Longevity - Lack of

[FiF]

Prinny said:

It’s a generalisation of course, but I’d suggest it’s representative of modern-day, non-enthusiast car expectations.(sadly).

With the seemingly unstoppable rise of the £/month lifestyle, anything 10+ years old & ‘vanilla’ is just not desired in the image/status obsessed UK.

The same isn’t true in Europe, or indeed many other countries. The UK really does have a unique 2nd hand market, cars are much cheaper here than most other places.

Examples:
We’ve got a 2005 ford fiesta 1.4 zetec in Cyprus, it’s just ticked over 100,000km. The paint is faded to buggery from the sun, and panels have scratches & dents galore, but it’s otherwise mechanically fine. It’d go for 4k Euros, in less than a week. The same car here is <£1k.

https://home.mobile.de/A-M-AUTOCENTER#ses
I used to walk past that place in 2016 quite regularly, and popped in for a chat a few times. All his stock of Merc v8’s appears to have been shifted & replaced by Audi - there’s a definite downgrade in the quality of the cars listed, but the prices on the whole are still a good few thousand higher, like for like vs. UK.

So yes, a 15 yr old car is viewed as ‘ancient’ by the public in general...

Particularly the bit in bold. I'd not agree with that, I'd class myself as an enthusiast, but recently effectively gave away our 15 year old shopping trolley Fabia. Had it from new, it had less than 50k on clock, but it had succumbed to the dreaded random frequent electrical gremlins, partly caused by the crap design of the loom routed through the plenum chamber. Latter fills with water, it soaks the loom, damp wicks along it. Coupled with general corrosion of plugs, sockets and what have you, can spend hours chasing down random strange electrical faults. Some are annoying but not terminal, e.g. front electric windows suddenly start operating using the switch for the other side, and then cure themselves. Speakers go on blink. Dashboard lights illuminate but car still runs fine. Fuel gauge stops working. Temperature / coolant light on. All take time to solve, and of course sometimes the fault is actually a sensor / component that has genuinely failed, and sometimes you just have to go round the loom fiddling about, unplugging stuff, cleaning contacts, plugging it back in and you are good to go.

It's no good saying, for example, I'll renew the loom, because a new one is several times the value of the vehicle, and one from a scrappy is going to be as bad or worse. Eventually you get to a point where the fault defeats you and you need to spend money with a garage that has the right kit to code everything back again /or it needs a component that makes it an uneconomic repair, e.g. 700 quid for a component that in reality manufacturer paid 20 quid for, with no guarantee of a repair, real example on a 6 year old Matiz.

The problem is, as others have said, used vehicles have such low value monetarily in UK is the issue, not people's desire to keep it running or wanting something ooh shiny shiny.

It's getting worse, no daylight running lights on a newish van, just out of warranty, because of the design of the lamp units they are testable. Only fix is a new expensive black box available from agent, nowhere else possible as it has to be coded. What about when it's ten year old?

[loskie]

kylos27 said:

But does anyone know "WHY" used cars are so cheap in the uk vs other countries?

. My reason would be the British climate combined with salted roads and Rhd format . That limits the export market .

Over to you ....

Possibly because people in the UK are generally so materialistic, shallow and vein. Add to that finance and a lack of the consumer's understanding of the real cost and debt they will be in.
After all you and I can't see their debt but we can see their shiny new white Merc , BMW or Audi so we "must" be impressed with how well they are doing!

Just look at all the pouting selfies on facebook that pretty sums up what I am talking about. They all want peer validation. "twit twoo missus looking good" a post following a fat munters selfie.

So that reduces the desire for used cars.
Me I have a healthy bank balance, house no mortgage currently driving my 52 plate Forester

[Jonny_]

I think it's bloody great!

5 to 10 year old cars are an absolute steal these days. Right hand drive prevents demand from the rest of Europe pushing used prices up, and the current trend for leasing brand spankers or otherwise financing "nearly new" stuff means the market is flooded with perfectly good cars just out of their warranty period.

And now, the British public are finally drifting away from diesel again, so give it a few years and there'll be a glut of bargain no-longer-nearly-new petrols and hybrids going for peanuts.

Long may it continue!

[Speed addicted]

loskie said:

kylos27 said:

But does anyone know "WHY" used cars are so cheap in the uk vs other countries?

. My reason would be the British climate combined with salted roads and Rhd format . That limits the export market .

Over to you ....

