Older Family Car - More Bang/choice for your buck?

[Turnip Farmer]

It got me thinking for our next family car. We tend to buy cars that are no more than 3 years old with lowish mileage thinking they will give us trouble free ownership but am I going about this all wrong? Should I be looking at potentially older cars as it opens up a wider range and choice of car.

I've seen some older family cars from fellow PH members on here and they tend to be really looked after and do daily family duties very well.

Do a lot of you do this with family cars? Buy older car but get more car as a result? We are looking at an estate as our next car and we currently own a 15 plate Volvo v40 rdesign.

Is there many pitfalls to buying an older car? I presume as long as it's got full service history and paperwork as well as lowish/average mileage and as long as its maintained well during our ownership then it should be ok? Have you bought older car and wish you hadn't?

I'm not massively mechanically minded but I don't think it should stop me going down this route.

Any family estates that you reccomend to look at?

[Xcore]

Define “older”

[SidewaysSi]

Our main family car is 22 years old but has had plenty of replacement/upgraded parts. It is certainly not as safe as a new car but it's a lot more fun/interesting and suits us perfectly.

It has been cavity waxed and is rust free.

[Turnip Farmer]

Xcore said:

Define “older”

Lol. Yeah maybe I need to be bit more precise. I'm thinking car older than our current criteria of generally no more than 3 years old.

Probably older I'm thinking 5 to 6 years old max?

[Turnip Farmer]

SidewaysSi said:

Our main family car is 22 years old but has had plenty of replacement/upgraded parts. It is certainly not as safe as a new car but it's a lot more fun/interesting and suits us perfectly.

It has been cavity waxed and is rust free.

Maybe not that old :-). Was just thinking if an older car would give us more choice.

Was thinking along the lines of bmw 335i maybe.

[anonymous-user]

Ive recently ditched my F10 M5 and bought a 2006 E91 BMW 330i - low miles and great, cheap fun for daily service.

Love it tbh. It's a nice feeling having an older car that still looks and drives great (imo)

[Turnip Farmer]

lord trumpton said:

Ive recently ditched my F10 M5 and bought a 2006 E91 BMW 330i - low miles and great, cheap fun for daily service.

Love it tbh. It's a nice feeling having an older car that still looks and drives great (imo)

Any major issues so far? Would you be confident enough to use it as family car and do you mind me asking how much?

[SidewaysSi]

Turnip Farmer said:

SidewaysSi said:

Our main family car is 22 years old but has had plenty of replacement/upgraded parts. It is certainly not as safe as a new car but it's a lot more fun/interesting and suits us perfectly.

It has been cavity waxed and is rust free.

Maybe not that old :-). Was just thinking if an older car would give us more choice.

Was thinking along the lines of bmw 335i maybe.

Fair enough! Mine is a 1997 3 Series so there is very little expensive bits to go wrong. My mum has a 2006 330d which has been perfect.

[anonymous-user]

Turnip Farmer said:

lord trumpton said:

Ive recently ditched my F10 M5 and bought a 2006 E91 BMW 330i - low miles and great, cheap fun for daily service.

Love it tbh. It's a nice feeling having an older car that still looks and drives great (imo)

Any major issues so far? Would you be confident enough to use it as family car and do you mind me asking how much?

Non at all. That said it was a bit of a find...one owner fro new and 24k miles

Yes I use it daily for school drops and stuff. It's a minter really

[Shiv_P]

With older cars you will be seeing general wear and tear components starting to need to be replaced - suspension components, starter motors, alternators etc. Hardly massive borkage but can become tiresome

[foggy]

I find with a little older used cars it’s much more about buying on overall condition and trying to gauge previous use rather than setting certain criteria i.e. 5yr old 100k miler will likely have spent a lot of time chugging along motorways whereas an equivalent 40k miler might be a mainly town use car with lots more stop start journeys meaning more worn as a result. Buying used is always something of a lottery, there’s a sweet spot between good value with adequate useable life and minimal maintenance hassles vs. cheaper and worn out, needing frequent work to maintain. I tend to aim for higher mileage 70-80k non-turbo petrol for our family cockroach cars, generally Japanese as they just seem to keep on working.