Until 2007, a typical ten year old car with 100k was worth and was available for peanuts.
Since then the old £200 perfectly nice car - the ideal bangernomic motor - has cost £1,000. Double or treble your 1k and you can come up with a five year old version.
A £200-£400 trade-in car will cost you nearly 1k.
Is it just me, or do others agree? Thoughts largely drawn from the no reserve part of ebay where it is possible to know exactly how much was paid for a car (subject of course to cancelled sales).
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Over the internet cars look better than "in the flesh". More people are comfortable bidding on eBay than 'confronting' someone face-to-face about a purchase. This means all the buyer is aware of is their own desire to buy, and misses out on the negative reasons why buying is not so wise (ie. seeing the car is a skip, and getting a better 'feel' for condition than a handful of grainy photos).
If you go to a low-cost car dealer you'll find cars cheaper than on eBay because the buyer can see the car for what it is.
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Exactly why I bought a brand new car. I've always said I would never buy a brand new car.
I was seeing 4 year old Fiestas which dealers wanted £5-£6k for even though they had 50-60k on the clock. Just didn't make any sense spending that much money on a basic used car hence I bought the Panda new for £6400, would have been £6000 if I had not chosen the colour.
Larger cars are of course still better value used but superminis seem very poor value. My dad paid £850 for his 9 year old Fiesta in 2007, with a full MOT and 35,000 and a lot of rust later it would still be worth £500.
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Dont know where you get this idea from MM, The lad is running 10-12 year old, 100k cars bought in the 4-500 quid bracket. £1K? dont know where you are looking.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 20 Apr 11 at 14:23
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>> the old £200 perfectly nice car - the ideal bangernomic motor ... cost(s) £1,000.
>> Double or treble your 1k and you can come up with a five year old version
Exactly what we found with the Mondeo. Very few X/Y/51 reg examples priced in 3 figures, except the dog rough sheds. Bought a 55 plate for well under £3k.
The Escort sold for £200 with 4 weeks' tax, but it wasn't exactly perfectly nice... Doesn't appear to have been taxed or insured yet either.
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I think the issue i worse in the small car market - as Rattle points out.
Some motors make more sense new than used especialy if you factor in any deals like 0% finance, free insurance etc.
I will consider used when the current lease expires, but at the moment cant see it overall being much cheaper
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Things maybe haven't changed that much. I remember ~7 years ago, anything below £1k was a bit ropey. Possibly perfectly serviceable but ropey for one reason or another.
Look in the £1k-£1.5k bracket and you had a good selection of fairly reasonable cars.
With £3k+ to spend, you only had yourself to blame if you picked up something other than nice.
It's still the same just now, as far as i can see, through my rose tinted little spectacles.
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people that normally buy sub £1000 cars are on a tight budget
so
big cars are dear insurance and dear tax and er dear petrol to fill
so
small economical cheap to insure cheap to tax cars are going to do a bundle
its the law
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today i looked at my corsa b auto that i'd paid 1700 for nearly 4 years ago [privately]. and thought the cars better now than it was then . so it should be worth the same money
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My BIL just traded in a seriously knackered 15 year old Corsa in for a Toyota at a dealer. 5th gear was shot, no tax and short MOT, battered to high heaven, £250 he got which is crazy money.
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Cars are worth 150 quid/ton in scrap.
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I sold my old Corsa B for £250 but I know I could have got a lot more for it. It needed an MOT, tax, new head gasket, timing chain and a bit of cosmetic stuff sorted out. I sold it cheap because I had to get rid of it quick as it was costing me £6 a day in insurance every day it was stood there.
A year later the car is still on the road and taxed till September this year. It looks like the trader who bought it off me did a proper job of repairing the head gasket on it.
I often wonder if I should have got it repaired but nobody would touch it the job for less than £600-£700 and no doubt other things would have gone wrong with it.
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12 months ago I sold my S reg 626 2.0 SE for £950 to a friend. 12 months MOT, 4 months tax, digital climate, electric roof & windows, CD, 4 excellent top quality tyres and FSH. 105k warranted miles.No rust.
Seemed like fantastic value to both parties.
SWMBO youngest daughter has just paid £400 for an N reg 1.0 Polo..6 months T & T, decent tyres, clean inside & out, some light rust but everything seems to work ok. Again, decent value for money, compared to the £750 Ka which preceded it and was a total rust bucket (and was bought without me seeing it!)
I think private sale bargains are still out there.
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I think it must all depend on the model. I know nothing about the prices of any car except Volvo 240s, but you can get a really nice specimin for under £1000, use it for years, it is still worth hundeds even (especially?) with mega miles, and they are cheap to insure. Spare parts are plentiful and they are easy to work on.
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>> Volvo 240s, but you can get a really nice specimin for under £1000, use it for years
I would in a heartbeat, but they only do 25mpg :(
Mum had one for 12 years, utterly bombproof car. There are a couple around here (one F plate, one G plate) that still look perfectly OK to me.
Last edited by: Dave_TDCi {P} on Wed 20 Apr 11 at 22:44
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>> >> Volvo 240s, but you can get a really nice specimin for under £1000, use
>> it for years
>>
>> I would in a heartbeat, but they only do 25mpg :(
>>
>
>>
That's the early carburettor models. A 1992/3 injection car will do 32 mpg, or better with careful driving on a long run.
Mine came ready-converted for LPG and cost £950 . It does 27 mpg on LPG, which is the equivalent of about 45 mpg in price terms.
