Much respect for this, the amount of people that come on here who say "I want xxxx" and its a terrible idea, everyone tells them so, and they go ahead with it anyway is increddible, and hilarious when they realise everyone was right after the fact.I was asking for recommendations from those with more experience. I appreciate it was a silly decision
Car dilemma - £12k available to spend
- Thread starter Nitrojan
- Start date
Yeah, I know what you mean. To be honest I'm glad I came on here and explained my situation as it means I'm not going to make some kind of bad impulse decision that I will later regret. Granted people will troll at my first post, but the fact is I am having doubts about it all, and rightly so I guess.
Just looking for something that will last, looks good, isn't plastic, is economic and won't depreciate like a bomb. Massive asks I know, but there must be something.
Granted £12k is a lot of money - after reading this thread I'm definitely having second thoughts and I'm thinking along the lines of paying back a large majority. I just need to find the right car now.
I'd ignore the comments about financing the car. If you can afford the payments then financing is a good way to get it now rather than wait 3 years driving around in a car that could cost you loads in maintenance anyway.
As has been mentioned, if you want "stylish" it will have to be German as the Jones' think anything else will be for paupers.
I would probably go for a VAG/BMW etc that still has some of its 3 year warranty intact - I have no idea what 12k will get you though, but I'd imagine a decent 1 series, basic 3 series, polo, golf, A3, A4, Leon, Ibiza etc etc
Personally I would only get a Fiesta if it was:
a) given to me
b) I was in dire straits and only had £500 to buy a banger
12k seems a lot to spend on a car that will depreciate pretty quickly, unlike a slightly older 'premium' brand.
As has been mentioned, if you want "stylish" it will have to be German as the Jones' think anything else will be for paupers.
I would probably go for a VAG/BMW etc that still has some of its 3 year warranty intact - I have no idea what 12k will get you though, but I'd imagine a decent 1 series, basic 3 series, polo, golf, A3, A4, Leon, Ibiza etc etc
Personally I would only get a Fiesta if it was:
a) given to me
b) I was in dire straits and only had £500 to buy a banger
12k seems a lot to spend on a car that will depreciate pretty quickly, unlike a slightly older 'premium' brand.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
And I wouldn't, as it's particularly relevent when one of the primary objectives is low running costs. Half the finance means roughly half the monthly outlay on finance!
A 10 plate 3 Series or A4 for under £12k? Really? I don't think you've thought this 'advice' through at all, to be fair. I can't think of anything worse to buy given the OP's stated criteria than an Audi A4 or a BMW 3 Series.
[TW]Fox;23657008 said:
What about my other 6 suggestions - plenty of 12k 1 series etc about. I also mentioned I wasn't 100% sure on what 12k would get, but they are the usual 'premium' examples.
Half the finance also means the car will be an older model and in the case of the 1 series less efficient and thus more expensive to run? The guy can afford the finance so I can't see a problem with it.
Good job everyone pays for their houses outright or we'd all be living in garages... oh wait.
Less efficient or less well versed at winning at the NEDC tests? Besides, the 1 Series probably isn't the right answer anyway.
He's after low running costs and you seem very supportive of spending £330 a MONTH just on loan repayments. Bonkers!
He's after LOW RUNNING COSTS. Can you not see how completely daft it is for us to sit here and Focus on saving £20 on tax here, £5 a month on fuel here whilst completely ignoring the enormous elephant in the corner with '£330 a month finance payments' painted on the side?
Every other cost pales into insignificance alongside the cost of servicing £12,000 of borrowed cash. Now if he wasn't bothered about running costs and fancied a Golf GTI or whatever then it'd be different - but he has specifically mentioned running costs, therefore reducing the finance payments is a pretty obvious one given it dwarfs any other cost associated with whichever car he choses.
It's also not as if your average £7k supermini is some sort of decrepid 10 year old banger in need of constant attention, is it?
Also whether he can 'afford the finance' is not something you or me know so you can't state that. Personally it's ringing alarm bells for me - he can't even find a deposit without using a credit card for it. He has absolutely no money to put towards this himself other than what he can borrow. To me it sounds like the last thing he needs is a whacking great loan and £2k stuffed on a credit card when he's after a cheap to run car.
Please, miss the point more. It's fun.
It's not an 'anti finance' view, it's an 'anti finance when low ownership costs are a priority' view. Besides, I'm not suggesting he doesn't borrow (He hasn't any choice), just that he borrows much less than £12k given what he wants from a car.
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[TW]Fox;23657155 said:
I have no idea how long the finance will last - the guy could be on £100k a year and pay it back within 1 year or be on £10k a year and pay it back in 10 years. I like how you have assumed £330 per month though.
