How do people deal with the buying car/selling car money dilemma?

I dropped £1550 on my e39 530i Sport, ran it for 18mths in which time I spent roughly £1k on servicing and repairs (suspension mainly) and chasing an intermittent power loss problem which I never cured, then after about 11k miles it's box went bang along with its headgasket so it was bye bye for £500 odd spares or repair.

Could have arguably broken it for spares and got more for it but didn't have the time, tools, space never mind the inclination.

It never once refused to start and was in the main a nice ownership experience, but, if you only have £1500 or so as a budget think about something else because you will drip drip money away on any old BMW or indeed any old car for that matter.
 
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I've always had a second car or the wife's car to drive, so it's not been much of a problem for me. However I've had my fair share of second car buying and selling experiences;

Just last week I managed to tart up my friend's old Mazda 3 that was literally on it's last legs and ready for the scrap yard, put it on gumtree for £750, and got £500 for it after 3 days and lots of interest. With that £500 I lent my friend £200 quid and we went and bought a Honda Civic that we had already looked at and test driven after haggling the trader down from £1k.

My E61 I traded in my E46, and I do regret not selling it privately and getting more money, but it was a lot less hassle and it was also the first time I've paid for a car via bank transfer!

When I sold my old Avensis on ebay for £400 I relied on public transport and the wife for a week or too but I think that's the longest time I've been without a car.

My old rotten silled Mx-5 mk2 I managed to swap with a young boy racer's Corolla T-Sport. The problem with a swap is that you inherit someone else's problems. With the Corolla the boy racer had cut the springs and shocks had worn out as a result. So it was 4 new shocks and springs all round. The wife then ran that for a year with no issues and I sold it to guy at work for £750 after buying the wife a newer 5 door Golf Diesel.

I think the bank of mum and dad helped me for my first 2 car upgrades so I had time to sell and pay them back afterwards. So a 0% credit card for a month sounds the best option for you at the moment.
 
Thanks again for the all the advice guys, I've read it all.

Credit card definitely not an option! I have one, and I have no way of getting money out of it. Got the go ahead from the mrs to use the cash that I do have, so I'm looking to buy the car whilst trying to sell the other car.

I've been looking at a decent BMW 323 Ci, so here's hoping it turns out to be decent! Just got to get the MX-5 onto Autotrader now :)
 
Why would you buy a 323Ci? All 2000 E46's are shed money now so there is no real benefit to a 323Ci, a 328Ci costs exactly the same to run and no more to buy and at least gives you some performance to make up for the total pain in the backside running a 16 year old E46 is going to be.
 
Basically because of availability. I wasn't aware of the 328 Ci to be honest!

If you're interested, my criteria is under 90,000 miles, reasonably fast so preferably 0-60 in 8s or under, under £1,400, and within about 50 miles of GU21 5BX.
 
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Personally I woukd drop the mileage requirement. Most if them are sheds regardless of mileage, buy one based on it's condition and ignore the number in the clock.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Basically because of availability. I wasn't aware of the 328 Ci to be honest!

If you're interested, my criteria is under 90,000 miles, reasonably fast so preferably 0-60 in 8s or under, under £1,400, and within about 50 miles of GU21 5BX.
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You're buying a 1400 quid car, the mileage doesn't matter.

I have one of the best condition and most immaculate sub 1400 quid BMW's around and it has 210k on it :D
 
[TW]Fox;29458929 said:
You're buying a 1400 quid car, the mileage doesn't matter.

I have one of the best condition and most immaculate sub 1400 quid BMW's around and it has 210k on it :D
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Spot on.

My old 528i had over 270k on it when I sold it - for an e46 318i :o - and it was still running beautifully, to be fair it was a far better car than the 530 I owned a while later, with half the mileage, all things considered.

Mileage is almost meaningless, I was the 528's second owner and it had an impeccable history - much like yours Fox - and it showed in how it drove and in the lack of issues I had with it, the 530 had no where near as good a history and it was plagued by issues which I never fully got to the bottom of.

Condition over mileage every time.
 
The same things you'd look for in a car under 90k I'd imagine.

Bits not falling off, no holes where there shouldn't be, the usual.
 
If anyone does have any suggestions, without such a strict mileage limit, then I'd be very happy to look at them. My pool of potential cars is very small at the moment.

In better news, the MX-5 is on AutoTrader so let's hope someone gives me a call :D
 
Back in the day how I used to do it was find a car I liked and leave a deposit, then sell mine and get a lift to pick up new one - as long as your car is not overpriced or a terrible advert (or a unique car which can take time to shift) then it's normally no problem.

I've also done it before where I've said on the advert that the car isn't available for 2 weeks due to needing for work etc - took a deposit on my car then went and found the new one :)

Doing it that way does mean you're reliant on the right car coming up at the right time but imo that's less restrictive than trying to find the right car with the right seller to then take a low £ offer for your car.
 
It's important to note that we are not telling you a higher mileage car will be fine, more that a lower mileage 1400 quid 3 series won't be any better :p
 
GhostWKD said:
Back in the day how I used to do it was find a car I liked and leave a deposit, then sell mine and get a lift to pick up new one - as long as your car is not overpriced or a terrible advert (or a unique car which can take time to shift) then it's normally no problem.

I've also done it before where I've said on the advert that the car isn't available for 2 weeks due to needing for work etc - took a deposit on my car then went and found the new one :)

Doing it that way does mean you're reliant on the right car coming up at the right time but imo that's less restrictive than trying to find the right car with the right seller to then take a low £ offer for your car.
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That's a good idea, thanks :)

[TW]Fox;29459773 said:
It's important to note that we are not telling you a higher mileage car will be fine, more that a lower mileage 1400 quid 3 series won't be any better :p
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Hah well if I read that correctly, they could equate to the same thing. I mean, I'm now looking at cars with far more miles on them, but then 150k is terrifying! The car I was looking at with about 85k on is much more appealing.
 
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