What Car?

You're talking bollocks Vim, there are several 106 diesels on eBay with PAS.

Jeez, what a tosser....

Since the Focus is a known quantity and she is willing to spend its value on a replacement, why change to something inferior. Any running cost advantage to the replacement is likely to be small to insignificant. Far better to use the Focus more sensibly by combining journeys so that it is used more efficiently, and walking rather than starting the car when possible.

Huw

Best way to save money IMO is to swap to something considerably cheaper, like a £1000 Mondeo. Running costs will be pretty similar but she'll have £1000 in her pocket. Small good cheap cars don't exist.

In what sense inferior? Parkers prices suggest she could, for the same money as the Focus, have a 2-3 year younger Peugeot 106 diesel which will reduce her fuel bill by about 20-25 quid a month, tax bill by 65 a year, insurance bill by (guess) 100 a year. That's about 450 quid a year or 35ish quid a month. To her that's a *lot*. And she already uses the car as little as is practicable. You might even expect the diesel to be more reliable.

What particular criticism would you level at the aforementioned 106 diesel then? Bearing in mind it's just intended to be cheap, effective, reliable, reasonably safe general purpose transport, 95% of the time only for one person.

If 35 quid a month is make or break in her finances, then perhaps she'd be better off looking at the options to do without a car completely.

I quite like 106 diesels. They are slow but they're galvanised. The criticism I'd have of one next to a Mondeo or whatever of the same price is that it's going to be older and have higher miles, and therefore be more likely to incur some bills.

Nice idea but she works ten miles out in the sticks, there's no way she can change jobs (for reasons I'm not going into), public transport is nonexistent, no-one lives near enough to her to liftshare...

It's more a case that if she can shave 35 off her motoring bills, 10 off her gas/elec, 10 off her phone, etc. etc. then it all adds up and she gets a bit of a comfort zone between her income and her outgoings which currently barely exists.

If that £35 is so important then sell the Focus and consider car sharing or even a taxi to work as an alternative to the car. During Summer a bicycle ride to the nearest convenient bus stop would be possible perhaps. An used moped is another sensible alternative that is cheap to run and should not be lightly dismissed as plenty of people do use them for this purpose. A moped or scooter will release several £35's per month as well as the value of the Focus as liquid capital. None of these might be appetising but if needs must.

Huw

A bit of a shufti on Parkers suggests that, for example, 1600 quid (private sale) gets me a good condition bottom-end 2000 (V) Mondeo (1.6i LX 4d with aircon to go wrong that isn't needed) or a 2001 (X) Peugeot 106 (1.5D Zest

3d). Closer in age than I would have expected, admittedly, I expected a 2 year advantage for the 106 than 1 year, however it does show what I expected, that for the same money the 106 you get would be *newer* and lower miles (presumably) (quite likely a lot lower miles). And much cheaper to run assuming the same reliability. Am I missing something?

not workable

extortionate

no pulbic transport anywhere near work

I do that, things aren't quite so dire for her that she'd consider it.

They don't must that much. :-)

Strick with the Focus. Tax, Insurance and fuel savings will be negligble. At around £2000 (I assume that's what she's spending going on what you say about Parkers), what she could end up with is a car that needs a lot of repairs. All you need is to find that the one you've bought needs a CAT,exhaust or a set of tyres for it's next MOT and you've instantly wiped out any savings you've made.

Which can instantly be wiped out in a single garage bill.

It's unknown. Chances are it'll not be maintained well.

Forget the PT, 10 miles bike ride isn't that hard...

cheers, clive

"Vim Fuego" wrote in news:Wo9oh.42749$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe2-win.ntli.net:

TBH, I'd agree that if saving a bit of cash is really vital, the moped/scooter is the only way to go. Her Focus sounds like a really good car ,but not a very valuable one. Swapping it would be a load of grief for very little gain. A bad idea, IMHO.

No offence intended, just my twopenneth.

Stu

I'm wrong then. Certainly further down the food chain (ie, sub £1k) small cars hang onto their value ridiculously well compared to bigger stuff. Seriously though, if she's really short of money (particularly if there are any debts involved), selling the car and getting one costing less than £2k is a bloody good way to find some cash.

Take it from me... I've made this mistake several times before. You don't save anything. You won't get the money you want for the car, so you won't end up with any significant cash in pocket. You don't save a deal by increasing fuel economy unless it's _very_ long term, and IME what you do save is more than swallowed up by other costs. You don't save significantly on reduced tax groups, and rarely on reduced insurance groups. The car she currently has is a known quantity; any replacement might need loads spending on it unexpectedly.

Seriously, I've attempted this several times in the past, and each time I saved nothing. Long-term, I would have been as well-off keeping my '84 LandCruiser as buying any of the series of cars that replaced it. I did the same with my 4Runner. And my first Rover 218. All replaced to try and reduce outgoings, failed every time.

So now, when we wince over the fuel economy of the Previa, we remember how much money it would cost to replace it, and how much petrol that money would buy.

Keep the Focus.

No debts, just trying to cut her monthly outgoings to ensure she steers clear of them. She can't do her own maintenance and I've only got so much time in my life to do it for her, so getting something cheaper is taking a big risk on the garage bills soon starting to flood in and wipe out any cash made on the sale.