Cheap To Run, Post 2008

Topbike77

I Currently have a 2007 Volvo C30, love it to bits, looks amazing, drives great etc. but its costly to run. Im paying €800 a year in tax and the 2.0 litre engine is too high.
Im looking for something cheap to run with a small diesel engine and also post 2008 to cut back on tax. My budget would be no more than €10,000.
(Also how much roughly would I get for my current car?)

Moneymaker

What type of driving do you do? Motorways? City?

How many miles a year?

Do you need a big boot? Room for kids?

Topbike77

Moneymaker wrote: »

What type of driving do you do? Motorways? City?

How many miles a year?

Do you need a big boot? Room for kids?

I drive mostly around the city, I wouldn't drive an awful lot, a good bit under 10,000 miles a year. Don't need a big boot an average size is fine, no kids. It's generally Generally myself and one passenger.

colm_mcm

Are you looking to spend €10k along with the c30? (Prob worth 4.5k?)

Moneymaker

Why not just keep what you have? Worth spending 10k to save a few hundred a year? As far as I know the mpg on the C30 isn't bad at all.(I'm assuming yours is Petrol? 30-35mpg from what i've read up on).

Anyway i'd say your current car would fetch 5k or so but it could take a while to shift it privately. The demand for cars like that isn't there and frankly Volvo is quite far down on the list for what people buy in this country.

You don't need diesel for the mileage you do.

If you have your heart set on something new i'd look at the Fiesta, Octavia, Hyundai i30 or Kia C'eed.

But honestly from what you've told me I would keep the car you have. You sound like you like it, they are rare and I doubt anything else would be as comfortable.

Topbike77

colm_mcm wrote: »

Are you looking to spend €10k along with the c30? (Prob worth 4.5k?)

I would be looking at taking out a max loan of three grand + whatever my volvo is worth. I thought I could get 7k for it but obviously not. So my budget would be under 8k after hearing that.

colm_mcm

Ronan14 wrote: »

I would be looking at taking out a max loan of three grand + whatever my volvo is worth. I thought I could get 7k for it but obviously not. So my budget would be under 8k after hearing that.

Stick with what you have tbh.

Topbike77

Moneymaker wrote: »

Why not just keep what you have? Worth spending 10k to save a few hundred a year? As far as I know the mpg on the C30 isn't bad at all.(I'm assuming yours is Petrol? 30-35mpg from what i've read up on).

Anyway i'd say your current car would fetch 5k or so but it could take a while to shift it privately. The demand for cars like that isn't there and frankly Volvo is quite far down on the list for what people buy in this country.

You don't need diesel for the mileage you do.

If you have your heart set on something new i'd look at the Fiesta, Octavia, Hyundai i30 or Kia C'eed.

But honestly from what you've told me I would keep the car you have. You sound like you like it, they are rare and I doubt anything else would be as comfortable.

Thanks for the advice. I think you might be right. I also put allot of money into it recently with repairs and such so I know it will be fit for another good few years and I could run into trouble getting a used car. She is a lovely car!

lomb

Cars are quite dear to run and even if you saved 500 pa on tax it isn't more than probably 10-15 % of your running costs so isn't worth getting stressed over. The government are basically discriminating scum to tax large capacity cars unreasonably. There should be a standard road tax for every car be it a 1 or 6 liter car taking any emotion out of it. Whatever revenue they want divided by the number of cars they expect on the road. Its in the governments interest for people to drive large capacity cars as more servicing ,tyres, fuel and insurance is paid which means the government gets more money as well as more people being employed to look after them.
Im after a 4+ liter v8 at the moment but with the tax system as is wont be paying 2k for the privilege of owning a weekend toy. So it has to be the vintage route- Merc 500 Secs/ Jag XJS V12s/Porsche 928

Bpmull

You said you love the car to bits so stick with it. Sure it would be nice to have lower tax. But going out spending 10k getting a loan which means paying back a certain amount of interest all to get rid of a car you like anyway fcuk that. No matter what way you look at it it's a financially better to keep the car rather than spending so much to change it.

It's really a win win as you like the car. In the grand scheme of things you nearly never save money by changing a car it's almost always most cost effective to keep what you have. Although people may change because they don't like the car or want to change but that's there purpose not to save money by changing it.

Jesus.

Its a whore the amount it costs to motor in Ireland these days Ronan but I think you're best sticking with what you've got pal. Going diesel won't return much of a saving doing small City mileage. In fact it could end up costing you money with DPF issues down the line.

Just enjoy what I believe is a cracking little Motor.

CiniO

Bpmull wrote: »

In the grand scheme of things you nearly never save money by changing a car it's almost always most cost effective to keep what you have.

I'm hoping my change last year will bring savings.

I had 9 year old Mazda 6 petrol 2.0.
Managed to sell it for about 2k.

I got 3.5 year old Civic diesel 2.2 for 10.5k.

So I had to put extra 8.5k to change a car.

But...

I'm saving about 2k a year purely on fuel and tax on civic compared to mazda (I drive about 30k kilometres a year).

Assuming I'll keep the car for 3 years.
Mazda would surely require some maintenance as by that time it would be 12 years old. Civic might also need maintenance, most likely not that much, but considering it's diesel it might cost similar. So assume same costs for maintenance over next 3 years.

So in if I kept Mazda in 3 years, I could possibly sell it for 1k or less.
Once I got civic, in 3 years I'm going to save 6k on tax and fuel.
If I want to sell it then, it will be 7.5 years old car - so hopefully it will sell for about 5k.

So summarising - if I kept mazda in 3 years I would end up with 1k.
As I got civic, I had to put 8.5k to buy it, but will save 6k and sell it for 5k, so I'll end up with 2.5k.

After 3 years I'm better off 1.5k euro thanks to purchasing civic. And obviously for the last 3 years I've driven nicer, newer car.