Loads of people want low running costs, that still doesn't stop them spending £20k on a new car every 3 years - because they get something newer. The guy said low running costs not low ownership costs.
No point banging on about what he can get with £1k, £5k or even £25k if he has a budget for a car and can afford to finance it and it meets his low running costs requirement then why not, you only live once.
I can only assume he has thought through the depreciation ownership cost hence him keeping the car for 4 years.
Not sure why you think it's funny?
The only way we'll be able to answer the OP completely is if he gives a breakdown of what he earns and spends each month, but I'd hope his brain capacity is large enough to work out what he can afford.
Alternatively just buy a Fiesta for £750, save for 3 years and endure a horrid driving experience until your 23, at which point you'll probably want a house anyway.
Actually do that. Don't spend any money, stay at home with your parents until you're 40 and buy a house outright, smug in the knowledge you didn't have to use any dirty finance.
It's a fairly reasonable assumption to make given a typical loan duration of 3 years and an amount borrowed of £10k, do you not think?
To most people, ownership and running costs are the same thing. It's still monthly expenditure at the end of the day. He wishes to minimise the amount he spends running a car. A perfectly sensible and rational thing to wish to do.
You only live once, rofl. You make it sound like he's splashing out on his dream Ferrari not a diesel Fiesta. Besides you might only live once but you live for a very long time
This is a flawed assumption, why would you think this? Nothing in his post gives the impression he has sat down and calculated depreciation. Thats what he's asking us about - advice on running costs.
Not sure why you think it's funny?
Because there is a huge monthly outgoing in this scenario which you seem content to ignore because 'he can afford it'. It's ridiculous to ignore it, so ridiculous that I find it amusing you continue to simply pretend it isn't part of the running costs of the car!
You'd hope so, and it probably is. I do remember the last 100% financed base model car on here though. We had the same comments. He came back 6 months later in all sorts of difficulty with it. Generally speaking people don't look beyond that monthly payment figure. Perhaps the OP does. Perhaps he doesn't. But it's daft not to at least advice him about it, he has after all come here for advice on buying a car.
Yes, because of course the ONLY two options open to him are a £750 banger OR a £12,000 financed car. Nothing else exists, right? If you'd bothered to actually read what I'm posting I have not ONCE suggested he takes zero finance and buys a banger. I am advocating a spend of circa £7k. This is still going to require finance.
Nowhere have I said he should not use any finance, only that for the type of car he is interested in there is no need to spend £12,000. He could purchase fundamentally the same car for far less significantly reducing his monthly repayments. Come on, the guy wants 'cheap tax'. If he's bothered about whether his car costs £35 or £100 a YEAR to tax, then you can be pretty sure he'd appreciate spending four figures LESS per year to the bank, right? Why would you care about saving £50 a year but not be bothered about saving 3 times that EVERY MONTH?
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Sorry to disappoint but I have never used carcraft, no matter how desperate I am to pay double the going rate for some base SPEC clio.
Fox, I agree finance needs to be thought through, but I'm hoping the op has and knows his limitations.
If he wants to pay a finance company an extra 1-2k for the privilege that's up to him.
Like I said, I would go German rather than ford.
River monsters is calling.
Fox, I agree finance needs to be thought through, but I'm hoping the op has and knows his limitations.
If he wants to pay a finance company an extra 1-2k for the privilege that's up to him.
Like I said, I would go German rather than ford.
River monsters is calling.
It's not even about affordability. perhaps he could afford £500 a month in finance - but if he's after low costs and wants low tax he would presumably be pretty happy paying only £150 a month in finance, too. Just because you can afford something doesn't mean you wouldn't be better off paying less for it!
Thanks for all the comments so far, I may be completely missing the point here so forgive me if so, but one of the main reasons for me wanting a 'newish' car was due to advances in technology making it far easier to get more miles to the gallon. What I probably haven't thought about deeply enough as you have said is the depreciation outweighing any kind of saving this is likely to give me.
Similarly with the 3 year dealership warranty. I liked the fact I was covered, whereas if I spent say circa £7k on a private sale car, this risk is higher.
My last car for example, my E39 was costing me an absolute fortune and only did 30mpg if I was lucky. Fuel alone was costing me £200 a month, insurance £117 and tax (if worked out monthly) around £20. That's £337 per month, just to run it.
I guess I looked at this Fiesta and thought "£70 per month insurance, £247 per month loan repayment and £100 per month fuel, so in total £417 per month all in". That's only £80 per month more than I was paying previously, and instantly I've gone from a 15 year old 30mpg car to a 2012 70mpg car, and on top of this, it'll be worth more than the E39 ever will when I come to trade it in.
