I'm glad someone buys/leases new cars or else my supply of bangernomics motors would eventually dry up:speechless-smiley-5 Personally I'm left totally unimpressed by most if not all new cars and wouldn't have one even if I had the money to buy one and the will to spend it on such a thing,but then I consider anything over £500 an expensive machine.I've broken this limit twice in my life my first Senator B was £1000 and my XJ6 was £1250.Scared me silly to pay so much but luckily the ones I bought were good 'uns and I ended up owning each for 9yrs apiece and spent nothing on anything other than normal service items.

The problem you will come up against is that very few modern cars will make it to the bangernomics stage of life. Electronic failiers will see the death of many cars, when 1 sensor can cost £400 £500 cars will be very thin on the ground.

Paul.

I agree with you Paul that is the problem with new cars, death by part cost.

With a couple of exceptions, we have always brought our cars for cash but the costs of fixing certain items makes owning them past warranty a risk. The part may be in the scrap yard but quite often now you are not allowed to take the part off yourself and buy ‘off the shelf’ which increases the cost and when fitted might need to be coded to the car with a software tool on a computer, another cost.

Very soon I think, especially with pay per mile taxes coming, choices will become even more limited and the second-hand market even further restricted. That monthly rental or lease cost will be become the entry cost for your own personal transport otherwise it will taxies or the bus.

Exactly, Paul! I was having precisely that conversation with someone at the classic car event in Melton only last night.

I cut my motoring teeth on a '51 flathead Ford in the '60s. While there were no sophisticated electronics, it did require a 'top' overhaul - a relatively quick and easy job - at 10k and a full engine rebuild at 30. Cars of that era generally also exhibited a tendency to rust out in 8 - 10 years as well.

The difference between then and now is that such jobs could usually be carried out easily and cheaply, thus extending the life of the vehicle and allowing this impecunious apprentice for one to purchase his first car for the princely sum of £10 - then the equivalent of two weeks wages!

While old, well-maintained cars were (and are) all well and good, some took the 'make do and mend' culture a step too far, which ultimately resulted in unsafe cars that really should not have been on the road. This situation was addressed in 1960 by the introduction of the - then - 10 year MOT test, which itself caused many such cars to be sent to the scrapyard. This created a source of spares that enabled us to eke another year or two out of our own cars.

Time passed, the digital age dawned, and we all now drive around with computers under our bonnets. Heat and vibration being anathema to delicate electronics, we see an increasing incidence of the failures to which you allude. Essentially, we have, I think, simply exchanged one problem for another - plus ca change. While the quest for ever more complex and sophisticated cars continues, the situation will not improve.

Regards, John.

Very true indeed as I know all too well. My V70 was purchased following my 3 series touring failing it’s MoT. What did it fail on? Rust? Dangerous brakes? No - Emissions, in the old days two minutes twiddling with a screwdriver would have it sorted. Now it has been temporarily mothballed as it could be one of a dozen things and most likely a combination of a few of them. Repair costs doing it DIY will be from £50-£800, to pay someone to do it would add £100-£1000, on an older car it just isn’t worth the risk. I will do the cheap bits but it could end up being scrapped. The car drives perfectly with no obvious fault and was only slightly off on the emissions but would just not drop below the limit. It is such a shame as the car took us to Cornwall and back a week before without the slightest issue. I have restored cars, built kit cars and even built and raced electric endurance cars but even with the software and kit there is only so much that can be done. And new new cars seem even worse.

My thoughts exactly, I weighed up the cost of buying my cars over the last 10 years or so and then looked at leasing and was surprised at the cost. I currently lease a VW Tiguan which worked out overall less in costs over 2 years than I had lost in depreciation in my previous car a Seat Leon which although a brilliant car dodgy knees and being quite low didn't make a good combination. The optimum lease period is 24 months and most people look at a calculation of 25% cost of the RRP price is a good deal, anything below this is very good. People would say that you can buy cars below RRP but their needs to be a basic calculation that every body can use. My XC60 T5 Momentum on order meets the basic formula at 24.7% so for me a good deal and I get to drive a nice car for 2 years with everything covered including VED, agreed their are mileage constraints but I can quite easily keep to the allocated mileage. PCP in my opinion is vastly overrated and very costly compared to leasing and I am surprised that more people don't go for leasing.

My cousin is an independent mechanical engineer working for insurers on insurance fraud claims. (To identify the false, deliberate claims). He says that insurance fraud is insane, seriously beyond what is relayed in the press and TV.

Not only is it the economy and that people are actually poorer than ever despite what appearances may suggest but also, the fact that modern cars are so expensive to repair (the manufacturers know this and its deliberate to ensure punters buy a new one), with the cost of parts (as mentioned by another post) and labour rates comfortably at £100+vat p/hr even for independents that;

1, no one will buy a modern car with faults
2, people haven't got the money to repair them (or even consider taking them to a garage)
3, they are uneconomical to repair past a certain point
4, modern cars are engineered deliberately to be 'throw away' items.
5, yet they owe the owner thousands in their state rather than hundreds - hence insurance fraud becomes a favourite for the scums

I think used cars could end up being much more expensive in the next few years, at some point soon cars built before 2015 (euro 5) will be taxed off the streets, £200 per day tax in Birmingham is on the cars for 2019. That will cause a lot of people to look at car ownership/leasing/finance.

This is just an example of the government and big wigs of industry fleecing the consumer... lead them down a path with a dead end so they are stuffed e.g heard people into certain types of vehicles, then change the rules to heard them into another direction, repeat the cycle. Someone's pockets are being lined nicely and unethically at our expense.

I'll share my experience of the 2013 Astra GTC 2.0 CDTI SRI that I tried the lease option on. (full report here : http://forums.t5d5.org/topic/23967-a...comment-299065

Duration : 3 years - no maintenace
Mileage : 30,000 per annum
Deposit : £1595
Monthly Payment £311 (and a few pence) = £10,263
Total Servicing : £880
Cosumables : £1304 (tyres, wipers, brakes etc)
Total Paid : £14,042

Fuel : I've left this out as you have to put fuel in anything and one can choose if they want a gaz guzzler or a shopping trolley.

Insurance : I've left this out as you have to have insuance but, this crap car and the Merc E350's cost almost twice as much to insure than my modified Volvos!

At the end of this, in my eyes, I've paid £14,042 for 3 years and own nothing for it. Thats about £4681 per year.

Now you can buy an E46/E90 BMW 330/335 petrol/diesel, Volvo R (the proper ones), Audi A8 4.2 pterol/diesel or any anything else depending on your taste and it wont cost £5K in consumables/repairs to run (especially the way 99% of owners look after their cars).

I do 800-1000 miles a week in my Volvo C70 (been doing it for about 7 years now), one has about 250,000 miles on it and outside routine servicing in 250,000 miles its only needed the following despite crusing regularly at nealry twice the speed limit up and down the M40.

1 heater matrix (cost about £500 at volvo)
1 radiator (cost about £400 at Volvo)