It's time to change the vehicle in this household.
 

All we need is a little runabout as most of our driving takes place on this island which measures 20 x 10 miles. There are some steepish hills. We don't carry much weight in the car, apart from ourselves (two overweight adults).

if the car you have serve your needs, keep it. unless you dont want to, or yo hate it or something. depreciating assets depreciate. trading them quickly only compounds that effect.


ooooh! get a GTI! or a minicooper!

Importing a vehicle onto the island must be a major hassle.

Keep it until it dies.

(I do this despite living on a continent. Of course it is possible to engineer a premature demise, if you've seen something you really like.)

I voted, "Keep til it dies" but there does come a point where maintenance costs exceed the monthly new car payment, or where reliability concerns begin to exceed one's comfort level.

Look for the oldest cars in the area and then buy one of that manufacture. Excepting changes in design & factory, it will mean they stand the test of time in your part of the world. Then drive it til it dies - if it's a year old it will be reasonably environmentally friendly and you'll get a good life out of it.

I bought a Peugeot 205 for this reason when I lived in London - not so much specific local conditions, but because I saw really old registrations still being driven (and figured it gave thieves a larger pool to choose from!)

That's what empties the bank account every time with me, which is why I like the "trade it in for a newer model" model.

But the car is currently only one year old?

limey -- I think you should get out a piece of paper and list all your costs for the two options. I think you'll see that replacing a car after only 3 or 4 years is not the most cost-effective option.

No, not the current car. That is around 7 years old. I think it was a Friday afternoon car.

Bought for £5000 in 2004. Have paid out approx. £1300 in repairs costs since then. My local garage says it is worth "nothing" as a trade in. It is an automatic, I need a manual gears car, so I have to trade it in or sell it. You can see why I'm pissed off, no? (approx conversion to dollars, just double all the figures :eek: ).

But is it all fixed, or do you anticipate that 1300 pounds/3 years will be representative of on-going maintenance costs for the old car?

And what would your car payment be for the trade-in vehicle?

What's fixed is fixed - who knows what'll go wrong next?!
I have to get rid of this one (automatic gears) and get a manual. So I'm currently weighing up the options. When I bought this one I intended to drive it into the ground, but my circumstances have changed ... Argh.

The way the road tax is gonna hit 4x4's shortly there will be a glut of them on the market soon all the townies will be dumping them.
Just the thing for horsing over the String Rd in the winter :D

We haven't established the make of car you currently are running - if it was of British build, then, sadly, I have to inform you that every British vehicle is only ever built on a Friday.

Now I run a 1989 built Passat Estate as my work-horse vehicle - I bought it with a full service history and single owners status with 130,000 miles on the clock. It was smoking a bit so I had the engine reconditioned almost as soon as I acquired it and have since run it without much incident - it now has 198,000 on the clock and has cost me an average Pds500 a year to maintain including tax and insurance.

Get the right car (and for me that would exclude most British models) and the 'keep until it dies' option wins for trhe type of motoring you are describing

A Honda Civic. Apparently they have a good reputation for reliability ... this one bucks the trend :( .