Cars = con

[contractor79]

I think cars are a con.

I just calculated what my old 1.6 car cost me year on year.
Ignoring petrol costs it cost me in depreciation, insurance, repairs and tax about £2400/year. £200/month.

I don't commute with it, just occasionally go to supermarket or away somewhere on a weekend. Both are unecessary in a car. Tesco can deliver, trains and taxis are good enough and more relaxing.

Owning a car seems a waste of time considering that one can hire a car for as little as £10/day. So two weekends away per month would be £80 + petrol. £120 saving. No hassles. No trips to garage just knowing you were getting ripped off but not sure how. No queuing up to get your tax disc at post office. None of that nonsense.

Then in a year, whatever you save could be spent hiring a super-car for a couple of days.

[Wilmslow]

I think cars are a con.

I just calculated what my old 1.6 car cost me year on year.
Ignoring petrol costs it cost me in depreciation, insurance, repairs and tax about £2400/year. £200/month.

I don't commute with it, just occasionally go to supermarket or away somewhere on a weekend. Both are unecessary in a car. Tesco can deliver, trains and taxis are good enough and more relaxing.

Owning a car seems a waste of time considering that one can hire a car for as little as £10/day. So two weekends away per month would be £80 + petrol. £120 saving. No hassles. No trips to garage just knowing you were getting ripped off but not sure how. No queuing up to get your tax disc at post office. None of that nonsense.

Then in a year, whatever you save could be spent hiring a super-car for a couple of days.

I once worked with somebody who did the Easycar thing - he paid up for 6 months in advance!!

Sadly for me I need a car - 60 miles from work and no public transport.

[ThomasSoerensen]

I think cars are a con.

I just calculated what my old 1.6 car cost me year on year.
Ignoring petrol costs it cost me in depreciation, insurance, repairs and tax about £2400/year. £200/month.

I don't commute with it, just occasionally go to supermarket or away somewhere on a weekend. Both are unecessary in a car. Tesco can deliver, trains and taxis are good enough and more relaxing.

Owning a car seems a waste of time considering that one can hire a car for as little as £10/day. So two weekends away per month would be £80 + petrol. £120 saving. No hassles. No trips to garage just knowing you were getting ripped off but not sure how. No queuing up to get your tax disc at post office. None of that nonsense.

Then in a year, whatever you save could be spent hiring a super-car for a couple of days.

I agree.

We moved to Frankfurt a year ago. Since then I have browsed the used car websites several times a week. But since we have excellent public transport and our families live flying distance away we have not gotten around to buying a car.

Occasionally we rent a car for the weekend and go somewhere.

Nice and easy. No service routine to keep track of. No worries about parking. No parking permit to the city to buy. And when we rent a car we get a nice/large one so I get to drive some fairly nice cars in stead of owning some piece of tulip affordable family minibus tin can.

I kind of like the situation we have.

[swamp]

It depends on whether you appreciate the freedom of having your own car. Anytime you want to drive it you can. No 'booking' a hire car or waiting your turn in a car share scheme.

Depreciation is still the killer cost for most cars, despite higher fuel and VED costs. You can still have cheap motoring if you find the balance between low service costs and low depreciation.

[TykeMerc]

I use my car on an almost daily basis.
While it costs me money I get good value from it, public transport in this area is utterly arse, I often have to carry stuff and when I want to go somewhere with my 3 kids it costs roughly the same as if I went alone. Plus I'm not tied to a timetable.

While the traffic in this country is lousy the alternatives even in fairly urban West Yorkshire are abysmal.

Having just returned from Italy where I used the train services to get around it put the British rail system into stark contrast, the trains were fast (sub 3 hours for >300 miles), clean, cheap (56 Euro's for the 1/2 the length of Italy) and almost all on time.

[EternalOptimist]

using your figures


ownership = £200 per month

car hire for commuter £10 per day = £305 per month


thats why we buy


bye bye

[Bagpuss]

I've lost approx 10k on my car over 3 years. On the two other new cars I've I lost 18000 quid and made £500.

On the next car I'm going to let someone else take the hit i.e. buy a 1 or two year old. The new car buzz has worn off now, and the current market is bargain city

[TykeMerc]

I've not bought a brand new car in well over a decade, 6-12 months old suits me fine and the initial massive depreciation hit is gone.

[VectraMan]

Cars aren't a con: new cars are a con.

My R-reg Primera cost me £1K 2 years ago, and it's now maybe worth about £600. I've done about 60K miles in it, and it's never let me down once, not even when I was doing 1000 miles per week.

Trains are only relaxing if they're empty, and they go where you want. To get to my last gig for 9am, I'd have had to leave 11pm the night before, change 3 times, including a 7 hour wait on Reading station.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Cars aren't a con: new cars are a con.

.....

Indeed, they are - you can't lose 10K on a car that only cost 1K

Trains can be useful though - I prefer them for travelling into London.