Talking to a friend today who bought an elderly 7 series BMW about a year ago.
It's the long wheelbase version with the largest petrol engine.
At the time of buying he was full of how cheap it was - £2K for a £50K car - and how he didn't do so many miles, so the fuel wouldn't be a bother.
Six months ago he was telling me how it would do 25mpg which wasn't too bad.
Today he's owned up to 15mpg in traffic and admits to being thoroughly sick of putting petrol in it every five minutes - the bargain price is long forgotten.
I think we are all a bit like that.
The purchase price of the car goes to the back of your mind, but the running costs, especially mpg, are always at the forefront of your thinking.
Agreements and disagreements welcome as always, so it's over to you....
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And he hasnt even been hit by a bill for £2k to fix something thats gone wrong. Like the air con for example.
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I have a customer who spends £5000 a year on petrol for his very thirsty car. He seems to think this is ok because he bought it at 4 years old and at about £30k less than new.
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I did worry about this a couple of yeara ago when I bought my Z3 as a fun car, but thought like Ifithelps's friend that as its mileage would be low the fuel wouldn't be a bother.
And it isn't. Despite being a 2.2 6-cylinder, the Z3 returns a consistent 32 mpg. An unexpected bonus.
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How swiftly we forget. I traded my thirsty beast for a super economical one. It just happened to turn out that I refill with fuel at pretty much exactly the same time intervals, so the very noticeable thing was each fill up being about £30 instead of £75.
Wonderful.
Then it becomes accepted.
And already, against my better judgement and Mrs C's express commands, I'm beginning to browse Autotrader for a replacement thirsty beast. Crazy. I simply mustn't. Ooh, hang on, I spy a bargain on another tab...
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I've got the baby engined 7 series, the 2.8 and it does 30mpg mixed but it's possible to see 35+ on a run if you set and forget the cruise control at 65mph. I've tried reasonably hard without being a total lunatic and got it down to 22mpg racing about.
It pulls spritely up to 100mph which is 3250rpm and shockingly quiet. It's not got the 0-60 time of it's bigger bretheren but it's within a few mph of their top speed.
I still, 2years on, think this car is bargain of the century. It's a great place to be, so quiet - that makes a massive difference to how fresh you feel when you arrive. It's like driving an armchair, I'm young to be driving a grandpa mobile but this is just too comfy. It even handles despite it's weight.
Parts are sensibly priced, e.g. A full set of dealer supplied disks and pads with 2 year warranty can be price matched to within a few pounds of ECP or GSF factors brembo aftermarkets. Lemforder suspension parts are the same price as lemforder ford focus suspension parts.
Downsides? It doesn't fit in parking spaces, too long at over 5 metres and almost 2 metres wide.
Best upside? People don't tailgate in general when your out in the middle or outside lanes overtaking, either that or the full length twin exhaust noise (factory supplied stainless afair too)
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It's a tricky balancing act, and one full of 'heart versus head' decisions.
Just as when changing vehicles - where the 'cost to change' is the deciding factor - it makes sense to view the 'total cost spent' during its ownership.
Buying older large cars (my preference) isn't too bad if you can do a large proportion of servicing/reapairs yourself. My '93 W124 280E is kept going in this way, building up a stock of useful spares as and when they come up for peanuts on Ebay. Long-term fuel consumption is a reasonable 30mpg (very little town driving). In three years the only non-service repair has been replacing the two back exhaust silencers (£130). I bought it for £600, and would have no problem selling it for that figure today - indeed, the 'sum of the parts' is probably worth more than the whole!
Maybe when I'm older and less able to grovel about under cars I'll 'come to my senses' and buy something smaller and newer. Maybe dealer labour rates will have reduced to £10/hour by then. Maybe.....
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>>
>> Maybe when I'm older and less able to grovel about under cars >>
When you are too old to grovel under cars you will probably be doing a lower mileage.
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>> When you are too old to grovel under cars you will probably be doing a
>> lower mileage.
I doubt that very much, Cliff!
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I know its not quite the same as running a big car, but my old Mazda will, at my current 15k a year or so, cost me approx £430 a year more to run than the Charade.
However, at that rate, bearing in mind that the Charade cost me £3250 when I bought it and its now worth say £1700, it would have been three years before the Mazda started to be the more expensive option based on ofsetting the depreciation against the extra running costs of the Maz.
I think if you have the nerve ( safety, reliability etc etc ) to run older cars, on a cost basis, they make sense so long as you dont buy a money pit.
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Back in the days when I used to run Cat's & Dog's (4.2 & 3.5) I always used to point out to the less well orf that the costs don't stop with buying the thing - that's only a starting point.
Any fool can buy a cheapo multi cylinder fire breathing gas guzzler but its keeping it running that hits the wallet,
like a Tsunami sometimes.
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>> I think if you have the nerve ( safety, reliability etc etc ) to run older cars, on a cost basis, they make sense so long as you dont buy a money pit.
On a same line of thought, if you buy right stock at right time, you can be a millionaire in no time ;)
For some it is a gamble, for others it is calculated risk.
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Some very good points made already. Just for fun, I did some comparative calculations. I could get a very decent Ford Focus for £15k, but adding together fuel, tax, insurance, servicing it would cost me about £3.5 per year to run. So, if I kept the car for 7/8 years (as I usually do) the running costs of £24-28k easily outstrip the purchase cost.
I don't have figures to hand, but was this pattern of cost true in the old days?
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We have looked at this cost balance all ways over the years but no matter how hard we try it is hard to look at the overall picture when you have the nozzle in the tank too frequently and the fuel costs loom large.
Anyway with our main car we are trying lease for three years so there is no buying cost and running costs are virtually fixed. It's proving a very suitable method so far.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 13 Apr 10 at 13:35
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This is why I bought the cheapest car I could for the most amount of money. 50+mpg, group 1 insurance, no MOTs for three years, cheap servicing, warranty etc oh and £0 tax in the first year.
A large petrol BMW is only really useful as a weekend car you may use to go away in comfort. Its probably a very lovely car to drive but a terrible car to own.
I've tried the banger routes but found the costs of repairs is nearly as high as the cost of a loan.
It really depends what you need a car to do. In the city gearbox ratios are probably more important than engine size.
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>> A large petrol BMW is only really useful as a weekend car you may use to go away in comfort. Its probably a very lovely car to drive but a terrible car to own.
Oi!
It does a 38 mile round trip commute every day. The alternative (while spending the same money overall) would be maybe a 55 plate diesel focus -- is that fair? (higher purchase balanced by lower running costs)
No thanks :-P Still the BM wins. My new car's been built finally, it's at the docks in germany, but i'm still keeping the BM and will still drive it regularly! :-P
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>> So, if I kept the car for 7/8 years (as I usually do) the running costs of £24-28k easily outstrip the purchase cost.
My own example is interesting
Purchase price (in 2007 1-yr old car with 6000 miles) £5000
Fuel cost in 2007 £600 (assumming economy of 10 miles/Litre and fuel cost £1/L)
Fuel cost in 2008 £1200
Fuel cost in 2009 £1200
Fuel cost in 2010 £2500 (estimated as doing very long daily commute)
So, in just 3 years, I'm exceeding purchase price of my car just on fuel alone!
If I add service, insurance etc., then I crossed the point in just 2 years.
This also explains why people buy expensive cars (Land Rover, Mercedes etc.) and then start worrying about their MPG.
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Even on the Panda site they are obsessed with it. I was talking about this with a friend a few weeks back he owns a gas sucking 2.0 206 GTI but its a very nice car. Its on 100k and needs some new bushes and brakes but other than its as new.
Back then 2001 cars were sold purely on how much BHP the engine had. Now BHP is meaningless and its all about the MPG and tax costs.
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I think it is hard to get the balance right. My dads Fiesta was 9 years old when we bought it, we some paid £850 for it which was too cheap thinking about. The day later we found out why it over heated in traffic. Thankfully a new thermostat sorted that out.
Nearly three years and 25k miles later its running perfectly but is starting to rust. We have spent a total of about £1400 in repairs over three years (mainly suspension arms, bushes, tyres, brakes, exhaust etc) but all the shocks and springs are original and still fine.
So it is a very cheap and very reliable car (my dad sometimes does long distances in it and there is never a problem) it is extremely well maintained though and I put good quality oil in it.
We have now decided to get it through one more MOT in August when it will be 13 years old. After that I think the rust will kill it off. Still much cheaper than a new car but is old and feels old.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 13 Apr 10 at 13:48
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Since switching from petrol diesel, calculations suggest I'll be saving £600/year on fuel. However, I spent an extra £12K changing the car, so it'll take me 20 years to make up the difference (taking a simplistic way of viewing it).
Such is life! (Trying to avoid the cliche...oh sod it!...You only live once!)
(If you're really into it, useful link here www.mez.co.uk/derv.html )
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Running costs v buying cost - Zero
