New car opinions

Only mugs buy new cars for personal use. And the Aygo/etc line up is putrid. You really don't want to lose all that depreciation on onw of those. Get a secondhand car and get something that isn't a Jap shopping trolley.

I'm having some work done on the Ford at the moment and I'm driving a Nissan Note hire car. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

Life's too short for this sort of crap.

Finance at 125 quid/month = 1500 quid/year. Are you sure about your sums - don't forget to include any milage adjustments (PSA seem to be assuming 6000 mi/year, which I'm guessing is about half what it'll be doing). The fuel saving is the most significant - if you're saving 600 quid/year, that's a fair whack - but do you reckon you'll get all those savings on a 1 litre car?

It all really depends on whether you're after cheapness or convenience. And of course remembering you seem to be comparing econoboxes against a moderately fun car - can you part with that?

With 150K on I'm guessing the 106 is worth bugger all. I'd keep it running till it dies big-time, but not spend time keeping it in top visual condition. (then replace it with something like BSU's fabia - but spending money on a new car goes against the grain for me, bangernomics is the way forwards).

Another moderately tedious thought - IIRC you're getting married soon. Will your motoring requirements be changing in the next couple of years, to maybe something with a little more space? In which case being mid-way through a finance contract might be the wrong place to be. (this question obviously based on completely uninformed prejudice - I know it's entirely possible for this change to not happen ever, based on personal experience).

cheers, clive

I was going to say, C1/Aygo/107 - iirc the Citroen is a bit cheaper than the others and the dealers are definately more likely to play ball when it comes to "I want £1k off and 0% finance" - they quite often have 0% deals and cashback available on most of the range heh. Renault maybe worth a look, flashing your C1 deal at the salesman and see if he can get close with a Twingo - although the Twingo looks are an acquired taste, but there is a RenaultSport version hehe ;-) Ummm, what about a Panda? Fiat have always got finance deals on, and the dealers are often up for a haggle.

I would say though, take the website prices of all these cars with a pinch of salt. I say this because when I was looking for an R27, I briefly considered a 197 Cup. They are £14,995 list price plus options (I'd want Nimbus paint at £300ish and aircon at £600ish). However, I enquired on the forum on the RenaultSport website, as it has a dealer section, and a salesman from Renault Croydon phoned me, and said he'd do me a brand new Cup, short delivery time, for £12,300 plus options, on the road. With my options it came to just over £13k, so it was a £2,700 saving off list price. Brand new car, not a pre-reg or ex demo etc, brand new 58 plate (it was May) Clio 197 Cup. I've also seen people getting other similar offers, but IMHO it pays to, well actually I didn't even go in did I heh, but it pays to talk to a few dealers and see what they can do you, making sure you write (clearly and quite large) each offer down on the same bit of paper so they can see what they'd need to beat hehe ;-).

Think of other things too though, if your closest dealer for one marque is

50 miles away, servicing etc can be a hassle. Although some dealers will collect your car, leave you a courtesy car if you need one (that sometimes means booking a date further in advance) and then drop it off and take the courtesy car back. Also make sure you look at things like free servicing and stuff, or the possibility of a servicing package (like a Mini TLC pack - free services for 5 years) as these can save you a good few quid at dealer labour prices - a £200 service, paying parts only will only be around £50/£60, obviously though this depends on the car and the whether it's a major or minor service etc.

Then there's the car supermarket places, nicenewcar.co.uk, motorpoint.co.uk etc etc. These can be very good, but make sure the car is not an import. There may be less equipment, and for example a few years back, my mates dad bought a 172 brand new from a carsupermarket place and it tooks *months* to get a manual, service book and more annoyingly the stereo code - and the stereo was locked :-) It all came together in the end, and I've since learned that imports (as with V6s) have no alarm or window etchings as standard. They're added at the Renault import centre on the UK cars, hence why imports don't have them - although some dealers I've been told did add an alarm before selling them. If you can get a UK car though they can be pretty competitive on base price, however their finance deals are often a bit on the "HFM!!!" side of steepness heh. Also, if you get a quote and take it to a dealer to let them have a crack at it matching it, you might be surprised how close they get - and they have the bonus of been able to offer all the extra little accessories etc :-)

Very silly idea to buy brand new.

Look away from the superminis, buy a proper car for peanuts.

I'm not a Mondeo fan, but MkIIIs are going through auction for not much more than £3k on a 55 plate these days.

If you want small and new-ish, then Motorpoint will sell you a Chevrolet Kalos for £4299 at 1 year old or a Grande Punto for £4999 at 1 year and under 10k miles.

You can lease a Panda for £116 / month from Lings.

But personally, I'd lok at the Mondeo or just set a £1k budget on Autotrader and buy the best local car you can with cash.

Steve does have a bit of point here. My 406 cost £2.5k, and I've done around

12k in 6 months in it without trouble. It's comfy, it's quiet and it's still new enough to be reliable and go through MOTs without hassle. Not a great deal of fun, but it's a nice balance between bangernomics (ie, super cheap but plenty of hassle) and new car depreciation. Tax is £120.

Dervy bit: I've managed as much as 55mpg on motorway runs, but lately I've been getting around 35mpg. I knew I should've bought a petrol...

As for bangernomics, I'm not sure how good an idea it is for people other than students. Or any other form of extreme scrimping. Take a wander around the moneysavingexpert forums and it soon becomes clear that people are spending huge amounts of their time saving a few quid, when the sane option would be to find some overtime.

