Downgrading to save money
Discussion
Good morning all
I'm currently driving a 2003 Toyota Celica T-Sport and love her dearly. I've spent quite a lot of my time and money on making her my own and improving the handling. I'm an active member on CCUK and my baby was voted car of the year in our club.
Much to my dismay, I'm finally admitting to myself that I need to cut back and save some more money towards buying a house, and could really do with cutting some extra costs. The £1k+ insurance, tax, and sporty fuel consumption are just costs that I could do without for a year or so. Plus I'm always spotting new mods I 'need' to have which doesn't do me any favours.
I have a sportsbike, so won't be giving up my need for speed completely, but for practicality and savings I think the Celica is going to have to go.
However I don't really know what to replace her with.
I love driving, and am a little spoilt with the superb handling Celica, so I really don't want to have to sell my baby and then resort to driving something that handles like a shopping trolley with an underpowered engine.
So what am I looking for?
I'm wanting something small, but with 4/5 doors.
As I'm going to be sacrificing power, I'd love something that handles like it's on rails.
Ideally economical too, so I suppose that means a diesel?
From my Celica Club I have lots of friends in the Jap scene, so would love to find something Jap, but it seems that the majority of cars that come up in my searches are for Peugeots or Renaults
Have you lot got any suggestions?
Do I have to sacrifice my invitations for Jap car events, and buy something French or Vag?
Oh, I'm looking to spend about £4-5k so that puts me at around 2003-2007 plates.
Petrol-wise there's the Toyota Yaris 1.5 T-Sport and Suzuki Swift 1.5 GLX ... but it's proving tough to find something diesel.
Can you help me please?
Sincerely,
Depressed.
Oh, and here's a pic of my Celica... I'll be putting her up for sale early in the new year
I'm currently driving a 2003 Toyota Celica T-Sport and love her dearly. I've spent quite a lot of my time and money on making her my own and improving the handling. I'm an active member on CCUK and my baby was voted car of the year in our club.
Much to my dismay, I'm finally admitting to myself that I need to cut back and save some more money towards buying a house, and could really do with cutting some extra costs. The £1k+ insurance, tax, and sporty fuel consumption are just costs that I could do without for a year or so. Plus I'm always spotting new mods I 'need' to have which doesn't do me any favours.
I have a sportsbike, so won't be giving up my need for speed completely, but for practicality and savings I think the Celica is going to have to go.
However I don't really know what to replace her with.
I love driving, and am a little spoilt with the superb handling Celica, so I really don't want to have to sell my baby and then resort to driving something that handles like a shopping trolley with an underpowered engine.
So what am I looking for?
I'm wanting something small, but with 4/5 doors.
As I'm going to be sacrificing power, I'd love something that handles like it's on rails.
Ideally economical too, so I suppose that means a diesel?
From my Celica Club I have lots of friends in the Jap scene, so would love to find something Jap, but it seems that the majority of cars that come up in my searches are for Peugeots or Renaults
Have you lot got any suggestions?
Do I have to sacrifice my invitations for Jap car events, and buy something French or Vag?
Oh, I'm looking to spend about £4-5k so that puts me at around 2003-2007 plates.
Petrol-wise there's the Toyota Yaris 1.5 T-Sport and Suzuki Swift 1.5 GLX ... but it's proving tough to find something diesel.
Can you help me please?
Sincerely,
Depressed.
Oh, and here's a pic of my Celica... I'll be putting her up for sale early in the new year
I don't reckon your Celica will be worth that much, I've not checked, but you'll be lucky to get more than £4K (also can't see the pic must be blocked here).
So that means you may end up spending more to replace? That's the first fail.
Secondly, I wouldn't exactly say the CTS is an expensive car to run? Insurance is reasonable, the tax is still £220 a year, and it'll get over 30 MPG when driven with a little care (I'm guessing this doesn't happen too often!?)
You're going to have to be prepared to slum it a bit more than in a Yaris T-Sport to make any real savings. Even these small petrol cars like a drink when you start hoofing them around, and judging by your "handle like its on rails" comment, you'll still be driving it spiritedly. Ergo, the savings you'll make will be tiny.
I'm in a similar place in some ways with a 350Z, realised that I would have to own something cheap and nasty to make it worth my while, and have decided just to wait it out and use the GFs car commuting on these days - saves me up to £150 in petrol each month.
I'd like to sell mine but its a roadster, its winter, and so I doubt it would get many bites at the moment.
So that means you may end up spending more to replace? That's the first fail.
Secondly, I wouldn't exactly say the CTS is an expensive car to run? Insurance is reasonable, the tax is still £220 a year, and it'll get over 30 MPG when driven with a little care (I'm guessing this doesn't happen too often!?)
You're going to have to be prepared to slum it a bit more than in a Yaris T-Sport to make any real savings. Even these small petrol cars like a drink when you start hoofing them around, and judging by your "handle like its on rails" comment, you'll still be driving it spiritedly. Ergo, the savings you'll make will be tiny.
I'm in a similar place in some ways with a 350Z, realised that I would have to own something cheap and nasty to make it worth my while, and have decided just to wait it out and use the GFs car commuting on these days - saves me up to £150 in petrol each month.
