On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 13:40:44 +0000, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


I wonder. I'm amazed at how used car prices have inflated over the
past 15 years. I remember that in 1995, you could easily find 10-year
old cars with less than 90,000 miles for about £300. Nowadays you are
hard-preesed to find them for less than £1500. What is going on?
After all, new cars haven't gone up 500% over the past 15 years, have
they?

#
Actually I think tis is completely wrong.

You can still geta heap of junk suvb 400 quid, but cars last longer, and
a 90000 mile ten year old is acvtually a very decent and useable animal.

Yeah, but you've still got to be very careful. Rusting sulls can still
scupper you even when the engine is only just run-in if the car is
10-yrs old, but little used.

Personally, I'm trying to get my financial maths hat to figure out
what is the most cost-effective price-range to spend on a car. (For
someone like me that wants a practical car that's cheap to run but
prformas na dhandles a bit better than average). Obviously it's not
£110,000 for a Ferrari, and obviously it's not £1000 for a car than
needs £500 worth of work every year... Somewhere in-between, but
where, I wonder. One has to take into account the cost of using credit
(well, I do, anyway).

I've noticed that one used-car dealer local to me ahs nothing but cars
priced between £4000 and £5000. Perhpas that's a clue... or perhaps
he's just got his needle stuck in the £4K-£5K groove.

A very rough rule of thumb I may have tentatively identified is that
cars such as I described above cost about £500 a year to own (not
including running costs). For example: A £500 car with a new MOT
will, on average, give you about one year of driving before you have
to scrap it to avoid undue expense. And a £1500 car will last about 3
years before the same thing happens.

Anyone agree with my calculation abobe, or do you humbly beg to
differ? I wanna know.

J