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Still half looking out for replacements for the Fiesta, I already suspect it will need a new spring and the rust is now bad. Engine/gearbox/brakes and clutch are all sound though so I suspect it will just see the end of a welding gun again this year depending on how much work the suspension needs and of course if it passes the emissions, if it fails the emissions it will almost certainly be scrapped.
The problem is the biggest car my dads ever had is an Escort and he moaned that was too big so he still wants a small car even though they are poor value.
I am thinking something like an early Kia Rio would be a good bet.
I always thought an old Volvo would be ideal but just far too big. The neighbours would probably have a fit (parking spaces!).
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Wed 20 Apr 11 at 22:47
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>> something like an early Kia Rio would be a good bet
I had to double-check that wasn't Stu posting ;)
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Lack of parts would put me off though. What I like about for the Ford is everything is dirt cheap. Just had an oil change and new headlamp bulb done for £25. Most parts are very cheap too and because it is a very well known cars mechanics can do a lot of the jobs almost blind fold.
I fear a rarer car like a Kia Rio labour may be more because people won't be as familiar with working on them but if they are cheap enough.
Another OHV Fiesta would be ideal but I would imagine even if the newest 2002 examples may be rusting by now.
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I know what the OP means, if a cheap to run and insure small car has 6 months MOT and is in reasonable order it is worth a grand or so, otherwise it is worthless, there is not much inbetween.
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So how much is a FIAT Seicento (not for sale) with 24k miles on it worth. Very little probably. It's 10 years old.
Cost over 9 years (it was pre-reg when we got it) excluding insurance (low) and petrol is probably around £50pm if I assume it's worthless. When we got it, it was needed and replaced a much older car. Now we could live without it but still handy and was paid for 9 years ago (cash).
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 21 Apr 11 at 00:47
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I reckon it would fetch £1200+ easily because people will be fooled by the low mileage. Nice to see a car which has done less (per year) than my Panda has too! I reckon mine will be on 35,000-40,000 if I still have it in 8 years time so not a great deal more.
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I'd like to think the police are seizing [and crushing] so many uninsured/untaxed/unroadworthy cars that the market is running out of £200 cars for the non-law-abiding to buy to replace them. But I'm sure they're not taking enough out of circulation to make a meaningful difference to the prices.
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I had a vauxhall Astra a couple of years back a 94 model with a 1.4 LS hi torq engine, bought for £1200. Within One year of motoring it broke down 4 times due to the battery being flat, needed new brake pads, bulbs were blown in the dashboard, they needed replacing, back exhaust was blown, needed replacing, cosmetically it was tidy, nice body, but mechanically its a astra, cheap parts and the reason they cheap it cos astra break down often.
kept the car for 6 years, the mot man used to say to me when yu getting rid of it, i finally took the plunge and traded it in for a honda jazz.
Old cars may be simpler to service, but having a jazz, and comparing it to a astra, miles apart, better economy, relaibility, more toys, my astra had no power steering, it was a @@@@ to park cos the steering heavy, it had no electric windows, no a/c, no electric mirrors, no electric sunroof, the only saving grace was it was a burgundy maroon colour so you didnt have to wash the thing!!
I bought a two years old jazz last year and compared to the 53 jazz i had you get a better interior, better ride and alloy wheels, guess it a incremental improvement.
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>> compared to the 53 jazz i had you get a better interior, better ride and alloy wheels, guess it a incremental improvement.
Do they chuck in a free flat cap Saj? ;-P
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>>Do they chuck in a free flat cap Saj? ;-P
I think you'll find that there's a minimum age requirement when buying a Jazz. Saj will have had a flat cap for some time, I expect.
;-)
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Ages ago we were looking at Civics, M's view while sitting in the front seat of a Jazz was "cool dashboard in the Civic, nifty flip up rear seats, but this Jazz is so much nicer to sit in" :-( She's 2 months younger than me!
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I bought a 1993 BMW 325i coupe for £400 off e-bay recently. It's got 170'000m and when I picked it up was handed a thick folder with all the servicing receipts. It had a full BMW service history until 147'000m (£6000 worth of servicing receipts-I added them up) and specialist servicing after that. Pulls like a train, with full electric leather interior. So there are cars out there.
It's in the process of being stripped and modified ready to be thrashed withing an inch of its life around a track. It was almost sad to do it.........almost!!
(There's a 1986 M535i waiting in the wings for when the 325 dies)
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>> I bought a 1993 BMW 325i coupe for £400 off e-bay recently. It's got 170'000m
>> and when I picked it up was handed a thick folder with all the servicing
>> receipts. It had a full BMW service history until 147'000m (£6000 worth of servicing receipts-I
>> added them up) and specialist servicing after that. Pulls like a train, with full electric
>> leather interior. So there are cars out there.
Yep, the guy that had my old car will be leafing through a thick folder full of receipts and FSH that I left in there, together with some roof bars.
>> It's in the process of being stripped and modified ready to be thrashed withing an
>> inch of its life around a track. It was almost sad to do it.........almost!!
I do wonder what will happen to mine now it's gone. Maybe stripped and turned into a drifter :)
The dealer gave me £750 for the old stager - very happy. Especially as another dealer offered £350 a few weeks previously. He claimed his book figures didn't go back that far. It was a '98. Is that true? I know nowt about the sales side.
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i never thought honda jazzes were for the oldies, i wanted a economical spacious supermini, reliable, funny thing tho i work for the elderly!
And no flat cap another 25 years for me, guess you mature when you get older ie more sensible.
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>>honda jazzes
A very popular car in my area, sajid.
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Old cars seem very bad value for money - Lygonos