Possibly because people in the UK are generally so materialistic, shallow and vein. Add to that finance and a lack of the consumer's understanding of the real cost and debt they will be in.
After all you and I can't see their debt but we can see their shiny new white Merc , BMW or Audi so we "must" be impressed with how well they are doing!

Just look at all the pouting selfies on facebook that pretty sums up what I am talking about. They all want peer validation. "twit twoo missus looking good" a post following a fat munters selfie.

So that reduces the desire for used cars.
Me I have a healthy bank balance, house no mortgage currently driving my 52 plate Forester

Materialistic, shallow and vein are hardly limited to the UK though!

There does seem t be a perception that older cars are unreliable, that anything out of warranty is essentially a ticking time-bomb of expense.
My 2005 BMW 645 isn't going anywhere any time soon, it's been paid for since the day I got it and any repair costs are pretty insignificant compared to the depreciation on a new one.

[98elise]

Bill said:

'Twas always thus. 12-15 year old cars with 150+k on them aren't worth much. And then a clutch goes...

Yup...a clutch can be many hundreds, especially if the have a DFM.

I was quoted 1k by ford for a mondeo couch change.

[Sheepshanks]

kylos27 said:

But does anyone know "WHY" used cars are so cheap in the uk vs other countries?

. My reason would be the British climate combined with salted roads and Rhd format . That limits the export market .

Over to you ....

I think it's because too many new cars are sold here - and that's compounded, as you say, by the resale market also being restricted to the UK due to RHD. To balance so many new car coming into the market, older ones have to be taken out of the market earlier than they need to be.

I genuinely think the twice yearly plate change has a part in flooding the market with new cars - it's like cars age twice as fast as a 3yr old car is 6 plate change old.

[Ahbefive]

98elise said:

I was quoted 1k by ford for a mondeo couch change.

The seats wore out?

[OldGermanHeaps]

A clutch is often under £50, and electrical problems that are "dealer only" normally have solutions that need a bit more thought and research but aren't all that expensive if you learn something beyond module swapping.
My 6 year old daughter can now do more mechanical tasks than more than half the adult males I come across. This can't be an ability thing, its people choosing to be ignorant and visit a garage for every little job, then whining about the price and doing man maths to justify renting the latest shiny soulless stbox.
Tbh though it suits me, the number of interesting cars I have bought faulty for buttons, fixed them up for a fraction of what the owner was quoted from a garage, had a bit of fun in them for a few months to a year and then sold them on for a profit would have been much harder to do in mainland europe.
You can see it in the way the polish guys round here maintain their older audis and bmws immaculately whereas the majority would drive it until the first moderate bill, scrap it then moan about it.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Saturday 13th January 14:06

[Prinny]

Sheepshanks said:

kylos27 said:

But does anyone know "WHY" used cars are so cheap in the uk vs other countries?

. My reason would be the British climate combined with salted roads and Rhd format . That limits the export market .

Over to you ....

I think it's because too many new cars are sold here - and that's compounded, as you say, by the resale market also being restricted to the UK due to RHD. To balance so many new car coming into the market, older ones have to be taken out of the market earlier than they need to be.

I genuinely think the twice yearly plate change has a part in flooding the market with new cars - it's like cars age twice as fast as a 3yr old car is 6 plate change old.

I also think some of it can be attributed all the way back into the ‘80’s, and the (iirc) £19,250 tax threshold. So many employers got around that with the ‘perk’ company car, which has led to an expectation in the workforce for new metal every 3 years (generalising) that I’ve never seen anywhere else. A huge amount of the UK market runs off this, and so over the years, people’s expectations have begun to revolve around it.
I don’t have figures in front of me, (we’re out & about), if I remember, might do a bit of digging later.

[Ahbefive]

OldGermanHeaps said:

A clutch is often under £50,

If you drive an R/C car maybe

[Gerradi]

Diesel 2007,do all the work,people go on about Clutches etc, but these damned DPF units are a pain along with the DMF flywheels & its easy to see why these cars on on the back of a truck!

My other cars are old cars all in the " I dont drive a number plate just a car I enjoy driving" category :
15yrs old E55k AMG 130k , 16yr old Alfa Spider 916 98000k do all the work myself & enjoy doing it...in fact I have had some new tools for Christmas & cannot wait to use them (sad I know ) so yes they are both great fun & hope to keep them going for a lot longer.

