Is it worth it?

[jionu]

I think its all subjective to where you live/what you do for a living and other outgoings

I think people who live in Cities of the future will have less and less need for cars but that's purely my prediction.

Me personally I couldn't live without it and there's a lot of modern day eco cars you can run for relatively small amounts of money (even though most are dreadful).

 

[peterwalkley]

Maintenance = a lot
Tax = a lot
Insurance = a lot
Cost of car = a lot

Economic sense = No
Do I care = No

+1 and probably too long for signature ...dammit !

 

[pastymuncher]

Maintenance = £350 (service / tyres / oil / etc)
Tax = £150
Insurance = £300
MOT = £50
Cost of car = £800 P/A (for something that TW won't moan about).

Independance and not having to use our abysmal public transport here = Priceless

We would be screwed without a car here. We have a bus a hour which is always late/uncomfortable/noisey/expensive and finishes at 18.10 apart from Sundays when it's even less frequent and finishes earlier.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Maintenance = a lot
Tax = a lot
Insurance = a lot
Cost of car = a lot

Economic sense = No
Do I care = No

This

 

[Firestar_3x]

Is the future a rental world?

Yes, quite a few new cars on the road are rented from a main dealer / company, but hey the look like 'the man' on the street.....

 

[Iamzod]

I live outside the city & have a 22 mile round trip to work, plus I use my car at weekends.

An oil change costs £35 which gets done twice a year so lets say £70 then the other filters like air & cabin cost another £10 which I change once every 12 months & then we add on a fuel filter which I think costs £35 a year as i'll only buy one of those from a dealer as I like my fuel injectors to remain in working order.

So general servicing I pay about £115 a year.

Tyres I need 2 every 2 years so lets call that £70 on tyres.

Insurance I pay £160 per year.

Tax is £150ish.

And for the MOT I always pay £29.99 at Halfords and I always pass apart from last year when I couldn't get in and a local place tried to scam me.

Random repairs, I've replaced both rear calipers this year which cost me £80 & a front spring which was £35ish.

So therefore-

Maintenance = £255 (service / tyres / oil / etc)
Tax = £150
Insurance = £160
MOT = £30
Random repairs = £115
Cost of car = £280 P/A (£1400 over 5 years, I could probably get most if not all of my money back by selling though)

£82.50 a month this year then which is nothing really when you consider my 20 minute work commute would become 1hour & 40 minutes by public transport, if I worked overtime for the extra commute time then public transport becomes ridiculously expensive in comparison.

A hire car isn't going to come close to £82 a month as I need it 7 days a week, certainly not for something Mondeo sized or larger.

I personally wouldn't touch a new car with a barge pole either, some other mug can pay tax & get bum ****** with depreciation.

 

[chaparral]

Cars. We love them. We want to own one, but does owning a car really make economic sense in todays world?

Maintenance = £350 (service / tyres / oil / etc)
Tax = £150
Insurance = £300
MOT = £50
Cost of car = £800 P/A (for something that TW won't moan about).

Now that works out about £138 a month. Putting that another way you could rent from enterprise a little city car for every weekend and 4/5 days a month on top. Is the future a rental world?

That most be a cheap car for only £350 Maintenance including tyres and service costs..
Or are you using remoulds ..

And you forgot to add what costs the most when running a car...The FUEL (3k+ per year )

 

[Iamzod]

That most be a cheap car for only £350 Maintenance including tyres and service costs..
Or are you using remoulds ..

Not really, I buy brand new Goodyears & mine as posted above costs less in maintenance than that.

 

[Hxc]

MX5 costs me next to nothing, £20 a month in tax and £300 in insurance a year, £35 MOT and an oil change.... barely gets used here in London but totally worth it for the flexibility. If only someone hadn't crashed into it. Again.

 

[Daze]

Guessing I won't be seeing you on Pistonheads

Cars = life. There's nothing else I'd rather spend my money on.

 

[neoboy]

If my insurance was as cheap as OP's then it would be worth it even more.

 

[atpbx]

I haven't had a public transport option of any kind for any of the jobs I've had in the last 23 years.

It's not even as if I live or work out in the sticks or start at times that are that out landish.

 

[PMKeates]

My car is costing about £300/month, excluding depreciation, for around 6 days/month use. I did look at rental/Zipcar-type stuff but it's barely any less expensive and I'd be driving Corsas and Golf Diesels instead of an M5.

 

[clockwork.satan]

I live out in the sticks, so I basically NEED my car to get me from A to B (and C, D, E and F) and am thankful that it's been - touch wood - very reliable. I also have a horse stabled a few miles away that I need to tend to on a regular basis which is completely off-the-grid in terms of public transport.

When going to work I do use a park and ride however as parking in the city centre is absurdly expensive.

 

[StevenG]

I agree with most of the above about the fact that public transport is just a non starter for me. Would take over an hour to get to my work on public transport vs 15 minutes in the car.

Plus having to deal with the general public, delays, weather etc. makes it an actual nightmare for me. Couldn't stand doing it now after owning a car for the past 6 years!

Car was 2000
Tax 290
Insurance 650
Maintenance £££

Only bought my car recently so i'm still sorting out all the gremlins and making it slightly more comfortable. Better brakes, leather seats, tints and general other wear and tear like tyres, arms, track rods etc.

Wouldn't change it for public transport and renting/leasing a car would mean I'd end up with some crappy city car and not the luxury german car i have now.

I've done new cars on PCP and old cars i've owned. I like the fact you don't have a monthly payment for the car, makes the fuel bill easier to swallow when getting 20mpg average!

 

[Haggisman]

OP is ignoring the fact that when some selfish/jealous/ignorant **** scratches/dings your rented car when it's parked up, you'll end up paying a fortune in excess (unless you've got the excess protection which then doubles the cost of your £11.50confused rental - btw, OP, where do you rent a car that cheap?!).

While I'm not particularly impressed when I get back to my car to find a mark on it, at least one of the benefits of driving my own slightly very old car is that minor cosmetic damage doesn't mean a big bill at the end of the day.

 

[GhostWKD]

Maintenance = a lot
Tax = a lot
Insurance = a lot
Cost of car = a lot

Economic sense = No
Do I care = No

The latter part is hard to justify to the better half, but I managed to talk mine around to the Noble so there's hope out there yet

edit: Another in the never be able to get to work on public transport brigade, plus even if I could it'd cost a lot more than the fuel regardless.