New (2nd hand) car every 6/12 months? - Page 1 - Car Buying

Tiglon

Original Poster

536 posts

66 months

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Yesterday (13:00)

Looking to replace my Yeti with something more fun for the commute and struggling to decide. The problem is that I want about 10 different cars. Recently I've only really bought cars that I planned to keep for years and then had fun modifying them, but why not just buy a different car every 6-12 months and own all the cars I want one after the other?

My commute is a lot longer than it's ever been before and is largely nice A/B roads, so the commuting car does about 15k-20k miles per year.

First question - is there a downside I've not thought of here? Obviously there's the margin of buying selling regularly, but if I buy and sell privately as much as possible that shouldn't be too bad. We're also talking about £5-10k cars, so it's not huge sums involved.

Second question - any suggestions for cars to add to the list? Or that should go to the top of the list?

It needs to be fun to drive, but doesn't necessarily need to be the last word in driving engagement.
I'm not too bothered about infotainment/carplay etc, as long as I can connect my phone via bluetooth.
The family car is 500bhp, so the commuting car doesn't need to be too powerful, although more power is always better!
It only needs to take me to work and back, other cars can do family trips, tip runs, load lugging etc. Practicality wise, as long as it has one seat it'll be fine.
I like convertibles.
MPG matters due to the mileage, anything 40+ would be fine, maybe even high 30's.
I might be too old to do 60 miles a day in something really uncomfortable/noisy - I'm not sure an MR2 Mk3 with the engine right behind my head would be fun these days.
Budget up to £10k max.

Current longlist:

Peugeot 208 GTi (or BPS)
F56 Mini Cooper S (or JCS) (or convertible)
Peugeot 308 GTi BPS
Alfa Romeo Giulietta QV
VW Beetle (with EA888)
Ford Fiesta ST
Mazda MX-5
Abarth 595 (or 595C)
Fiat Panda 100

Most options will probably be given a remap, but no other modifications.

ZX10R NIN

30,126 posts

149 months

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Yesterday (14:34)

Edited by ZX10R NIN on Tuesday 21st April 15:39

Tiglon

Original Poster

536 posts

66 months

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Yesterday (14:48)

Appreciate the suggestions.

Astra GTC is a good shout, to be honest I think I'd previously discounted it out of snobbery. Probably worth another look.

Didn't know about the Kia Proceed GT, worth a look too.

i30, even with a remap, still doesn't have much power and isn't light either. Is it that good to drive?

Z4 with the 2.0 was on my list (as a remapped 18i or 20i with the exact same engine as the 28i), but I've already had a 35is so I'd rather try something new first.

I think Giulietta Cloverleaf is the same as the QV?

Q30 was on my list, but it's just too heavy for what it is. Plenty of power available though.

DD3566

107 posts

98 months

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Yesterday (14:51)

I've often thought that going through cars regularly could be a decent way of minimizing risk of long term issues while having a lot of fun experiencing a wide range of vehicles. My problem is I always get attached to cars and like to see them through to being the best they can be, and generally hate the private selling experience laugh

You could always hop between a summer and winter car, i.e buy an MX5 in April then sell in September, then buy the 208 GTI for the winter etc. I think the biggest problem you could run into is ending up stuck with a lemon which ruins the value you have invested in the car. In theory owning a car for only 6 months shouldn't see too much depreciation, but the odds of ending up with a lemon increase with the sheer amount of cars you'd be cycling through.

