Is depreciation still the biggest motoring cost?

[Mr POD]

miniman said:

Mr POD said:

miniman said:

How much can my £900 car realistically lose?

£900, plus the extra fuel you use because it's old and inefficient.

Doing 18000 miles a year in a realiable 19 year old 1.8 cavalier is great, except that I know that I could save £1500 a year on fuel by buying a more modern diesel. IF I work on a 3 year payback, that gives me £4500 to spend. Assuming that I buy a car that I can get 5 years out of before it's worthless, and that I could get 5 years out of the cavalier (it's done 115K and it's a simple 8V so not much to go wrong) owning the wrong car will cost me £3000 over the next 5 years.

Not sure I agree.

Let's say 10,000 miles, unleaded is 1.31, Diesel is 1.36 a litre.

25 mpg in my 525 = £2,380
40 mpg in a Diesel = £1,544

So £800 difference, and actually I can get 30mpg if I'm careful which halves the difference.

Realistically the difference in fuel might be a grand, two grand? That's the depreciation in a year on a £10,000 diesel runabout.

Now Diesel
Miles 17900 17900
MPG 28 48
MPL 6.16 10.56
£/L 1.35 1.40
Annual Cost 3923 2373
Monthly Cost 327 198
Weekly Cost 75 46
Difference 1550
Price 0 4000
Payback 0 2.58
P per mile saving# 8.65p
P per mile 21.9p 13.3p

My current "Rose-tinted" calcs suggests that if I spend £4K on a Car that achieves 48 mpg, I'd be getting a payback under 3 years. Just got to find the right car now.

(I know I've ignored that I could put £4k in an Isa and get 3%, that the insurance will be higher, that maintenance costs will be higher, that tyres will cost more, but the justification works with the wife.

[miniman]

Yeah, but it's all about risk, isn't it? What could that car cost you in those 3 years? I thought my A4 would be uber- reliable. An ABS pump, ABS ECU and aircon compressor came to £2000 though. With my current car, any issue >£500 = scrapyard.

[Mr POD]

miniman said:

Yeah, but it's all about risk, isn't it? What could that car cost you in those 3 years? I thought my A4 would be uber- reliable. An ABS pump, ABS ECU and aircon compressor came to £2000 though. With my current car, any issue >£500 = scrapyard.

Based on that very sober thought, maybe I should look at Sub £1000 deaseals ?

[Welshbeef]

miniman said:

Yeah, but it's all about risk, isn't it? What could that car cost you in those 3 years? I thought my A4 would be uber- reliable. An ABS pump, ABS ECU and aircon compressor came to £2000 though. With my current car, any issue >£500 = scrapyard.

Know what you mean.
However ECU failure.... I had a rover 216se efi stbox one of the first efi Lucas that killed the ecu twice. Since then no other car I have had nor from memory any friends cars or family members cars have had ecu failure. I'd say it's rare.
Injectors are a risk but less so on later generations of the high pressure common rail.

On my car I had to replace a failed wing mirror as in it didn't demise anymore... £90!!!! Joke but vital for my drive it also stopped the rain or clearing it dangerous on the mway so had to do it else passenger side was blind.

[miniman]

ABS ECU on VAG cars is pretty common. Dealers will quote £1000+ for a new one whereas BBA Reman will rebuild it for £150. I guess my point is - if you are going down the bangernomics route, you have to have an alternative to dealers.