Is the throwaway car already here?

[peteo]

In some ways, cars are better than ever. They don't rust like some of the sheds I drove in the 1970s and beyond and, mechanically, engines last much much longer.

But the cost of repairing the modern car can be truly eyewatering. If you had a 10 year old VW and the air con went kaput what would you do? What if the cam belt snapped?

The 10 year old Golf, Focus, Astra etc might be worth £500 tops and repair soon becomes uneconomic. My neighbour's Avensis is just coming up to 10 years old and the aircon has failed. The car is worth about £600 trade in and the repair will set him back £1200. He now drives with his windows open and if anything else goes he will scrap it.

Is the disposable car now here? Even the government seems to think so with its scrappage scheme.

[STEWY L]

In some ways, cars are better than ever. They don't rust like some of the sheds I drove in the 1970s and beyond and, mechanically, engines last much much longer.

But the cost of repairing the modern car can be truly eyewatering. If you had a 10 year old VW and the air con went kaput what would you do? What if the cam belt snapped?

The 10 year old Golf, Focus, Astra etc might be worth £500 tops and repair soon becomes uneconomic. My neighbour's Avensis is just coming up to 10 years old and the aircon has failed. The car is worth about £600 trade in and the repair will set him back £1200. He now drives with his windows open and if anything else goes he will scrap it.

Is the disposable car now here? Even the government seems to think so with its scrappage scheme.
but what about the ten years trouble free running they may have provided?:D
split the £1200 per yr and you're looking at £120.
we all must remember that a £30 -£40k car will still need the same tooling
etc to repair it when it gets older,regardless of what price is paid for it second hand.:confused:
regards,
stewy.:D

[macmillions]

I believe a car is only worth what you value it.
Our Golf is only worth £600, but as myself and girlfried rely on it, and the body is in such fantastic condition, we personally would splash a £1000 on an engine rebuild if necessary.

My Clio is only worth £1500 trade, but its my work horse and again, I cannot afford to get a new car on finance, or pay even 3-4k on a 2nd hand car. So if I did have a catastrophic breakdown, I would still find a way to repair it, regardless of the cost.

[peteo]

yes, it is interesting. I was thinking more that the modern car has more things that can go wrong at catastrophic cost. Turbos, air con systems, much more complex braking systems etc.

But there is the contra view set out by macmillions and that is, even if the costs are horrendous, it can still be worth while repairing an old car with an apparently low market value. There are quite a few American sites on this on the basis of "is it worth repairing your old clunker."

What bought this about is a pub car park near where we live that has become an unofficial grave yard for both cars and vans. A reasonably clean looking BMW 7 series has only recently been towed away - it was on a P plate (1996) if memory serves. 4 decent tyres and pretty clean inside too.

Obviously some killer bill and it's been dumped.

Couple of half decent transit vans there at the moment;)

[clive30v]

By the looks of things sadly so:( I find it shocking when you drive past a scrsppy and perfectly good cars are on the heap. surely its cheaper for the environment to keep cars on the road as long as possible and recycle them rather then build a new ones!!!?? 1 particular mag I read was "bigging up" The scrappage scheme before, now 5 months later runs a story on decent good cars being "cubed"!! ***!

[Crasher]

The cost of repairing modern cars is simply staggering; partly due to the cost of parts and partly due to the number of hours a job takes. When I started doing this job 25 years ago, a Polo head gasket would take half a day to do. Now you can quadruple that time and the amount of parts required.

[Col]

I think your right, cars do get to a point these days where they beome disposable.

Rare exceptions are VW Golfs !

Just wait and see when the 'elf & safety / vosa idiots cotton on to the idea and declare that airbags and seatbelt pre-tensioners have a 'sell by date'. They'll probably declare that any of these components (with explosives) cannot be over 10 years old. That'll kill the 2nd hand market stone dead if people are forced to renew them. Supprised they haven't done this already as there are a lot of early 90's cars out there with very elderly airbags in them.

[peteo]

Hadn't thought about airbags but that 10 year thing rings a bell now I come to think of it. I seem to remember reading something about it.

Another pressure will come from the pressure to get people into electric and/or hybrid cars for climate change reasons. You can see your 10 year old car becoming literally worthless.

This will suit everyone - government, manufacturers - except the motorist.

[peteo]

Just found this, in of all places, the Christian Science Monitor. Not my normal reading I hasten to add. It echoes what people have already said on here.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0419/p13s02-wmgn.html

[Vwsteve76]

At the end of the day depends if you can afford to change your old car, if the car is in decent state and just need a one part changed to get it through its mot etc sometime it`s worth spending few hundred pounds to get another year motoring out of the old car even if the car is worth least then the repair bill it better then spending a few thousend pounds on a newer car if money it short.

End the day would you scrap a car because somthing like the air conditioning etc stopped working and cost more then the car is worth to repair it do not stop the car doing it`s job getting you from A to B if your air conditioning or elecric window or somthing similer is not working.