Having such brief flings with each car might also mean you miss out on some of the experience, usually takes me a little while to really understand the limits and character of a car and start to get the best out of it. By the time you're getting to know the car you'd be looking to move it on for the next thing. Which is fine of course, but for me that's why I tend to hold onto cars for longer. Also if you do plan on modifying the car then you'll probably lose the cost of the mods with each car, meaning you better budget for a healthy mods pot laugh

Tiglon

Original Poster

536 posts

66 months

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Yesterday (15:29)

DD3566 said:

I've often thought that going through cars regularly could be a decent way of minimizing risk of long term issues while having a lot of fun experiencing a wide range of vehicles. My problem is I always get attached to cars and like to see them through to being the best they can be, and generally hate the private selling experience laugh

You could always hop between a summer and winter car, i.e buy an MX5 in April then sell in September, then buy the 208 GTI for the winter etc. I think the biggest problem you could run into is ending up stuck with a lemon which ruins the value you have invested in the car. In theory owning a car for only 6 months shouldn't see too much depreciation, but the odds of ending up with a lemon increase with the sheer amount of cars you'd be cycling through.

Having such brief flings with each car might also mean you miss out on some of the experience, usually takes me a little while to really understand the limits and character of a car and start to get the best out of it. By the time you're getting to know the car you'd be looking to move it on for the next thing. Which is fine of course, but for me that's why I tend to hold onto cars for longer. Also if you do plan on modifying the car then you'll probably lose the cost of the mods with each car, meaning you better budget for a healthy mods pot laugh

Mrs Tiglon says I spend far too much money modifying cars, so this is the solution I've presented to her as a way to avoid the need to modify. It was met with scepticism, but I'm going to press ahead...

Lemon risk is definitely real, I guess I'll just have to be extra vigilant when buying and accept that I might lose out sometimes. Usually I budget 10-20% of a used car's price for immediate repairs and consumables replacements. One issue is that I like premium tyres, so I may have to resist the urge to upgrade upon purchase, otherwise I could be spending over £1,000 per year on tyres.

Even 6 months with a car will see me doing 8,000 - 10,000 miles so hopefully that will be enough to get to know it.

paul_c123

1,983 posts

17 months

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Yesterday (17:57)

I think the problem you'll have is losing a significant amount of money each time you trade.

The reason being, if you're buying and selling privately, you're inevitably going to end up buying something that needs work/maintenance/tyres/brakes at some point. Dealers are able to buy trade and sell retail but they do an amount of work on the cars in their brief ownership, it is very marginal even for them. So you might lose money each time - but it might be "a little" money and you might make some on the occasional car.

If you can buy trade and sell retail, the figures start adding up (or maybe, buy at trade price but sell privately). The barrier to being able to source/buy at trade prices isn't that great.

Tiglon

Original Poster

536 posts

66 months

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Yesterday (18:43)

paul_c123 said:

I think the problem you'll have is losing a significant amount of money each time you trade.

The reason being, if you're buying and selling privately, you're inevitably going to end up buying something that needs work/maintenance/tyres/brakes at some point. Dealers are able to buy trade and sell retail but they do an amount of work on the cars in their brief ownership, it is very marginal even for them. So you might lose money each time - but it might be "a little" money and you might make some on the occasional car.

If you can buy trade and sell retail, the figures start adding up (or maybe, buy at trade price but sell privately). The barrier to being able to source/buy at trade prices isn't that great.

All very true, but to be clear I'm not aiming for cheap/free motoring, I understand that I will have to spend money.

Let's say I buy a car for £8,000.
I own it for a year and have to spend £1,000 on it in that time.
I can only get £6,000 for it after a year and 15-20,000 miles.

So I've spent £3,000 in a year, based on 25% depreciation & buy/sell margin and plenty of maintenance. £250 per month. I'm ok with that to drive cars that I enjoy.

In 2 years the Yeti has probably depreciated by about £2,000 and I would guess I've spent £2,500 net on modifications - so that's a similar cost per month.

Cars are not investments to me, so "losing money" isn't really the right terminology. It's spending money.

paul_c123

1,983 posts

17 months

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Yesterday (18:54)

The point being, you'll lose a significant amount each time you change, in addition to any depreciation. So its an expensive way to do motoring. It is interesting though. I get bored with cars quick and went through a phase of buying another one every 6 months or so. I limited myself to cheap cars in the main. Then I found a car I really liked, and kept it for about 5 years. Eventually it reached a "phase" of its life it made sense to sell it (at a significant loss - see depreciation) then I was back to 6 months cars.

