Do you have to rethink due to our silly motoring costs??

Hmm, perhaps im wrong in my perception but i find £410 and rising a LOT for road tax, especially as a lot of the roads i use on my 100mile daily commute are crap and full of holes.

I also find £1.10+ for fuel hard to stomach, if it was 80p or less i'd not even think twice about running either of them but with that mileage its a big difference.
 
Can you not pass your rising fuel costs through to your customers somehow? Trying to work out why you are privately funding enough fuel for it to matter?
 
I'm a director and run my own car, cant pass the costs on to anything not even my tax return anymore and 100mile a day just to get to and from work soon adds up, 30,000 miles a year commuting (i work some weekends too!)
 
Funnily enough, I was totalling up this months costs of the GTI-6 powered 205 the other day, and had a "I can't afford to do this much longer" moment. Being relatively young on a modified car, insurance is a very cruel mistress, fuel economy isn't much more than 20MPG (I commute on a very short journey), plus I've got to be building up a 'rainy day' fund for when it inevitably goes pop, or for when I have to 'clean it up' for resale. All in all, about a third of my salary gets spent on my car, another third is spent on living arrangements and then the further third gets 'saved', but will more than likely be spent on another car when I get another itch.

To be honest, I justify it as my one and only true hobby. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't have a particular interest in music, fashion or anything along those lines. I have a bit of disposable income, so I damn well spend it on what I like and try not to think about it. At the end of the day, I am always going to like old, expensive to run cars because they are what interest me. I don't see the point in buying what I'd consider to be a dull car just to save a few pounds per month. I'd rather spent the extra money on something that genuinely makes me smile when I think "I need to go for a drive" . Of course I accept that others see a car purely as A - B transportation and think the exact opposite.
 
Slime101 said:
I'm a director and run my own car, cant pass the costs on to anything not even my tax return anymore and 100mile a day just to get to and from work soon adds up, 30,000 miles a year commuting (i work some weekends too!)
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Unusual situation :)
 
Housey said:
I drove to Glasgow and back yesterday, short notice and needed to get there and back. I put £180 worth of fuel in the car for a 580 mile trip, though got to Bristol this morning on the left overs....but another £68 in the tank on the way back.
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And I thought £80~ for a 600mile trip is expensive!!
 
jamoor said:
I am fairly sure our cars must be one of the cheapest in the world???
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The residuals of used cars in the UK are absolutely rock bottom compared to everywhere else. Over here the company car mentality and the obsession people have with the age related plate scheme is such that used cars shed value hugely quickly.
 
Housey said:
I drove to Glasgow and back yesterday, short notice and needed to get there and back. I put £180 worth of fuel in the car for a 580 mile trip, though got to Bristol this morning on the left overs....but another £68 in the tank on the way back.
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Out of interest what were you driving to get about 16mpg on a decent run?

For me our general car costs seem pretty cheap. Taking inflation into account it's cheaper than it was 10 years ago and it's possible to get reasonable cars for very little money.
 
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jamoor said:
I am fairly sure our cars must be one of the cheapest in the world???
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Yeah, with perhaps the exception of the aforementioned USA which IME is approximately the same as over here. (You can buy a bottom end W220 for ~$6-8k, and here for ~£4-5k).
 
[TW]Fox;15453353 said:
The residuals of used cars in the UK are absolutely rock bottom compared to everywhere else. Over here the company car mentality and the obsession people have with the age related plate scheme is such that used cars shed value hugely quickly.
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Possibly, another major factor is our cars remain on this island until they die rather than being exported.
 
jamoor said:
Possibly, another major factor is our cars remain on this island until they die rather than being exported.
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Not really sure that has anything to do with it, cars in the US and AU are not exported before dying, and used residuals are higher there?
 
[TW]Fox;15453371 said:
Not really sure that has anything to do with it, cars in the US and AU are not exported before dying, and used residuals are higher there?
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You have a point, I wonder why cars are so expensive in Europe I assumed it was people from N Africa, E Europe going and buying them all?
 
IME US residuals are not really any higher but then i have by no means looked at their market as a whole. One of the very few countries where total cost of motoring is less than here.
 
Actually, we also have every brand under the Sun here, and all cars last in the UK without problem, that may be another factor?

Whatever it is, there is lots of supply to the used car market :D
 
you have to look at the real costs. converting it into £ isn't going to give you an accurate representation of the US second-hand car market
$14,000 in the US will get you a lot more than £8500 in the UK
 
I guess it is a bit looking at it. Not enough that we couldn't all own something awesome though, especially given the offset in savings long term :)
 
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