Owning/running two cars - good or bad idea?

[TB Rich]

Having recently gone through the calculations for comparing this mhyself, it can be cheaper to have 2 cars for sure. The repair and running costs shouldnt be an issue because the 2nd car's use will be that of fun/luxury - so if you cant afford to fix it straight away then so be it, its not needed daily afterall.
It means also that the 2nd car can be say more focused and less practicle i.e more fun Overall tho it works out much of a muchness so will really be specific to the 2 cars your looking at (essentially depreciation effects).

However despite the sums, for me doing 30k+ miles a year, do I really want to be in a cod piece of a car for all that time? I decided I didn't so picking up MkV GT TDI, sure it'll be comical on a track day but hey ho, 55mpg on the motorway vs 37mpg of the ST will save me nearly 2k in fuel Once the OH S-max is paid off its treat time then not playing 2nd fiddle again

Also if your considering a V8 in only a year, then the bigger picture suggests do whats best now, which could well be run only 1 car and make that a shed - save for the V8 best you can?

[grumpy]

Two cars. Elise for fun and an L200 for everything else.

I've had the L200 for 8 years, it's a 2000 vehicle with 72000 on the clock and doesn't put a foot wrong, does all that's asked of it and flys through every mot.

I can leave it parked anywhere without worrying and other drivers tend to get out of the way.

st on fuel mind you.

[falkster]

I wouldn't worry about it, if you want it then get it!
I worried about running a second car but was anal about putting on too many miles on my M3.
If you go with your current insurer you might get a good deal for insuring a second car.
I run:
ML55 as my daily
E30 M3
968CS
Cortina 1600e
Daimler Double 6

[A.C.E]

we have 3 in the house, i run 2 and the wife the other.

daily's-

citroen c4 hdi 1.6sx (mine)
citroen c4 1.6 sx (petrol, mrs)

porsche 944 s2 cabrio (mine)

the citroen of mine is cheaper than the mrs to tax, to insure and fuel (55 mpg round town compared to the wifes 32mpg) but the mrs swopped hers from a 4wd as she didnt need to have something big anymore and wanted to reduce the spend on the 19mpg she was getting.

the porker is on a classic policy, a third of the citroen to insure, but a lot lower mpg and more than double to tax than the hdi.

servicing is actually cheaper on the porsche at my local garage than the hdi, but parts are dearer (not much tho suprisingly!)

each of the cars dont do mega mileages, i work local, and so does the wife and the porsche gets used on every dry day from spring to autumn except when we go out as a family. fuel wise, i'll put around 20 quid in the porsche every 10 days (on average) and a full tank in the c4 hdi lasts about 2 months! (just commuting to work, supermarket runs, local trips etc....) the wife fills her c4 up and lasts about a month (she gets around 340 miles to a tank whereas i get around 680!)
are 2 cars cheaper to run than one? debateable.

with me running both my 944 and my diesel c4, it is only marginly more expensive than the wife running just her petrol c4, but if i used the porsche for longer journeys and throughout the year other than just the dry warm parts of the year it would be considerably more.

[johnpeat]

Ari said:

It WILL cost you more to run a second car as well as your MR2.

You might save a few quid on petrol, but it'll be more than offset by having two lots of insurance, tax, MOT, repairs, etc etc.

We did the maths for this in another thread - 'want' car in that thread was an RX8 doing about 20mpg - 240 mile commute each week = 12 Gallons of fuel.

Buying a £1500-2000 car which will do 40mpg you save 6 gallons of fuel a week - that's £36 a week/£1872 a year!! and that's a fairly average commute.

You do have a 2nd-car to service but maintenance costs/depreciation will be reduced on the RX and roadtax+insurance would have to be stunning to eat the rest of that saving (and your 'shed' is barely going to lose value).

Worst thing is losing NCB on your '2nd' car as it's likely you have to nominate the 'want' car for that - but even then...