I'm now at roughly 1/month.

Russet Grange

2,705 posts

50 months

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Yesterday (19:09)

I struggle to change cars. s

tty old Leaf part of the family, just coming up to 12 years old, owned from new. RAV4 we've had for six years, it's the perfect car to own alongside the Leaf (I'm not interested in sporty/fun, just reliability and functionality).

There's no reason to change either, other than something with a longer EV range, but the fuel savings would be £60/month at best and anything suitable is £10k+ which makes saving £60.00 a false economy,

ZX10R NIN

30,126 posts

149 months

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Yesterday (19:27)

Tiglon said:

Appreciate the suggestions.

Astra GTC is a good shout, to be honest I think I'd previously discounted it out of snobbery. Probably worth another look.

Didn't know about the Kia Proceed GT, worth a look too.

i30, even with a remap, still doesn't have much power and isn't light either. Is it that good to drive?

Z4 with the 2.0 was on my list (as a remapped 18i or 20i with the exact same engine as the 28i), but I've already had a 35is so I'd rather try something new first.

I think Giulietta Cloverleaf is the same as the QV?

Q30 was on my list, but it's just too heavy for what it is. Plenty of power available though.

The Quadrifoglio are dct's wheras the Cloverleafs are manuals.

The ProCeed/Ceed GT's are the more of a sporty drive than there i30 Turbo cousin.

ChrisH72

2,832 posts

76 months

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Yesterday (20:22)

It's not a terrible idea as long as you're happy to buy and sell privately on a regular basis. Personally I couldn't do it but if you are confident and thick skinned enough to deal with the scammers and time wasters then no reason why not. There's always risk involved with buying privately but you are aware of that and accept that it could be costly.

A popular way to drive cars with short term ownership and regular changes is leasing. If you can track down the cheap deals like the Tesla M3 at the moment you can get a brand new car for your £3k a year. But you probably won't get interesting cars so maybe not.

I tend to go for 3 year ownership. Gives me time to get used to a car with my lowish mileage. I do get twitchy after a couple of years but I do also enjoy the looking and researching and can spend several months on that stage!

biggbn

30,625 posts

244 months

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Yesterday (21:00)

I actually did what the OP suggests for a few years. I bought low mileage low owner unusual cars, enjoyed them and sold them on. Rarely lost a penny and on the odd occasion I did, the profits made up for it. But. Easy to get fingers burnt. I was lucky as I had bought and sold unusual old cars several years earlier as an enjoyable hobby and developed a knack for it, but its easy to buy a pig in a poke...

andyalan10

521 posts

161 months

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Yesterday (21:02)

I often think that if I had more money than I actually do, being able to go through a whole range of low-medium price cars would be much more fun than having a much smaller number of expensive cars, so I completely see your line of thinking.

But... Have you thought about how you manage the changeover? Most of the cars on your list are relatively unusual. Do you have the present car on the market all the time, and start looking for the next car when a buyer appears? Do you source the next one and have it on the drive, then try and sell? If you have a lengthy commute and a full time job, when do you propose offering viewings and handovers?

These might be surmountable problems - plentiful parking at home, multi-car insurance etc. But I think they need to be taken into account.

Also if I were embarking on such a plan I think I'd broaden the list out from small and medium hot hatches and one sports car. How about a Jaguar XJ diesel for 6 months? Damn, run out of distinctive long distance commuter cars already... How about a Vectra VXR or whatever with the 2.8 V6, an Alfa coupe might be the right sort of budget. You get the idea.

trashbat

6,255 posts

177 months

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Yesterday (21:19)

Boring but I'd suggest you pick cars that you don't need to map.

Maps or indeed any performance mods are best applied when you've had some experience with the base car and understand what you're missing and what mods might offer. Otherwise you're spending money that you're not getting back, and you don't really know what you're getting for it. Plus it encourages you to get attached. If you're going to keep switching, try to be transactional & a bit dispassionate about it.