Depend`s how you look at it really.

Sorry about bad spelling :Blush2:

[Col]

No, you wouldn't scrap a car if an ancillary system not vital to the running failed.

My thoughts about airbags run true in that link above, very scaring reading.

Also I reckon you'll see hardly any PD engined VAG cars on the road in 10 years time, they will simply cost to much to fix if they ever go wrong. In fact on some of the early ones I'd say they are right on the limit of value vs cost to repair, especially AJM engined ones with their habit of blowing head gaskets.

[paul b]

Am I one of the few that believes in the "better the devil you know" saying?

Sometimes you have to be more realistic than think, "the car's worth £2k, it's not worth fixing if I have to spend £1.5k on it."

[Col]

Am I one of the few that believes in the "better the devil you know" saying?

Sometimes you have to be more realistic than think, "the car's worth £2k, it's not worth fixing if I have to spend £1.5k on it."

In that case Paul you have to factor in risk.

Why risk spending 1.5k on something that is worth 2k.

If the car was written off you would only get 2k and would therefore have lost that 1.5k.

To be risk averse the better way is to add the 1.5k to the 2k and buy something for 3.5k that does not need the 1.5k repair.

That is of course if you can get rid of it for 2k. Chances are you would need to spend that 1.5k to be able to sell for 2k so you are back to square one.

In that instance unless it it somewthing special, the car does then become disposable I'd say. You'd cut your losses and sell the 2k car for 1k in its broken state and then add the 1.5k you were going to spend on the repair to get a car worth 2.5k.

It is a fine line to walk at the banger end of the market. In the old days when those that would fix could fix, the make do and mend way was best. These days it is difficult and expensive to fix and you take the risk risk of another major system failing after you've spent that 1.5k.

[peteo]

I meet up with a group of old work mates on a monthly basis for a walk followed by lunch. One of our number swept into the car park yesterday in a brand new BMW 116i automatic. Last month he was still in his 17 year old Honda Accord. The crunch time for him was the need to have extensive work done on the ABS system including two new sensors at a cost of £158 each. Looking at a £500 bill on his car which was worth no more than £500 he finally called time.

He's had 12 years out of his Accord and got £2,000 under the scrappage scheme. He fully intends to take his new BMW to the end (either his or the car's!).

But I agree with Big Col. £1,500 is something I would not spend on a car worth £2,000. That could be followed by another monster bill for something else. I would be heading for the exit door faced with that type of bill.

Running bangers is a valid way to keep motoring costs down - there's a Bangernomics website - but you have to be unsentimental. Big bill - get rid - and spend the £1500 on another banger.

[Crasher]

To be risk averse the better way is to add the 1.5k to the 2k and buy something for 3.5k that does not need the 1.5k repair.

But there is always the risk that the £3.5K car you buy needs £1K+ spending on it.

[Col]

But there is always the risk that the £3.5K car you buy needs £1K+ spending on it.

Exactly.

Tis risky running a banger.

[macmillions]

Don't I just know it!
I have two!

[JSH]

I feel its a case of the value the vehicle is worth E.G. Insurance valuation or what the car is worth if you are to sell it, Is totally different to what its worth to the owner in terms of everyday transport
Sometimes its a case of "Better the Devil you know" A car thats been ( Hopefully ) maintained and looked after, has to be a better bet than an unknown vehicle thats in the price range of a hefty garage bill.
John

[zollaf]

absolutely agree. if youve had a good reliable car for a few years and the engine blows up, its not what the cars worth, but what its worth to you. Ive known people spend twice what a cars worth on repairs.

[Crasher]

I regularly have people spend 10 or even 20 times what the car is worth. Two people in the last two weeks have spent more on their Golf 2 GTI than it is worth for the umpteenth time.

[MalcQV]

It is indeed a fine line to tread. I believe my 2003 Passat to be a banger. However it will get too expensive to keep running soon I guess and will have to be "thrown away" :(. I had my old Accords for years. Not VW's fault I think a newer Accord would probably be similar. All this electrickery and emission control stuff :(

Oh to have a simple car, one I could actually do a few easier jobs on myself.

[paul b]

The thing is, you're all basing your arguments on if's and might's.

It is not certain that if you fix the car for £1.5k that something else will go wrong. I'll bet a DMF job at a dealer would be around £1.5k (or slightly under) these days. But that sort of job is just maintenance really. So in theory what a number of you are saying is that you'd get rid of the car when it needs money spending on it, not when it's broken, but when it needs maintenance?

With that sort of maintenance providing everything else is in good order the car could run for another 100k without a similar sized bill.

As BigCol says it's a risk but so is spending £3.5k on a car that you don't know the history of, as it's more than likely you'll be buying private at that price and full dealer service history will be rare on a car the age typically associated with being a banger.

[peteo]

I suppose, arguing against myself for a bit, Charles Ware's Morris Minor Centre in Bath gives the lie to the argument that you automatically scrap the car based on market value.

