How long are you people planning to hang on to your cars for - and why?

[ship69]

Hi 8th Gen Owners,

I am curious - how long are you people planning to hang on to your cars for - and why?

Background:
I am primarily interested in CHEAP motoring.
According to my calculations, supposing I had bought a 2.2 i-DTEC EX 5d, and suppose I do 20,000 miles per year, then according to Parkers the value of my car would be as follows:

£31,855 - 2013 (New!)
£16,988 - 2012 - 20,000 miles
£13,240 - 2011 - 40,000
£11,075 - 2010 - 60,000
£9,220 - 2009 - 80,000
£7,860 - 2008 - 100,000

[Note I am using parkers.co.uk data and the start of each year, and ***uming the sale value by an independent dealer]

And my losses per year of ownership would be:

£14,867 - 2012
£3,748 - 2011
£2,165 - 2010
£1,855 - 2009
£1,360 - 2008

Going back further then gets complicated, because there was then the 7th Generation... Sso suppose I choose the model: 2.2 i-CTDi EX 5d (Sat Nav + HFT) going back in time as above it then goes:

£6,110 - 2008
£4,685 - 2007
£3,840 -
£2,505 -
£2,075 - 2004 (180,000 miles)

And the losses per year are:

£1,750 - 2008
£1,425 - 2007
£845 - 2006
£1,335 - 2005
£430 - 2004


SO.. on the face of the cheapest motoring is to be had towards the end of the life of the car (i.e. 200,000 miles??)
However this ignores the all-important *maintenance* costs (new clutch, new break disks, DPF etc)

[And if you buy a car second hand, even if you get a full service record from a Honda dealer, there is always the risk some idiot owner before you drove like a maniac and trashed the engine or did something stupid like put the wrong kind of oil in. But let's ignore that because the first year of ownership appears to cost you nearly £15,000 in depreciation - and financially speaking that would have to be some pretty severe bad treatment to do that sort of damage to a car! So let's just ***ume that financially speaking it's worth while NOT buying a car from new...]

So can anyone help me out? What is the cheapest form of ownership?

Because at some point maintenance costs will out-weigh depreciation costs. The question is, given how reliable Honda Accords are supposed to be, when does this occur?

(Yes, I know that a Honda Accord is a very NICE car to drive particularly on long distance cruising/motorways etc however a friend of mine who is extremely tight on cash always buys a Honda Accord because according to him due to the reliability at the end of its life, you can get seriously cheap motoring. Any yes there is also the huge hassle of changing a car which when buying second hand certainly can take TIME. And I value my time time I call it £25/hour...)

- Any thoughts?

J


P.S. NOTE: I am posting this question in both the 7th Generation and the 8th Generation forums because I would like to see the reasons given by the different categories of owner.

 

[richsprint]

Treat the Parkers prices with a pinch of salt John, they are only a guide, but I agree with them,1st year the Accord loses around 50%, especially the expensive models, as do most similar cars, Mondeo, Insignia, Superb etc.

I tend to buy 3 or 4 years old with maybe slightly higher than average mileage, so its cheaper, then keep for 4 years or so. I do low mileage, only 8k a year, so I can level out a higher mileage car, and as long as I get one in good nick, should only have annual servicing bills and maybe 1 set of tyres. Also buying at 3-4 years means I get a current model, so enjoy some of the latest tech and good euro ncap crash test ratings.

If you buy older I find there is more niggling damage I'd want to repair, alloy scuffs, paintwork chips and scuffs, and I'd start getting stung for failures and bigger maintenance bills, cambelts (not Accord of course), gearbox fluid changes etc etc.

I reckon if you can get away with £1500 depreciation a year, thats not too bad. So if I bought a £30k car new, I'd have to keep it for 20 years!

Thats my philiosophy anyway.