I'd like to sell mine but its a roadster, its winter, and so I doubt it would get many bites at the moment.
realistically 4.5-5k for the Celica.
my annual mileage isn't huge, under 6000 miles as I commute on the Tube, so it's used at weekends and evenings and holidays.
Cutting back on the insurance would be the main saving i think...
I pay £1,200 in insurance and get about 30ish to the gallon on VPower.
Cutting back on the £250 tax would be nice too.
my annual mileage isn't huge, under 6000 miles as I commute on the Tube, so it's used at weekends and evenings and holidays.
Cutting back on the insurance would be the main saving i think...
I pay £1,200 in insurance and get about 30ish to the gallon on VPower.
Cutting back on the £250 tax would be nice too.
I remember this car.
Your thread is earily familiar.
I downgraded from a T-Sport to a Focus TDCi, but I hated the car so much. I went for equal value - sold the Celica for around £3k and paid I think £3.5k for the Focus.
After just 3 months I flogged the Focus and bought a French hatch for £1500. It's made me smile, I don't care about where I leave it or how dirty it gets and it actually handles just as well as the Celica did. Fuel wise I was seeing 55mpg before the cold really set in, now I'm getting 51mpg. Tax is £130 a year and insurance is roughly 600 quid (business mileage and the car has a remap).
I have all the time in the world to have a sporty car again, I've owned my fair share of 'nice' cars already - been spoilt in fact - but I have much higher priorities now, namely my daughter and providing us with somewhere to live! Saving on fuel and insurance (and maintenance) means we have more money to play with after the monthly out-goings, which can only be a good thing.
Your thread is earily familiar.
I downgraded from a T-Sport to a Focus TDCi, but I hated the car so much. I went for equal value - sold the Celica for around £3k and paid I think £3.5k for the Focus.
After just 3 months I flogged the Focus and bought a French hatch for £1500. It's made me smile, I don't care about where I leave it or how dirty it gets and it actually handles just as well as the Celica did. Fuel wise I was seeing 55mpg before the cold really set in, now I'm getting 51mpg. Tax is £130 a year and insurance is roughly 600 quid (business mileage and the car has a remap).
I have all the time in the world to have a sporty car again, I've owned my fair share of 'nice' cars already - been spoilt in fact - but I have much higher priorities now, namely my daughter and providing us with somewhere to live! Saving on fuel and insurance (and maintenance) means we have more money to play with after the monthly out-goings, which can only be a good thing.
InsolentMinx said:
realistically 4.5-5k for the Celica.
my annual mileage isn't huge, under 6000 miles as I commute on the Tube, so it's used at weekends and evenings and holidays.
Cutting back on the insurance would be the main saving i think...
I pay £1,200 in insurance and get about 30ish to the gallon on VPower.
Cutting back on the £250 tax would be nice too.
Seems like quite a drastic thing to do to save, probably mid hundreds a year, oh and don't even look at a diesel as you will pay £1k more for the diesel version over a petrol, 6000pa isn't worth shelling out on one.my annual mileage isn't huge, under 6000 miles as I commute on the Tube, so it's used at weekends and evenings and holidays.
Cutting back on the insurance would be the main saving i think...
I pay £1,200 in insurance and get about 30ish to the gallon on VPower.
Cutting back on the £250 tax would be nice too.
Thanks for all the replies.
Currently it's the only car in our house, and although I do let my g/f drive it, she can't cope with the size and it's a bit too nice of a car for her to keep driving into kerbs.
She's a nurse so doesn't have enough money to get her own car, but if we got something smaller we could split the costs 50/50, whereas at the moment I pay for pretty much everything as it's my car. She does put petrol in it every now and then, which helps.
TBH i'm still not keen on her driving the Celica, but she has days off and the car is very useful for her to go visit her family outside of london... so something that I don't mind getting kerbed and squeezed into tight parking spaces would be better.
Currently it's the only car in our house, and although I do let my g/f drive it, she can't cope with the size and it's a bit too nice of a car for her to keep driving into kerbs.
She's a nurse so doesn't have enough money to get her own car, but if we got something smaller we could split the costs 50/50, whereas at the moment I pay for pretty much everything as it's my car. She does put petrol in it every now and then, which helps.
TBH i'm still not keen on her driving the Celica, but she has days off and the car is very useful for her to go visit her family outside of london... so something that I don't mind getting kerbed and squeezed into tight parking spaces would be better.
I had a simular thought and reached the conclusion that changing cars is far too expensive for it to represent a significant enough saving.
you have to prepare/advertise/sell your old one, spend time finding a new one, insure it, possibly tax it, fix niggles etc etc and that all adds up to hundreds.
you have to prepare/advertise/sell your old one, spend time finding a new one, insure it, possibly tax it, fix niggles etc etc and that all adds up to hundreds.
Insurance goes on the risk for a particular vehicle. Some quotes I had recently had a BMW 318Ti as cheaper to insure than a Fiesta for example. Small hatchbacks undoubtedly get involved in more accidents as there are more of them and tend to be driven by an age group who are more likely to claim - older drivers will often bear the cost of minor damage from their pockets..
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