I guess no mortgage lets me spend more on tools & petrol Lol

[OldGermanHeaps]

Ahbefive said:

OldGermanHeaps said:

A clutch is often under £50,

If you drive an R/C car maybe

I just paid £42 from ecp for a valeo clutch for a 2.0 16v peugeot 307, £14 for a pair of bottom balljoints, and £20 from the scrappy for a full set of engine mounts and a couple of bits of inerior trim that look like they were brand new.
It taken around 4 hours to fit all that including carefully explaining to a 6 year old what all the bits were and what we were doing, and letting her do quite a few bits that didn't put her at risk of hurting herself.
We did cheat a bit by having air tools but using hand tools would have only added an hour or 2. It certainly beats sitting in front of the tv or ipad.
This afternoon we are going to replace a failed parking sensor on our allroad (£12 off ebay) and i think if she wants to she can do most of the job with me telling her what to do. I bet if you went to audi you wouldn't have much change from £200.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Saturday 13th January 14:28

[Gerradi]

OldGermanHeaps said:

I just paid £42 from ecp for a valeo clutch for a 2.0 16v peugeot 307cc, £14 for a pair of bottom balljoints, and £20 from the scrappy for a full set of engine mounts and a couple of bits of inerior trim that look like they were brand new.
It taken around 4 hours to fit all that including carefully explaining to a 6 year old what all the bits were and what we were doing, and letting her do quite a few bits that didn't put her at risk of hurting herself.
We did cheat a bit by having air tools but using hand tools would have only added an hour or 2. It certainly beats sitting in front of the tv or ipad.
This afternoon we are going to replace a failed parking sensor on our allroad (£12 off ebay) and i think if she wants to she can do most of the job with me telling her what to do. I bet if you went to audi you wouldn't have much change from £200.

Edited by OldGermanHeaps on Saturday 13th January 14:18

Brilliant...thats exactly how I got into mechanics from watching helping my old Dad ...can't beat it ...well done they'll remember & cherish this for life!

[OldGermanHeaps]

I know what does contribute to this among certain people though, my gran told me she was going to get rid of her 7 year old punto with only 28k miles as the clutch pedal sank to the floor and the garage told her they had to take the gearbox off to change the master cylinder, and since they were doing that they should really change the flywheel and clutch at the same time. £620.
The maser cylinder bolts onto the top of the gearbox, 3 bolts, 1 hose, no seized fastners, very easy access. It took me 10 minutes to change and 5 minutes to bleed, but about 20 minutes to convince her that was it fixed properly for £22.
Thats a busy wee garage as well, if they pull that st all the time with ignorant punters its easy to see why so many people take the option of getting fleased

[HTP99]

Wife's 53 plate, 50k miles C3 was scrapped this time last year, it never let us down, it drove fine, yes it had battle scars and wasn't particularly looked after, but it would have just needed too much spent on it to get it through the MOT.

It did seem such a shame though.

[Mr2Mike]

OldGermanHeaps said:

My 6 year old daughter can now do more mechanical tasks than more than half the adult males I come across. This can't be an ability thing, its people choosing to be ignorant and visit a garage for every little job, then whining about the price and doing man maths to justify renting the latest shiny soulless stbox.

It's weird, but people seem take some kind of pride in their general ineptness these days.

[Mr Tidy]

That's a bit worrying - my older car is on a 52 plate and my "newer" one is on a 56 plate!

But I've finally realised that paying to keep them up to scratch is cheaper than buying nearly new cars and watching them lose thousands in value each year!

When I started driving in the 70s rust was always the killer after about 10 years, but it looks like electrics last longer (hopefully).

[OldGermanHeaps]

HTP99 said:

Wife's 53 plate, 50k miles C3 was scrapped this time last year, it never let us down, it drove fine, yes it had battle scars and wasn't particularly looked after, but it would have just needed too much spent on it to get it through the MOT.

It did seem such a shame though.

What is "too much", what did it fail on?

[anonymous-user]

The average age of a car going to scrap is older now that it's ever been. That 53 plate car being scrapped now is 15 year old for fk sake, do you remember seeing many cars from 1980 driving around daily back in '95? No, of course you don't because they were almost all dead by 1989.

Modern cars can be criticised for a lack of involvement, but their longevity and reliability are better than they have ever been.

[Pericoloso]

My FIAT has made it into it's 3rd decade and now I want to see it get to it's 25th birthday.

I originally had a 5 year plan when I bought it at 15yo.