€5K per year

Bitten & Hisses

Up until 2011, we always managed to change an Audi A4 for €10k after 2 years, generally a pretty basic spec 130 or 140 bhp SE manual with little in the line of extras.
In 2013, we got a rude awakening when the cost to change had increased to €14K following the Audi dealer shakeup. This motivated a switch to a 3 series which also cost 14K to change after 2 years.
Simple question, is there any car (not necessarily a "prestige" marque) which people here have experienced will cost around €10K to change like for like after 2 years?

Requirements:

A4 size or larger saloon/estate/suv
Diesel
Automatic strongly preferred
Decent spec in so far as possible.

For example, a Passat is an ideal candidate, but I know cost to change a highline is running at €12k to go from 151 to 171.

Thanks in advance

bmwguy

Decent spec might be the problem, you dont get that money back.

Think of it like this, base car 40k if you stick 5k of spec, not base engine, leather, automatic, on it it's 45k.

Now, someone comes to buy a 1 year old car next year. Will they give you 40k for your 1 year old? Will they hell, a new one is 40k. So you are down to 35/36k after a year.

Repeat for year 2, when the 40k New one is down to under 35 and yours is pushed down to 30k, you are in 14k depreciation territory.

Popularity of new cars on PCP means it's as pain free to sign up for a new one.
Plus STG dropping.

That's what you are up against

bazz26

Maybe have a look at the crossover type vehicles like the Tucson, Qashqai or Sportage. These type cars are very much in demand so the yearly cost to change maybe close to your target.

Bitten & Hisses

bmwguy wrote: »

Decent spec might be the problem, you dont get that money back.

Think of it like this, base car 40k if you stick 5k of spec, not base engine, leather, automatic, on it it's 45k.

Now, someone comes to buy a 1 year old car next year. Will they give you 40k for your 1 year old? Will they hell, a new one is 40k. So you are down to 35/36k after a year.

Repeat for year 2, when the 40k New one is down to under 35 and yours is pushed down to 30k, you are in 14k depreciation territory.

Popularity of new cars on PCP means it's as pain free to sign up for a new one.
Plus STG dropping.

That's what you are up against

I understand all of that. There seems to have been a shift in pricing where dealers now take more margin on the used car than on the new one, favouring a customer buying straight.
The question is if anyone here has experience of changing something larger than a golf/focus/Astra for €10k or less after 2 years

jimmycrackcorm

It might be cheaper to go to Halfords every year, get a new registration plate printed out and stick it up above the TV in your sitting room to look at, because that's what you appear to be paying a lot of money for...

carsfan2

Would seriously doubt it can be done anymore.
But maybe something like a Toyota RAV4 might be a candidate. Apparently they can't get enough of them and hold a lot of their money.
The days of Audi, BMW, Mercedes etc being low depreciation cars are long gone.

Del2005

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

I understand all of that. There seems to have been a shift in pricing where dealers now take more margin on the used car than on the new one, favouring a customer buying straight.
The question is if anyone here has experience of changing something larger than a golf/focus/Astra for €10k or less after 2 years

If you drop a class this year you'll have to drop again in 2 years time, eventually you'll be on a bike.

Dealers aren't favouring straight deals. It's that new cars have become more affordable so the person who was looking for a 2 or 3 year old car, or even bangers, is now buying new that makes it harder to sell 2nd hand cars so they offer less on trade in. The first large batch of PCP cars will be hitting the market soon except values to drop more.

bmwguy

Why is having a car no older than 2 years so important? It's going to lead to huge compromises. The way I always think of depreciation, and its the accountant coming out in me, is that cars devalue 20% year on year

New car 50k, year 1 dep 10k end year value 40k
Year 2 dep 8k year end value 32k
Year 3 dep 6.4k year end value 25.6k

So it's worth 51.2% of its value after 3 years.

Using same logic, and I think it's pretty close to reality, a 30k car would be 6k year 1 and 5k year 2 which is 11k depreciation in 2 years, so you can not go above this value of you want to keep your cost to change at 10k or less.

Not an exact science, in demand cars tend to keep a bit more but close enough.

It's a massive, massive turn off for me buying new cars because of this. I will not ever buy a new car. But I realise some people do, and that's fine.

It makes our ridiculous cc based tax system look like a bargain.

_Brian

I think it's wrong bash op for wanting a new car every two years.

Some people have the disposable income and like a new car every two or three years, they are happy To take the depreciation, I know many who do this. There's no harm in it if they can afford it.