It varies a bit, but it's between about £100 and £125 depending on how the car is spec'd with 15k miles a year.

The car will do the same boring 50 miles everyday along the motorway and then an a road. nat doesn't cain her cars much - the XSi does 40mpg. You're suppose to get 63mpg out for the new C1. Thats quite a significant increase.

Nat could yeah. Image is a bit part, and the C1 is a funky little tin car.

0-60 come up in around 14s which isn't as slow as i thought it would be - it's fast than the 205 diesel Nat was commuting 80 miles a day in last year.

Bangernomic is great, but I'm just at the point where it's a bit of a chore to keep the car going.

Thought about that and changes *shouldn't* be happening until well after the end of the contract. By that point we should both have had significant salary increases and have most of our current debts paid off so we'll be in a much better place. At the moment it'd just be nice to have a fixed monthly budget for the car that's used everyday and no worries about it stranding us.

As I say we're only thinking about it at the moment. And it's an idea that I've never really entertained until literally yesterday.

Life's too short for a Ford too, but you seem to make do.

I guess a 20 something young professional female has different car tastes to a 50 something (?) tight arsed bloke :)

Bangernomics isn't extreme scrimping. And the idea isn't to spend that much time (if any) keeping the thing going - if it needs big work, you ditch it and get another. Admittedly I do fail that a bit - eg I forked out for a new clutch - but I like the BX so I'm not playing the game for purely financial reasons. I still probably spend less time spannering than many do washing though :-)

cheers, clive

Citroen C1 might be a worthwhile consideration, mainly 'cos Citroen normally do decent cashback deals, and their finance deals on the whole aren't too bad, I've heard. But then again the cashback offers are generally on the assumption you pay the list price, so maybe a false economy.

A bit bigger and igitur more expensive, but how about a C3 Pluriel? Saw one of them earlier today and it struck me as a car I might vaguely entertain the idea of owning at some point.

Do Renault Croydon get to sell 58 reg cars 4 months before everyone else then?

It's possible I may have made a mistake, thanks for pointing it out Pete. It's a good thing there was none of those hilarious pedants around to say something witty eh?

Fuck all wrong with Mondies and Focii.

Oh yes, heaven forbid that one should choose the best handling most reliable car in its class, eh? Or perhaps not, I'd rather have the Focus than the Note.

If you need a 4x4 shed, then it's as good as, indeed better than the competition.

Yeh, she knows bugger all about cars so all she'll be interested in is the colour.

You're going to lose around 33% of it's value in the first year if you buy new. Why not buy something a year old with around 10k miles for two thirds the price of new? Alternatively if it has to be new, what about leasing? At least you know exactly how much it's costing you and you get a new one every three years.

Good for you.

In your humble opinion of course.

Actually she knows more than most women. She knows how to strip down the cylinder head of a Pug TU engine for a start. However the 'that's a nice colour' side is still there. And that's fine by me.

Actually I'm very suprised how well the C1s and the like are holding their value. Cheapest ones about seem to be around £4.5k and that's the basic version, 2-3 years old with 30k miles on it. Which is why we're considering buying something new and fresh and no worries for 3 years.

Well I don't think it's going to be financially viable right now to get a loan for the full amount of the car, so we'd probably go for a 3 year deal with a final payment of around £3k if we wanted to keep the car. If not it can be traded in against another new one. It's not ideal, but the 106 is gonna need some work doing soon so ideally we need a new car in the next few months if we wanna avoid more expenditure. Peugeot and Citroen have an APR of 5.9% on these deals so it's actually better than the banks are offering anyway.

But anyway had a quick look round some dealers today. Had a look at the Peugeot 107 Sport which looks great, however underneath it's just a standard

107 with some bolt on tat and an inflated price tag. However I'm surprised how much room there is in the thing, although this is traded off against a tiny boot. But we're taking a normal 107 Urban Friday night and will keep it till saturday to give it a proper test. I think the decision will be made after this. We'll also leave the 106 with them to get it valued.

The VW Fox is off the list though - it just isn't economical enough to make it viable. It wouldn't save much over the 106, so it's just not worth it.

Me, cylinder head, handbrake cable and rear disks/pads, clutch hose. Massive fail.

Even I'm considering 4-5 year old one or two owner cars. There must be something really wrong in the world.

working in a dealership my top tips would be watch out for finance, some deals sound better but they can have a big-ish first and last payments to make the payments in between sound cheap. for instance the monthly fee could be £150 but the first months cash is £250 and at the end they want to take sometimes £1k shop around for personal loans on the usual compare sites, comparethemarket.com ect

also don't buy new! buy between 1-3 years old where most of the big chunk of depreciation has gone.

thirdly shop around, visit a few dealers and leave your contact details. even if you like a car do this cos at the moment the market is quiet and you may find after a couple of weeks they'll call you and ask if you bought anything, say no because you couldn't find a good deal. if the salesman is keen ask what the best deal he can do. don't accept the first offer but normally go for the second cos after that they may see you as a time waster, paitence is the key! careful of car supermarkets, cars are cheap but there finance isn't and don't let them get to pushy cos they will! also inspect cars at car supermarkets carefully, they buy a lot through auctions and the ones that have bought from us never usually check the oil and water before driving away!