Intro – Miss Way
I had been avoiding the fact that my car was on its last legs for far too long. It had done a respectable 165,000 miles!
A couple of weeks ago I accepted it was no longer safe to drive and the repair costs far outweighed the value of the vehicle (£1,000 on repairs for a car only worth £200!) – I needed to buy a new one – and quick!
I begrudgingly rely on my car for my work. Due to the peripatetic nature of my job, it unfortunately isn’t always possible to cycle to all my work destinations. Over the last month I’ve used the train where possible, but it can be an expensive alternative. Ideally, we would love to be entirely car free, but this is not an option right now.
Having said that, we are aiming to significantly reduce the amount we use the car. We are aiming to buy a bike trailer* to use for the food shopping in the near future. You can also read about Mr Way’s car free lifestyle here.
In the past I have been extremely strict with myself when it comes to car purchases. Every time I have bought a new car it has been out of necessity rather than just the want to have a newer model. I have always bought:
- Second hand
- Paid for it outright
- Never paid above the £4,000 mark (my last cost me £3,500)
- Not gone in blind, done research/had recommendations from trusted mechanics
This time was slightly different as Mr Way was going to pay half of the car value. This was to help me out, but also because he intends to use the car more for work. This could potentially help make some of the money back, as the 45p per mile rate for expenses is quite generous. Below we explain the process we went through and why we decided to spend more this time around.
The Decision Process
Considering our intention to use the car less, a petrol vehicle was our preference as they’re more suited to short journeys.
As far as we were concerned, our options were as follows:
- Option A. Cheapest car possible and run until dead. £500?
- Option B. Cheap second hand car around £3,500.
- Option C. Newer second hand car around £7,000
- Option D. New car/lease/etc
Obviously with our frugal lifestyle, Option D was an immediate no. New cars are almost always a disaster for your finances due to depreciation while most forms of lease are only beneficial to the dealer offering them.
As we mentioned in the introduction, Miss Way has always bought cars in the price bracket of Option B. Option A also was not attractive to us. We had just dealt with an unreliable car and had no desire to repeat this. Miss Way is mostly self-employed and had missed out on several paid opportunities due to breakdowns. For us, this risk needed minimising as far as possible.
There were also the safety concerns of an older car, especially as we intend to start a family in the near future. More on this later.
We were advised by several people that Japanese cars are very reliable. In particular, we were told a Honda Jazz is one of the most reliable vehicles you can buy. We started looking at these, with the initial intention to go for the usual £3,000 – £4,000 budget.
Jazz It Up
Having looked online at several cars, we spotted some newer Honda Jazz cars available for a budget more in line with Option C. The more we looked into this, the more sense it made. A breakdown of the availability within Options B & C follows, for 2 cars we test-drove:
| A (Honda) Jazzy Comparison | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Mileage | Year | Comfort | Aesthetics | |
| Option B | £4,000 | 11,000 | 2010 | Average | Poor |
| Option C | £7,000 | 45,000 | 2016 | Very good | Good |
The more we looked at Option C, the more it appealed. To get a car which is 5 years newer for an extra £3,000 seemed like a good compromise. In addition, the more recent style of Honda Jazz is much more acceptable for a young couple to drive, as well as being infinitely more comfortable to drive!
The mileage was an interesting spanner in the works with Option C. Clearly this car had been driven much harder than Option B. However, a full service history was available and the car had shown no issues thus far. In reality, 15,000 miles per year is still reasonable and it was actually Option B that was the odd case, having barely been used!
Another consideration our mechanic had told us to be wary of was bodywork rust on vehicles over 10 years old. If there are already signs, it is likely that the rust will become a severe issue in the coming years.
Financially, this was an incredibly difficult decision for us to make. We’re well and truly on-board the frugal train, and try to minimise our costs in all areas, as you’ll know from our Monthly Spending posts. Spending £7,000 just seemed unthinkable, especially after shelling out on our Africa trip this summer.
As ever, some maths was needed to soothe our frugal itch.
The Numbers
To keep things as simple as possible, we purely considered the longevity of each vehicle against the price. Guessing how long a car will last is obviously difficult, but with both being the same make and model (albeit different ages) we simply applied the same rules.
We would like to think that a reliable car like the Honda Jazz should be good until the age of at least 15, or 150,000 miles. As we’re planning to significantly reduce our car usage, we allowed for a 15 year life-span (from ‘new’).
On this basis, the older Option B car would be good for another 7 years, while the newer Option C car would last 12. The big money question then followed:
Is 5 Years Worth £5,000?
Over the predicted life spans, option B would average £571 per year and option C would average £583. Clearly this is inconclusive as both are very similar.
On this basis, we made our decision based on the other factors in the table above. While aesthetics aren’t important to us, we did consider this a positive as it would help to hold re-sale value, should we decide to get rid of the car. Comfort was also a huge factor as the option C car was very comfortable to drive.
In the end, we decided to buy the 2016 Honda Jazz for £7,000. As you can imagine, this was a very hard decision for us, but having done the maths we were confident that we had made the right choice!
In addition to the above factors, we also managed to negotiate a 2 year warranty and breakdown cover in with the price. This gives us extra piece of mind that if something is seriously wrong, we are covered. We won’t be stuck with a £7,000 pile of useless metal (although this does closely match Mr Way’s view of cars……). This extra cover was particularly important to use due to the number of miles this car had done.
Find Your Own Balance
We weighed up our options and settled on a course we were happy with. For you, the equation might look very different. The important thing is to recognise which factors are important to you, and make your decision on this basis.
Safety concerns
A quick note on safety, as this seems to be a big factor for many people when choosing a car.
As soon as we mention our intention to start a family, the vast majority of people immediately insist we will need a ‘bigger’ car. They seem to suggest that a 4×4/SUV type vehicle is a necessity to protect Baby Way as we cruise across the smooth pothole-laden tarmac.
To us, this seems absurd. We can understand the need for extra storage space in a car as you need to transport a pram and various paraphernalia around, but the safety aspect is baffling, particularly when considering modern cars. All modern vehicles are rigorously tested to the latest standards and proven to be very safe in all but the most extreme scenarios.
We can understand safety concerns with older vehicles, but any modern car will likely be sufficient to protect your little one, regardless of size.
Please, let’s stop this trend of bigger and bigger cars eating up the tarmac just to transport your little gem the short journey to school and back. Do yourself, and us all, a favour and walk or cycle instead!
* Links marked with an asterisk are affiliate links. We will earn a small commission if you purchase through them. Thanks in advance!!
Maybe its different over there but in the US it is hard to find a car that isn’t running just fine all the way to 200,000 miles. In fact I bought my current daily driver, a 2008 Infiniti with 175,000 miles on it when I bought it. It is hard to imagine a car with only 165,000 miles not running well or being worn out unless it was badly mistreated or perhaps very old. I would guess you guys only drive a few miles a year compared to us, I’ve typically put 20-30,000 miles on my car each year so maybe cars over there die of old age rather than mileage?
Steveark, that is loads of miles. I think that here an average is more like 12,000 per year. I think that the weather can also be a factor. For example I have seen a lot of old cars in the south of France where they don’t get as much rain or have to use salt on the roads in winter, hence the cars don’t rust as much.
My car is a 2010 Toyota Yaris and it has done 105,000 and I need to drive around with a bottle of oil in the boot (or trunk as you would call it) as it is burning oil and the light has come on a couple of times.
Unfortunately cars are a necessary evil unless you live in a city with good public transport. Second hand is definitely the way to go and in my opinion the fewer 4×4’s on the road the better!
We would have loved to get up to 200,000! Unfortunately the car had serious underlying issues. On balance, we thought it was best to move on. The bodywork was also in pretty bad condition. As Sam said, rust really becomes a problem as cars get older.
Miss Way used the car a lot for work but still did in the region of 15,000 miles per year. I guess that might be a big reason why cars hit higher totals over there? She has started cycling a lot more now so we’re hoping it will be even lower from now on.