All the people saying they'd never buy a new car and 3 year old cars are so much better value, where do you think the 3 year old cars are coming from ?? Do you think there's a special factory producing 3 year old cars ?? The more people can afford new cars then 3-5 year old cars become better value.

jennyhayes123

On the last word with Matt Cooper yesterday they were talking about New cars and buying them up north or in Uk. Higher spec cars and cheaper. See if you can find a podcast as it was a good informative talk

bmwguy

_Brian wrote: »

I think it's wrong bash op for wanting a new car every two years.

Some people have the disposable income and like a new car every two or three years, they are happy To take the depreciation, I know many who do this. There's no harm in it if they can afford it.

All the people saying they'd never buy a new car and 3 year old cars are so much better value, where do you think the 3 year old cars are coming from ?? Do you think there's a special factory producing 3 year old cars ?? The more people can afford new cars then 3-5 year old cars become better value.

I don't see anyone bashing him!
He wants to keep his budget under 10k, but wants a new large car and some toys we are just pointing out that ship has sailed

Peregrinus

bmwguy wrote: »

He wants to keep his budget under 10k, but wants a new large car and some toys we are just pointing out that ship has sailed

This.

Buying a new car and then selling it second-hand and replacing it with a new car, rinse and repeat, is a famously expensive way of equipping yourself with wheels. In the past, the OP has managed to do this at a cost of about €5k a year, which obviously represents more or less the amount he is willing to pay, but recently he has been finding that the cost goes up, unless he trades down in terms of size/quality of car.

This shouldn't be surprising. Money tends to lose its value over time; we call this "inflation". Very few things that could be had for €10k, say, 15 years ago can still be had for anything like that amount today. So the OP has three choices:

1. Continue his current buy/sell pattern and stick with the same size/quality of car, and accept that the price will rise steadily. Because he only has one transaction every two years he will experience this as a significant step-change in his cost of motoring each time he changes his car.

2. Continue his current buy/sell pattern but steadily reduce the size/quality of car he gets so as to hold the cost to €10k each time.

3. Change his buy/sell pattern - most obviously, by doing something like buying a one-year old car and selling it when it's three years old. Or by holding on to the same car for more than two years.

Basically, there is no strategy which will enable him to trade to the same car at a cost of €10k every two years for ever. That's not how money works, sadly.

JJJJNR

I know nothing about this type of thing, but would it not be cheaper to sell the car for 35 40k, bank it and then lease a similar car and replace it every two years. I'm sure you could get a decent spec mid-level exec for 500 a month.

Or just do what I did and marry it.

ArnieSilvia

Another point here is that cars are more expensive because they are more complex. They also get bigger and better equipped.

Today's equivalent to an a6 from decade back would be an a4. I assume that today's 3 series would have similar dimensions and ride quality to e39 5 series. If you drove both back to back you'd get what I'm at.

I think that OP is not far wrong assuming going a step back in terms of vehicle class, so today's car losing 10k in 2 years should have similar quality to a4 that cost him 10k in 2 years, assuming there is no inflation - as previous poster pointed out you need to factor that too.

As a side note, I got a brand new Mazda 6 recently as a company car and was quite surprised with the quality of finish and spec for 30ish k (Bose audio, leather etc.). However, it had sports suspension and big wheels hence ride was firm and it had manual gearbox, not great IMO when power band is so narrow with 170 bhp turbo. I'd choose automatic non-sport model in brown metallic with brown wheels - everybody loved the colour.

Lots of people love these Mazda's and I had plenty commenting on how good it looks - I assume demand will be high for years to come hence depreciation might be not too bad, please double check yourself as I'm not into newer cars myself.

How would hanging on to it for another year work out?

Red Kev

Not sure what your family situation is regarding children and seats, but any of these cars will have a lot less than €10K depreciation over 2 years and will look better than any 171 plate. Factor in all running costs and they'll be cheaper to run than any new car in that price category.

Alternatively try a one year old Passat CC from a VW dealer.


https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/bmw-730d/14490077



https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/porsche-911-carrera-2-1998-pristine/14234160


or even this....

http://www.carsireland.ie/detail.php?ad_id=1596318&r=s.php%3Fm%3D6%26g%3D0

Bitten & Hisses

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

.............

For example, a Passat is an ideal candidate, but I know cost to change a highline is running at €12k to go from 151 to 171.

Thanks in advance

Would you consider changing every 3 years instead
I think that's the only way you'll hit your €5k/annum target.