Although in the case of a moggy, after you had spent megabucks on it, it would then be worth an appreciable amount of money.

[Ben]

my 2004 mk5 golf is not a banger, ok its 6 years old come feb 2010 and i wouldn't get much more that £4000 part ex. It'll be needing a clutch and DMf within the next year i reckon. Hopefully i can stretch it to 2 years as the wife now uses it so its annual mileage will have dropped from circa 13k to circa 3.5k.

i'll be looking around £700 for that job.

Not quite throwaway yet.

[MalcQV]

I keep thinking about swapping for something cheaper, small petrol or same size diesel but then think how long is it going to take to pay me back the extra I have spent to get it? Anyway getting quite attached to the Pasty now :p

[Crasher]

I can’t think of any car less than 10 years old being a “banger” in any way unless it is a rebuilt write off, of which there are an increasing number around. Talking about 6 year old cars being bangers is just madness, no wonder new cars depreciate so much.

[JSH]

I can’t think of any car less than 10 years old being a “banger” in any way unless it is a rebuilt write off, of which there are an increasing number around. Talking about 6 year old cars being bangers is just madness, no wonder new cars depreciate so much.

I totally agree with Crasher, In our society every product that you purchase has a built in obsolesance, EG computer operating systems Buy a PC now and buy a printer in five years they will be incompatible, Buy a TV it will not be repairable in two years. Its this mind set that programs people to dissmiss anything thats a few years old because the manufacturers have built in obserlesance.
My first car was ten years old ,and I loved that car because I knew other than major mechanical failure I could keep that car running, Which taught me far more about hands on engineering than the degree that I was studying for ever did. The thing that dictated a cars life was rust, they over came this, so to stop people making their cars run longer they built obsolesance by introducing electronics in the name of economy reliability & economy
Sadly we now have a generation who have never repaired anything because manufacturers have made very difficult to do so. I find that very sad !

[Crasher]

And all the time we are being driven insane with anti CO2 propaganda where manufacturing products produces CO2.

[peteo]

Even though I started this thread, I do find some difficulty in seeing anything under 10 years old as a banger.

Maybe it's just definitions but, for me, a banger has to be decrepit in some way, rusty, worn out seats, dull paint, chronically juddering clutch but just able to scrape past the MOT with a new tyre here or a bit of welding there.

My real point is that cars which are not bangers just become uneconomic to repair because of complexity, cost, high tech gizmos etc etc.

i agree with Crasher's point about CO2. Whatever else the car scrappage scheme may be, green it certainly isn't.

[Col]

They are not bangers in the old sense of the word.

As I've said above it is more of a risk thing.

Use the white goods / tv example. It is always cheaper and more sensible to buy a new one rather than repair the old one. Things are designed as disposable these days including cars not that I agree with it.

By all means spend £1.5k getting a £2k car repaired but be prepared if it gets written off through no fault of your own of loosing that £1.5k

I'd rather sell the 2k car and add the £1.5k on to buy a £3.5k car and diminish my risk.

The £1k to £3k price bracket though in my mind is the most hazardous when you consider what could go wrong and what you could loose. A sub £1k car is pretty safe as it would be a bit older and more user friendly for you using the spanners on it. The sweet spot though is probably the £6k to £8k bracket where they have done most of their depreciation and are less likely to go wrong.

[MalcQV]

Don't mention the C02 debate... :zx11::zx11::zx11: :p:p

[Crasher]

What, you mean the biggest con trick ever to be inflicted upon man kind? I hope I live long enough to be one of those screaming for their taxes back when it is all exposed as lies!

[zollaf]

is the hole in the ozone layer still there, or has it been filled in. its just that i remember when it was going to doom us all and we had to stop using aerosols and fridges, but i havnt heard much about it lately.
also, if we all stop using C02 for mig welding, will that help climate change?

[Crasher]

It is recovering and getting smaller and apparently what was supposed to have caused it (CFC’s) they aren’t so sure about that now. Any predications as to when “Climate Change” will have to be re-assessed? It has already had its name changed from “Global warming” as the global average temperature is actually dropping…

[peteo]

I blow hot and cold on CO2. Sometimes the evidence seems compelling. At other times it doesn't.

What does get my goat though is the way governments use it as a cover for extra tax. Take your hols. There's that annoying flight tax. It's not enough to stop you flying because the government doesn't want you to stop flying, it just wants to raise revenue. If it wanted to stop you flying it wouldn't build a new runway at Heathrow.

It's the hypocrisy and dishonesty that really annoys me. How can scrapping viable cars be good for the environment? It isn't.

Plus, petrol taxes and the like always hit the ordinary guy hardest as it's a bigger proportion of his income.

[MalcQV]

..and that ******* annoying advert for CO2 where the father is explaining to the child how we are ******* it all up. That would of scared the **** out of me as a kid, very low and underhand :zx11: