Everything You Need To Know About How To Buy A Car

Knowing how to buy a car is important because it’s a huge cost and it has a major impact on your lifestyle. So the questions are, which car fits your purpose and what car fits your purse?

What you already know and what you need to know about buying a car will be the topics for your research both on and off-line.

Below is everything you need to know about how to buy a car. I’ll look deeper into each subject in later posts.

You need to know:

• what’s important and interesting to YOU.
• About different types of cars. Over on car buyersinfo you’ll find descriptions of what is an estate car, a crossover and what are people carriers?
• The features to look out for.
• What to pay attention to in a test drive.
• How to negotiate and weigh-up a deal.
• Paperwork, payment and taking delivery.

There are other topics: car dealers, buying on the internet, guarantees. You might be interested in child seats, electric cars, hybrids.

When you do your research how do you read reviews and understand all the data and specifications and make comparisons? You can compare car differences and similarities over on carbuyersinfo.co.uk.

If you’re looking to save money then the type of car you buy will determine depreciation and many maintainance costs. You also need to carefully compare new v used, diesel v petrol. Then you need to negotiate a good deal including discount part-exchange and finance.

We looked at running costs in my previous post. Insurance, mpg, vehicle excise duty, servicing and breakdown cover are all important topics in themselves. For example there’s a lot to know before getting online car insurance quotes. Other points to consider if you don’t part-exchange your car are where to sell it, its value, preparing your car for sale, writing the ad, the sales process and the paperwork.

You can see you need a lot of information. There are opportunities to find the best car for your purpose and purse but there’s also the risks of making some very costly mistakes. If you buy a car that doesn’t fit your family and finances and are forced to change it earlier than planned the cost is horrendous because of the hidden horror – depreciation.

Once you’ve found the right car for you, safety is normally the next consideration. Did you know car safety isn’t just about crash protection? Perception and prevention are equally if not more important because they help you avoid an accident in the first place.

As we found out in the previous post the cost of a car can be 25% of your take home pay so the detail of all the above topics are very important which we’ll look at it future posts.

Regards
Ralph

Does a car really cost 25% of what’s in your purse?

Yesterday I said motoring costs can account for some 25% of a motorist’s take-home pay. Is this really true? Let’s find out.

You can remember your motoring costs by taking a DIM view of them. DIM = Depreciation, Interest, Maintainance.

Depreciation is simply the difference between what you paid for a car and what you get for it when you’ve finished with it and dispose of it.

If you paid £10,000 for a small car 8-years ago it will be worth little more than £1,000 today which means it cost about £1,125 per year in depreciation. If you only kept it 4 years you would have got about £4,000 in part exchange making the average annual depreciation cost about £1,500.

There’s nothing you can do to control this cost. Depreciation is determined by the used car market. This market is made up with millions of buyers and millions of sellers – it’s a true market – no one buyer or seller can control it.

When you buy a car the brand and market trends will determine its future value. It’s difficult to make predictions. Who would have thought Skoda, Kia, and Hyundai would become so highly regarded?

You can make a difference by keeping your car in good condition but it only amounts to hundreds – maybe a grand – between the extremes of  immaculate and scruffy.

If you buy a larger more expensive car it will cost you significantly more, most likely £1,000 more per year. Long gone are the days when a 4×4 held their value.

Interest is the amount you pay to borrow money or the missed opportunity of investing the money if you pay cash. You can get an 8% return on your money. Finance companies charge about 16% APR which is about 8% flat per year. If you borrow £8,000 of £10,000 over 5-years the total cost of the interest will be about £640 per year one way or the other.

If you buy a larger more expensive car the cost goes up – about double.

Maintainance is what it costs to keep a car on the road. So that’s car insurance, road fund licence/vehicle excise duty, petrol, servicing, inevitable wear and tear.

Car insurance is a nightmare and a whole subject in itself. You could be paying anything from £300 to £3,000 for a small car depending on your proposal and the extent to which you shop around directly before using a car comparison company. This is the only motoring cost where you can make a real saving. It really is worth shopping directly for the cheapest car insurance.

Vehicle Excise Duty prices varies from nil to over £1,000. It’s normally about £120 for a small car. This is a fixed cost determined by your car’s emissions and the government’s budget.

Fuel – let’s say petrol is £6 per gallon and a small car returns 40 mpg. Over 12,000 miles that’s £1,800 per year. You could buy diesel or a car with advanced fuel saving technology but the saving you make in fuel is robbed back by the premium you pay for theses cars. It takes over 50,000 miles to start getting a return.

Servicing a small car costs about £150 per year but too many people skip this.

Inevitable wear and tear. About £150 for cheap tyres. About £100 for brakes. Bulbs and battery replacements are immaterial and you may get away with the exhaust. We should allow £75 for a breakdown service.

You may disagree with my figures but you get the idea.  For a small car – depreciation about £1,300 per year, interest £640, car insurance – let’s say £400, VEC £120, fuel £1,800, servicing £150, replacement parts £250, £75 roadside assistance. I make that a whacking £4,735.

The average earnings for 2011 were £26,200 which I guess is £22,000 take home pay.  So motoring costs for a small car can be about 21% of your take home pay – over one fifth. If you buy a larger car your costs could easily be £6,000 per annum which is over 25% of the average take home pay.

So following on from yesterday you can see why cars might not be thought as cool as they once were with people now preferring affordable if not free technology.

It’s worth considering if you really need a car. Have you considered the cost of hiring a car when needed, which you may previously have thought comparatively expensive? And if you need a car, which type are the best cars to fit your purpose and purse?

Regards
Ralph