Misers' cars!!

[cpas]

Good evening.

My Mrs only uses her car occasionally, and pays over £200 to tax and about £300 to insure her Golf Convertible, which then only does 18mpg due to the short journeys she does. We are thinking of getting her a car which is on the £20 or £30 tax bracket, and therefore probably easier to insure. We also don't really want to spend more than about £3000 otherwise the depreciation would outweigh the savings we make in the running costs! Has anyone done this with any success and what cars out there fit this remit?

We have other family/fun cars so not too worried what this one is as long as it's not too crappy

[Willy Nilly]

Even at 18mpg, which frankly is horrific for a Golf, the £3000 is still enough for over 9000 miles. If the car is doing such short journeys that it is using a gallon of fuel every 18 miles, it might be better to walk.

[kambites]

Moped? Push-bike?

[jimmyboy85]

Ford fiesta mk4 £500
Tax £100 - £150 (something like that)

£2350 for petrol, not sure on the mpg but it has to be better than 18 I would have thought.

[bitchstewie]

Are you really going to save any money, cost to change and all that?

[Wulluff]

Why bother taking a hit by selling something for the sake of a few quid road tax?

You really cant beat a convertible so keep it and enjoy

[Steffan]

Wulluff said:

Why bother taking a hit by selling something for the sake of a few quid road tax?

You really cant beat a convertible so keep it and enjoy

I agree dropheads are very different transport. I would suggest 18 MPG is wrong for a golf even on short journeys. Worth a check.

[sawman]

I cant see you saving enough to make the cost to change worthwhile. if the drive is that poor you might consider an electric or Hybrid, but they are a lot more than 3k to buy. Even the most economical petrol/diesel car will have disappointing mpg figures on such a crappy run.

[cpas]

Steffan said:

Wulluff said:

Why bother taking a hit by selling something for the sake of a few quid road tax?

You really cant beat a convertible so keep it and enjoy

I agree dropheads are very different transport. I would suggest 18 MPG is wrong for a golf even on short journeys. Worth a check.

It gets started, does half a mile to drop the kids at school, then another half mile or so to the Mrs' work, then a mile home at the end of the day. Then the odd mile taking the kids to clubs. It never gets warmed up so needs a good thrashing. The fuel costs, however, don't worry us - we have considered a tax exempt Land Rover V8 just for a laugh!! But we don't need any more cars that constantly need tinkering, and the Golf is pretty reliable Also, the Golf is worth £1500 to £2k and will never depreciate much below this unlike a small poxy Peugeot or something!! We did consider a Polo TDi but not sure of CO2 figures.

[Aphex]

Lupo tdi

[cpas]

I did suggest a Defender TDi as an investment - not any cheaper to tax, but fairly cheap to insure and probably zero depreciation

[B17NNS]

Ford KA?

[cpas]

B17NNS said:

Ford KA?

Mmmmm - rather walk

[HurdyGurdy]

cpas said:

I did suggest a Defender TDi as an investment - not any cheaper to tax, but fairly cheap to insure and probably zero depreciation

2000 to 4000 for anything half decent and high insurance and high maintainence

[cpas]

HurdyGurdy said:

cpas said:

I did suggest a Defender TDi as an investment - not any cheaper to tax, but fairly cheap to insure and probably zero depreciation

2000 to 4000 for anything half decent and high insurance and high maintainence

I was thinking more like £6k for a nice 300TDi. Our early 200 TDi costs about £130 to insure and only ever 'breaks down' as a result of abuse off-road

[redstu]

cpas said:

Mmmmm - rather walk

If it only does 2 miles a day I wouldn't bother with a car at all., but I don't think I'd be changing to an lesser car than the golf tp save £3 a week.

[theironduke]

18???!!!

Thats fking awful!

Just knocking round town my supercharged, automatic 4.0 Jag can do over 16 without too much effort ffs.

[Ari]

cpas said:

It gets started, does half a mile to drop the kids at school, then another half mile or so to the Mrs' work, then a mile home at the end of the day. Then the odd mile taking the kids to clubs. It never gets warmed up so needs a good thrashing. The fuel costs, however, don't worry us - we have considered a tax exempt Land Rover V8 just for a laugh!! But we don't need any more cars that constantly need tinkering, and the Golf is pretty reliable Also, the Golf is worth £1500 to £2k and will never depreciate much below this unlike a small poxy Peugeot or something!! We did consider a Polo TDi but not sure of CO2 figures.

That sort of usage will kill a TDi.

Keep the car you've got, you're not going to see much fuel consumption advantage, and even if you do, over that distance the cost saving is going to be negligible.

[pherlopolus]

my 2.0 golf cabrio does 25-28 on short journeys...unless i cane it everywhere.

serviced recently?

[craig2003]

I average 18 in my Golf and it's an R32, could a sensor be knackered in yours?