Of course you'll have cars an extra year but over 6 years you'll suffer €30k depreciation rather than the €36k changing every 2 years.

Warranties & PCP deals etc all suit 3 year cycles largely

JJJJNR

JJJJNR wrote: »

I know nothing about this type of thing, but would it not be cheaper to sell the car for 35 40k, bank it and then lease a similar car and replace it every two years. I'm sure you could get a decent spec mid-level exec for 500 a month.

.............

The likes of an i40 executive is €335/month+ VAT for 4 years for Fleet Business users. That's almost €20k........ maintenacne, tax & tyres included based on 20k kms/annum.

PCP is the nearest thing open to private buyers.

On PCP a €37k Superb Ambition 2.0 DSG is €498.60/month with a €4,427.40 deposit and a GFMV of €14,518.00

bazz26

Red Kev wrote: »

Not sure what your family situation is regarding children and seats, but any of these cars will have a lot less than €10K depreciation over 2 years and will look better than any 171 plate. Factor in all running costs and they'll be cheaper to run than any new car in that price category.

Alternatively try a one year old Passat CC from a VW dealer.


https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/bmw-730d/14490077



https://www.donedeal.ie/cars-for-sale/porsche-911-carrera-2-1998-pristine/14234160


or even this....

http://www.carsireland.ie/detail.php?ad_id=1596318&r=s.php%3Fm%3D6%26g%3D0

Honestly, I don't see how the OP who drives the likes of an Audi A4 and BMW 3 Series is going to be interested in running Aston Martins and Porsches. Also if you can run a DB9 or 911 for less than a run of the mill car then you must be doing something very special or not driving them.

GustavoFring

Out on a limb here but is the reason for a change in the disabled driver scheme or something like that? Might be the reason why it's beneficial to change every two years?

carsfan2

GustavoFring wrote: »

Out on a limb here but is the reason for a change in the disabled driver scheme or something like that? Might be the reason why it's beneficial to change every two years?

I was thinking same.
relative is in this and up until last couple of years he was effectively able to change similar type cars to OP for a nominal cost every two years when the refunds were taken into account.
He is finding that it can't be done anymore and has to fund more himself as the scheme has not changed in years to take into account car price inflation.

Red Kev

bazz26 wrote: »

Honestly, I don't see how the OP who drives the likes of an Audi A4 and BMW 3 Series is going to be interested in running Aston Martins and Porsches. Also if you can run a DB9 or 911 for less than a run of the mill car then you must be doing something very special or not driving them.

The DB9 was a bit of a joke/wild card choice I'll admit. I've run a 911 and a couple of S-Class cars over the years and the savings you'll make in little or no depreciation will more than make up for the extra costs in servicing and maintenance.

You'll be paying a lot more in road tax, a bit more in insurance, depending on your personal circumstances, but with the 911 you'll have little or no depreciation. The depreciation on the 730 I'd put at €2-3K over a couple of years.

it's all a bit left field, which is why I suggested a 1-2 year old Passat CC if he fancies a change as the biggest hit on depreciation will already have been made and they'll be handy to sell on, if he fancies something new.

carsfan2

carsfan2 wrote: »

I was thinking same.
relative is in this and up until last couple of years he was effectively able to change similar type cars to OP for a nominal cost every two years when the refunds were taken into account.
He is finding that it can't be done anymore and has to fund more himself as the scheme has not changed in years to take into account car price inflation.

It's a refund of VAT & VRT.

The actual scheme isn't to facilitate a depreciation free car change every two years. It's a tax relief. The funding is of course 100% out of the persons pocket.

I'd be surprised if new car prices have increased disproportionately to actual inflation in the last couple of decades.

elperello

Augeo wrote: »

Would you consider changing every 3 years instead
I think that's the only way you'll hit your €5k/annum target.

Of course you'll have cars an extra year but over 6 years you'll suffer €30k depreciation rather than the €36k changing every 2 years.

Warranties & PCP deals etc all suit 3 year cycles largely

So is 5000 pa easily achievable buying a mainstream family car new for c. 30,000 and trading in after 3 years?

That way you would be permanently in warranty and never need to do an NCT which would suit a lot of people.

Alternatively if you kept the car for 10 years sold it for 3000 your annual depreciation would go down to 2700. You would be out of warranty for 7 to 3 years depending on brand and have to do 4 NCT tests. Maybe suitable for low mileage owners?

Zurbaran

I reckon you could do it by getting a new model of whatever car and then trading for another new model from another brand two years later. This would exclude premium cars though.