At this point, I know exactly what you're going to say and I'd assume it revolves around quality and the type of vehicles we're talking about here. I totally agree - the last thing I want is to 'downgrade' (no offence to anyone with a fiesta) from a BMW to a Fiesta, however I just could not justify the running costs, coupled with the fact that at 15 years old now it's starting to slowly deteriorate. I felt like I was piling money into it constantly.
Fuel savings alone would save me £1515 per year, again... this is in favour of the fiesta.
The APR on the loan is 9% as opposed to 15% odd for car finance.
The above is my initial thought process, albeit completely irrelevant now as I don't plan on buying the Zetec S after seeing it, but similar applies to other cars.
Do you honestly think I should pay the loan back, save up, maybe buy a banger, and put money aside for a house deposit?
I'm 20 years old, and whilst you're right, at the minute I have limited savings (I'm sure you'll appreciate it's extremely extremely difficult at the minute) I may have been (had I of not posted on here) tempted into an impulse buy that I would have lived to regret. Forgive my ignorance on the matter and lack of life experience, but I came here for advice and appreciate the responses given. I dare say a fair few people on here are a lot older and wiser than me, so any advice/suggestions are appreciated
Similarly with the 3 year dealership warranty. I liked the fact I was covered, whereas if I spent say circa £7k on a private sale car, this risk is higher.
My last car for example, my E39 was costing me an absolute fortune and only did 30mpg if I was lucky. Fuel alone was costing me £200 a month, insurance £117 and tax (if worked out monthly) around £20. That's £337 per month, just to run it.
I guess I looked at this Fiesta and thought "£70 per month insurance, £247 per month loan repayment and £100 per month fuel, so in total £417 per month all in". That's only £80 per month more than I was paying previously, and instantly I've gone from a 15 year old 30mpg car to a 2012 70mpg car, and on top of this, it'll be worth more than the E39 ever will when I come to trade it in.
At this point, I know exactly what you're going to say and I'd assume it revolves around quality and the type of vehicles we're talking about here. I totally agree - the last thing I want is to 'downgrade' (no offence to anyone with a fiesta) from a BMW to a Fiesta, however I just could not justify the running costs, coupled with the fact that at 15 years old now it's starting to slowly deteriorate. I felt like I was piling money into it constantly.
Fuel savings alone would save me £1515 per year, again... this is in favour of the fiesta.
The APR on the loan is 9% as opposed to 15% odd for car finance.
The above is my initial thought process, albeit completely irrelevant now as I don't plan on buying the Zetec S after seeing it, but similar applies to other cars.
Do you honestly think I should pay the loan back, save up, maybe buy a banger, and put money aside for a house deposit?
I'm 20 years old, and whilst you're right, at the minute I have limited savings (I'm sure you'll appreciate it's extremely extremely difficult at the minute) I may have been (had I of not posted on here) tempted into an impulse buy that I would have lived to regret. Forgive my ignorance on the matter and lack of life experience, but I came here for advice and appreciate the responses given. I dare say a fair few people on here are a lot older and wiser than me, so any advice/suggestions are appreciated
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You need to be very, very careful here. Whether the 'leap forward' in MPG actually translates to anything in the real world is very open to debate. There is no question that a 2012 Fiesta diesel for example is more efficient than a 1999 Fiesta diesel, but some of the leaps are more because the manufacturers now know exactly how to get the numbers they want from the NEDC fuel economy tests - hence the explosion in things like Stop/Start.
It is unlikely that a 2009 Fiesta Diesel is going to be appreciably more thirsrt than a 2012 Fiesta diesel. Certainly not by enough of a margin to justify spending considerably more money on the 2012 car.
You don't need to buy privately if you don't want - you can buy from a franchised dealership. Or you can buy a 2 year old car with a year of factory warranty left which you can then extend if you wish.
This is because your E39 was a 10+ year old executive saloon which, when new, cost almost £30,000. It was expensive to run because it's an expensive car. You won't be repeating that sort of ownership experience with a used Supermini thats a couple of years old.
However just to make my point that £337 a month would barely cover the repayments on your £10k loan...
You've also gone from a large engined executive saloon to a small engined citycar so you are not comparing like with like.
It's in favour of *a* Fiesta, not neccesarily a brand new one. You'd benefit from much of these reducitons on a slightly older Fiesta.
No, nobody thinks that. Andrew was trying to misrepresent my point to claim thats what I was suggesting - it's not. Though, frankly, it is an option. A 10-12 year old 1.25 Fiesta is a very cheap car to run - nothing like the 5 Series you had previously. I'm not going to sit here and say you shouldnt buy a brand new car you should buy a banger, though, as it's probably an unrealistic suggestion.