Edited by johnpeat on Saturday 23 July 00:48

[300bhp/ton]

johnpeat said:

nottyash said:

An M3 as my weekend car
A Golf GTI turbo as my everyday run about
An MR2 Roadster as the Mrs everyday runabout (just replaced a Prelude)

Still cheaper than buying one brand new 20 grand car.

I seriously doubt that - in fact I doubt the M3 ALONE is cheaper than running a brand-new 20 grand car when you consider running costs and insurance (depending on what sort of M3 I suppose).

You have three lots of insurance, three lots of tax, three lots of servicing, three cars corroding at the same rate even if they're not being used (exhausts and cats fail over time even if not being used) and so on...

The only situation I can see where running 2 cars (for one driver) makes sense is where you have a 'cherished' car which does terrible MPG - running a high-MPG daily driver will easily save you more money than a car like that will cost.

Problem is you have to leave the cherished car behind everyday and get into the crapbox - and that can be a bit of an ask...

It depends how you work the numbers out though.

A new £20k V6 Insignia for example (or whatever you can buy new for this money) will plummet depreciation. Something like an e46 M3 has a much more stable price. So overall cost of ownership could well be better for multiple cars with far less depreciation.

[Bad Sir Culation]

What's funny is how, if I speak to anyone who isn't really a car person, they just can't accept how it can actually be cheaper running two cars. A mate of mine won't even discuss it as he's adamant it's crazy.

Yet come on here and speak to like minded people and you get a more considered response

[Chris944_S2]

I run two cars, the Alpina B10 and the Alfa 164 V6, both of which return about 25MPG give or take (usually take). If I combine the two that gives 50mpg

More seriously, if you speak to insurance brokers they can mirror your no claims discount even though you still technically have 0 years on the 2nd car. Others have found Admiral multi car policy works well although wasn't in my case.

[Bad Sir Culation]

I think one of the best things I could do would be to put the MR2 away over the winter, and just tax it for 6 months every spring.

[mgmrw2003]

Bad Sir Culation said:

I think diesel > small petrol. Just concerned that a 500 quid effort might not make it to London

Pug 405 non-turb Derv. £186 off of ebay. £8 for diesel solenoid. Wound fuel pump up.

3,000 miles and 7days later, was still going strong. Sold it for £200. Where it then did a 6month service as snotter before got written off

[Ozzie Osmond]

Bad Sir Culation said:

I think one of the best things I could do would be to put the MR2 away over the winter, and just tax it for 6 months every spring.

I know some people do this but IMO cars are much happier when they are used regularly to keep all the parts moving. I've always stuck to this approach and have had very little trouble with my cars.

[Chris71]

trickywoo said:

Insurance on the second car will have zero no claims bonus so don't expect it to be cheap.

Personally, I first went down the two car route because of insurance. Even back in my early twenties I never paid over £400 to insure my fun car and back then (now too probably...) it would have cost well over a grand to insure an interesting all rounder like an M3, say.

At one stage I was insuring my previous TVR for £225 a month on a specialist policy. I'd struggle to insure a moped for that any other way! The Focus (daily driver) was another £450 or so and it was still far less than the cost of insuring an M3/RX8/Monaro that could have fulfilled both roles. It also means you don't have to compromise. If you want a hardcore track-orientated car for the weekends (a bike powered Westfield or something) you can do that without wondering how you're going to get to work or transport wardrobes back from Ikea.

The flipside, is you can't always pick the right one. You find yourself going for the cheap-but-dull daily driver on a work trip and suddenly it transpires there's 50 miles of well-sighted, beautifully twisty B-road between you and your meeting.

[S3K04]

Interesting topic

I would like a V8 German but I travel atleast 1000 miles a month. So a cheap Fiesta (£1000-£1200)? + V8


V8 - £80 p/w fuel
Fiesta - £40 p/w fuel

Insurance

V8 - £1200
Fiesta - £400

Road tax
V8 - £265
Fiesta - £120 ish p/y


Depreciation
V8 + 12,000 p/y = 20% loss
Fiesta - Negligible


So teh answer is one car, a V8 daily