Just read all 20 pages of this thread from start to finish.
First thing I'll say is whilst it's great that some forum members here have sufficient cash in the bank to splash £50k+ on a car, or even £20k outright, I would suggest that the percentage of people who can do this is very very low. The point of the thread, I think, was to discuss how best to finance cars for those normal people among the population, like myself, that can put a few grand down at best. Let's face it, if you can buy any new car outright, even a cheaper one, then it doesn't matter too much to your pocket whether you choose to pay cash or finance it on a PCH deal.
My second point is where are all these fantastic deals on PCH to be found? I read threads like this quite often and there is always some claim that a nice Golf or Merc or BMW can be had for £200 a month. Great, I think, then proceed to go off and find said deal with no luck whatsoever. Either there is a total misconception on the cost of these deals or I am not looking in the right place?
The third thing I'll say is that as a driver of old cars myself I am getting more inclination to buy something new the older I get. I'm just fed up of old cars now. Dealing with getting them fixed. Fed up of hearing the crashing sound you get from worn suspension whenever you go over a speed bump. Fed up of heavy feeling clutch pedals or heavy feeling steering, which isn't sufficiently failed to justify getting anything fixed on it. Fed up of not having the refinement and quiteness of something new. I drove a Seat Leon 1.2 TSI as a hire car on holiday 2 weeks ago. Lovely car, so quiet and refined compared to my 14 year old Honda Accord that I was not looking forward to coming back to. Not that there is anything wrong with it as such - it gets me to work - but it's old and haggard. Do I really want to spend several hundreds of pounds a month on a new car? No I don't. But the thought of yet another £5k car does not fill me with joy.