Deep Thought

39,210 posts

221 months

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Yesterday (21:34)

Tiglon said:

Looking to replace my Yeti with something more fun for the commute and struggling to decide. The problem is that I want about 10 different cars. Recently I've only really bought cars that I planned to keep for years and then had fun modifying them, but why not just buy a different car every 6-12 months and own all the cars I want one after the other?

My commute is a lot longer than it's ever been before and is largely nice A/B roads, so the commuting car does about 15k-20k miles per year.

First question - is there a downside I've not thought of here? Obviously there's the margin of buying selling regularly, but if I buy and sell privately as much as possible that shouldn't be too bad. We're also talking about £5-10k cars, so it's not huge sums involved.

Second question - any suggestions for cars to add to the list? Or that should go to the top of the list?

It needs to be fun to drive, but doesn't necessarily need to be the last word in driving engagement.
I'm not too bothered about infotainment/carplay etc, as long as I can connect my phone via bluetooth.
The family car is 500bhp, so the commuting car doesn't need to be too powerful, although more power is always better!
It only needs to take me to work and back, other cars can do family trips, tip runs, load lugging etc. Practicality wise, as long as it has one seat it'll be fine.
I like convertibles.
MPG matters due to the mileage, anything 40+ would be fine, maybe even high 30's.
I might be too old to do 60 miles a day in something really uncomfortable/noisy - I'm not sure an MR2 Mk3 with the engine right behind my head would be fun these days.
Budget up to £10k max.

Current longlist:

Peugeot 208 GTi (or BPS)
F56 Mini Cooper S (or JCS) (or convertible)
Peugeot 308 GTi BPS
Alfa Romeo Giulietta QV
VW Beetle (with EA888)
Ford Fiesta ST
Mazda MX-5
Abarth 595 (or 595C)
Fiat Panda 100

Most options will probably be given a remap, but no other modifications.

I did "similar" for quite a few years and pretty much broke even over that time. Cars i bought included -

BMW Z4 Coupe
BMW E90 330i
Mk4 Golf R32
Focus 2.0T ST-2
Volvos S40 T5
Mercedes C350 Coupe

You quickly get a feel for when something is "cheap" and worth snapping up. Sometimes they need nothing at all, sometimes a bit of TLC.

As you've stated you really want to be buying privately and selling privately. If you buy off a dealer and then trade in you'll blow your brains out each time.

Tiglon

Original Poster

536 posts

66 months

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Yesterday (21:45)

Some interesting thoughts.

"Just lease a Tesla" is a very sensible solution. I think it's about £350 a month for the mileage I need and I'd save £200 on fuel at current prices. I just don't know that I'd enjoy it as much.

The reason for the smaller cars is that I want the economy. Bigger fun cars tend to be thirsty, and more expensive to buy and maintain. Buying big Jags etc every year magnifies the risk quite a lot I would think.

To manage the changeover, it would be a case of putting the current car up for sale, keeping an eye on what's out there and using the family car to commute if I have a gap. Mrs Tiglon has her own car so we have a spare. Because I have a longer list of cars it would be waiting for the right example of one of ten cars rather than one specific one.

My job is quite flexible when I need it to be.

Lots of challenges and risks. I could just buy an old Leaf and be £200 better off every month.

edc

9,515 posts

275 months

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Yesterday (22:31)

Dealing with the buying/selling, advertising, insurance etc every 6 months for an everyday car sounds draining to me. I have 3 cars at home and already find planning the insurance, tax, servicing, infrequent repairs outside of servicing, a chore.

Deep Thought

39,210 posts

221 months

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16:00

edc said:

Dealing with the buying/selling, advertising, insurance etc every 6 months for an everyday car sounds draining to me. I have 3 cars at home and already find planning the insurance, tax, servicing, infrequent repairs outside of servicing, a chore.

Fair enough. Though its a good way to try a good amount or fun cars with neither a big nor long term financial commitment.

driving