Older cars disappearing rapidly off our roads

Older cars really seem to drop off, now and again you might see a rare unabused type.

I was drving behing a Daewoo Matiz earlier, in some ways Id like to see one in good nick with low mileage.

Most cars here tend to get well used imo, passed on to whoever can afford them and used to their max as family cars throughout their life.

At a certain point, its not economically viable to keep them going or do the work thats required to keep them going imo, usually owners dont have excess space to store them even if the cars themselves are viable.

As per an earlier thread there were 100,000 pre 2008 scrapped in 2020. A lot depends on whether the older cars are worth to the person to get repaired. Older cars can turn into money pits.

Had a Matiz for a while thought it was ok. You don't see many older Saabs about anymore, like the 9000 or older model 93.

~100 (some 1999 will be Mk2) Mk1 Puntos NCted in 2019 - there were probably 100 in my town in 1999!

TWO original Pandas, and one is a 2001 so will be a Polish import.

It's only natural that there are going to be less 18 year old cars on the road compared to 13 year old ones. The older a car gets the more chance of it needing repair and at some point the cost of repairing it becomes uneconomical.

Insurance industry reform hasn't gone near as far as it needs too. The unfairness of legally requiring a product but that product being made unavailable by a cartel is just wrong.

Old cars are dirt cheap in Ireland, especially pre-08 cars in a high tax bracket.

For most, it doesn't make a lot of sense to put €300 into keeping a €1000 car on the road, and €300 is probably the minimum cost of parts/labour for a small job. We don't have a culture of car maintenance, unlike the US or to a lesser extent the UK.

The Irish "motor industry" what a cod! If nobody ever bought a new car ever again the effect on the economy would be negligible at worst.

One of the reasons why they stopped covering older cars was because of scammers buying the cheapest oldest car they could find and being 'crashed' into.

That was a genuine problem, but could have been easily dealt with by offering it ony for customers with good NCDs.

This has been used as pretect to stop insuring older cars full stop.

I think for a valid comparison, the figures you should be looking at are:

Number of 2002 Ford Mondeos presented for a full test in 2015 was 1756

Number of 2007 Ford Mondeos presented for a full test in 2020 was 1049

For 2002/2007 Renault Lagunas, the figures are 1188 and 66 respectively

I think your overall point still stands though

One of the most obvious things I've noticed lately is newer SUVs with bad tyres, is it a PCP thing, zero maintenance?

I still see a good few 00 to 09 regs around, I guess city cars don't see as much mileage so don't fail as often

I think it comes down to a combination of resale value versus the cost of repair. If a 02 car suffers a major breakdown, the cost of repairing it is probably more than the car is worth. If you're being asked for €2000 to pay for repairs, then maybe you'd start looking for a cheap car that's a bit newer for a similar amount of money

There's also been a few scrappage offers over the last few years that probably made the owners of those older cars decide it was time to upgrade. Combine that with much cheaper car finance and it makes buying a new car more feasible

I think what folks forget is the governments policy on motoring seems almost entirely written by the SIMI - who we know isnt going to design it suit or protect the consumer. So pretty much all of the policies are designed to extract cash out of your pocket. NCT, Road Tax reform, scrappage scheme are all designed to force you to buy newer ( cleaner 🙄 ) cars. Insurance companies too are pitching in to push people to buy newer cars by making the insurance on older cars impossible to get - possibly in return for not having to push through proper returns.

Either way, the intent isnt to do anything for consumers good. Its to make you purchase new, by making your old car unviable.

I like the word 'frugal' - much nicer than poor (drive a '02 myself)! Agree with you both. Other countries give tax breaks to keep old cars on the road, but here it's all about the reg plate.

Well the tax on pre 08 cars never actually went up.

That was the going rate before the 2008 greens.

Sum people think suv's are for off road

Some people think SUVs and crossovers are worth owning.