put standard MV1 alloys on it and took the garish chrome 19s off.
Got 3k from a mate for it, and 150 quid for the 19s on Ebay.

designforlife

3,742 posts

192 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Integra DC5, bought for £9k two and a bit years ago, sold it at the 2 year mark for £9k. Did about 6k miles in it in that time.

Spent quite a bit on tarting it up, but none of that was essential to the running of the car, more down to expecting to be keeping it longer than i ended up.

irocfan

48,853 posts

219 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
the 3 cars leading up to my SLK made me about £6,500 smile

The Cardinal

1,381 posts

281 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Bought a Clio Williams in 2003 for £4,600 (no.123 of the original 400).

Sold it a year later at a full asking price of £5,250. I did spend a little money on refurb'ing the alloys and tending to some cosmetic rust, but that was covered by the price difference.

Apparently, the car is off the road now, but still owned by the same guy.

It'd be worth a lot more than £5k now!

Jcwjosh

Original Poster:

963 posts

141 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
p4cks said:
Bought a VX220 Turbo for £5500 which needed a new dash panel, the airbag light resetting and a few other relatively simple jobs to make presentable. Think it cost me about £400 to get right and I then put a £250 remap and a precat pipe and after a few months sold it for £10,500.

I knew what was needed and the costs to get it right, unlike the guy I bought it from who didn't have a clue.

ETA: Special mention to the 996.2 I had that needed an engine rebuild within a month of me buying it. All in I was only £700 down in the 10 ruinous months I owned that complete POS. I'm still proud of that one.

Edited by p4cks on Thursday 18th July 11:20
Thats pretty awesome with the VX220 sounds like you enjoyed it before shifting it !

Wow r.e 996 that must of put a real downer on porsche ownership, would you every go back to the brand if you havent already ?

Jcwjosh

Original Poster:

963 posts

141 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
RDMcG said:
997.2 GT3RS.

Bought it for list and sold it after four years for about 10% over. Ran 11,000km and lots of track.

Was in Canada so pricing different obviously.
Pretty much my dream car to be honest, a friend recently offloaded a gt3 after a years ownership and he said that was even a bit too much for British roads.

What are you in now out of interest ?

Jcwjosh

Original Poster:

963 posts

141 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
designforlife said:
Integra DC5, bought for £9k two and a bit years ago, sold it at the 2 year mark for £9k. Did about 6k miles in it in that time.

Spent quite a bit on tarting it up, but none of that was essential to the running of the car, more down to expecting to be keeping it longer than i ended up.
These do seem to hold there money quite well and even increased recently. What colour was yours ? i know the imports can be quite sensitive with spec ie the dc2 ek9 civic yellows can warrant a premium

p4cks

7,480 posts

228 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Jcwjosh said:
Wow r.e 996 that must of put a real downer on porsche ownership, would you every go back to the brand if you havent already ?
Given that a few friends and acquaintances had similar experience with their 911s, albeit not as lucky as me to break even, I wouldn't wish a Porsche onto my worst enemy.

RDMcG

20,832 posts

236 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Jcwjosh said:
Pretty much my dream car to be honest, a friend recently offloaded a gt3 after a years ownership and he said that was even a bit too much for British roads.

What are you in now out of interest ?
997.1 RS, 991.1RS, Panamera ST Turbo and some other stuff. The 911s are primarily track cars, but the 7.1 os now 12 years old so it leads a more leisurely life. Not great fun in traffic for sure.

1Rb

348 posts

184 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
Nothing as interesting or exotic as some of the other posters, but I make it an annual exercise to break even or modestly profit over purchase price plus any servicing or work required. Have done this for the past decade, see my profile for the cars.

dundarach

6,210 posts

257 months

Thursday 18th July 2019
quotequote all
what did you buy - TVR S3
for how much - £5000
how many miles did you do - not many 10,000
how many years of ownership - 3 to 4
what did you sell it for - £5000