Actually wait, hang on, are you not the guy who was spending a fortune fully restoring your parents one-owner-from-new E39, which you then said you'd never part with? Now you are getting rid of it because it costs you a bit in petrol?
This would indicate you are quite indecisive, thats a big u-turn from where you were before. Which is fine, but don't forget that once you've spent £12k on a car it becomes increasingly more difficult to succesfully change your mind and decide you want something completely different
It also explains why you thought the Fiesta was cheap inside. Coming from an E39, every single car like this is going to feel cheap inside. Get over it, because the Fiesta is a pretty excellent car and it's not as if anything else is going to be of a similar size yet be built like your E39 was anyway
This would indicate you are quite indecisive, thats a big u-turn from where you were before. Which is fine, but don't forget that once you've spent £12k on a car it becomes increasingly more difficult to succesfully change your mind and decide you want something completely different
It also explains why you thought the Fiesta was cheap inside. Coming from an E39, every single car like this is going to feel cheap inside. Get over it, because the Fiesta is a pretty excellent car and it's not as if anything else is going to be of a similar size yet be built like your E39 was anyway
Thanks for all the comments so far, I may be completely missing the point here so forgive me if so, but one of the main reasons for me wanting a 'newish' car was due to advances in technology making it far easier to get more miles to the gallon. What I probably haven't thought about deeply enough as you have said is the depreciation outweighing any kind of saving this is likely to give me.
Similarly with the 3 year dealership warranty. I liked the fact I was covered, whereas if I spent say circa £7k on a private sale car, this risk is higher.
My last car for example, my E39 was costing me an absolute fortune and only did 30mpg if I was lucky. Fuel alone was costing me £200 a month, insurance £117 and tax (if worked out monthly) around £20. That's £337 per month, just to run it.
I guess I looked at this Fiesta and thought "£70 per month insurance, £247 per month loan repayment and £100 per month fuel, so in total £417 per month all in". That's only £80 per month more than I was paying previously, and instantly I've gone from a 15 year old 30mpg car to a 2012 70mpg car, and on top of this, it'll be worth more than the E39 ever will when I come to trade it in.
At this point, I know exactly what you're going to say and I'd assume it revolves around quality and the type of vehicles we're talking about here. I totally agree - the last thing I want is to 'downgrade' (no offence to anyone with a fiesta) from a BMW to a Fiesta, however I just could not justify the running costs, coupled with the fact that at 15 years old now it's starting to slowly deteriorate. I felt like I was piling money into it constantly.
Fuel savings alone would save me £1515 per year, again... this is in favour of the fiesta.
The APR on the loan is 9% as opposed to 15% odd for car finance.
The above is my initial thought process, albeit completely irrelevant now as I don't plan on buying the Zetec S after seeing it, but similar applies to other cars.
Do you honestly think I should pay the loan back, save up, maybe buy a banger, and put money aside for a house deposit?
I'm 20 years old, and whilst you're right, at the minute I have no savings (I'm sure you'll appreciate it's extremely extremely difficult at the minute) I may have been (had I of not posted on here) tempted into an impulse buy that I would have lived to regret. Forgive my ignorance on the matter and lack of life experience, but I came here for advice and appreciate the responses given. I dare say a fair few people on here are a lot older and wiser than me, so any advice/suggestions are appreciated
Engines haven't got massively more efficient in the last 5 years, but compared to your e39 they have definitely improved.
At the end of the day only you can decide if your job/income is secure enough and you are willing to sacrifice saving money to plough it into a loan.
There will be plenty of cars under 10k that will return good Mpg and low tax etc.
Your 20, people wouldn't expect you to be in a brand new 320d, so I would recommend only doing what you feel is right rather than appease the masses.
[TW]Fox;23657599 said:Actually wait, hang on, are you not the guy who was spending a fortune fully restoring your parents one-owner-from-new E39, which you then said you'd never part with? Now you are getting rid of it because it costs you a bit in petrol?
This would indicate you are quite indecisive, thats a big u-turn from where you were before. Which is fine, but don't forget that once you've spent £12k on a car it becomes increasingly more difficult to succesfully change your mind and decide you want something completely different
It also explains why you thought the Fiesta was cheap inside. Coming from an E39, every single car like this is going to feel cheap inside. Get over it, because the Fiesta is a pretty excellent car and it's not as if anything else is going to be of a similar size yet be built like your E39 was anyway
Needs a new clutch - at this point I drew the line. With the money I had already spent, and increasing fuel prices it was getting out of hand. I still have it, and will never part with it. I will eventually pay for a replacement clutch, but I know that if I did this, I'd end up driving it again and spending a fortune on fuel when I could instead be putting the money towards paying for a car that I could eventually trade in.
. Clutch goes so spends 12k plus interest on a fiesta