Why I will never buy a new car

Don’t be silly. Of course you pay the vat, or at least a proportion of it. If you buy a used car for half its new price, you’re paying half the vat!

If you are paying VAT and in business you will need the vendors vat number.
If you are buying off a vendor who is not vat registered pay no vat simply maths. . 😃

I fully agree with Richard. And before buying any 2nd hand car, do your homework!

My current car was bought new, from a main dealer, but with various discounts it actually worked out £1000 cheaper than a 1 year old model. They then gave me “scrappage” of £1000 on my old car which had done 225,000 miles. So I got the factory fitted extras I wanted AND saved money; some of these work out cheaper than after-market fittings for the same price, and the long, long warranty is an excellent bonus.
An example of savings when buying new: Factory fit detachable towbar £305: After market £525. Full size spare wheel, tools and jack in place of a useless sealant kit: £87 which is £35 less than the price of a new tyre.
I’ve just ordered a new car for my wife. Similar deal to that one above. Works out the same price as one almost a year old with 5,000 on the clock.

One of my big bugbears with 2nd hand cars is that many have been driven badly. I used to work in Macclesfield and you could smell the clutches on Hibel Road (quite steep) when the traffic lights were red and about 10% of drivers slipped the clutch moving slightly backwards and forwards instead of using the handbrake (too much roll-back when taking off if held on the footbrake). I don’t want to buy any car that has been abused.
Just make sure to do your homework (again) as used is not necessarily better!!!!!

Apart from two cars I bought from my father, I have always purchased new cars to avoid the possibility that the previous owner has slipped the clutch or otherwise abused the vehicle. I have kept my cars for up to ten years so depreciation is not a big issue.

I have considered buying a demonstrator car but have been put off by tales that sales reps sometimes abuse new vehicles even if they keep them clean and polished. I am not sure if this is true or just a myth.

When I last changed my car I paid a deposit on a pre-registered but unused car that was on offer at a good discount price. I thought I had achieved good value for money without any haggling until the dealer phoned to say that he was terribly sorry but a colleague had sold my car. 🙁

Jeff , which car allows option of full size spare wheel plus kit ?

I think that you’ll find that almost all of them offer either a space-saver or a full size one.

However, if the car that you choose doesn’t have it as an option, provided there is space for one, then you could buy a wheel (with tyre) a jack and a wheel brace (or even a cheap socket set). That’s what my son-in-law has done.

I don’t really see that your choice of car should be dictated by whether it has a spare wheel. After all, punctures are less frequent nowadays compared to when we drove on crossply tyres. It’s just that for me, the option was there and it made very good sense to choose it at the price.

Jeff – According to Which? less than 30% of new cars came with a spare wheel in May 2013.

Having had many punctures despite covering a modest annual mileage, the first thing I told the salesman was that I would not consider any car without a spare wheel.

Yes, I know that few cars now come with a spare wheel as standard.

But for both my current cars it was a very reasonably priced optional extra. Less than the price of a tyre alone.

You may as well refuse to buy a car if they charge extra for the metallic paint that you like the look of.

I hope that your BMW isn’t one of those that needs a new timing chain at 100,00 miles. It is an expensive job, and prohibitively so to repair the engine if the chain snaps in use.

Before you collect your new car, check that it has a spare wheel, jack and spanner for the wheel bolts.

I inspected my neighbour’s new car this morning and although he has paid £95 extra for a space-saver apology for a spare wheel, the dealer did not include the tools.

Apologies if this is already taken care of, Jeff. Many don’t realise that tyre sealant cannot be relied on in the event of a puncture. My neighbour found this out with his previous car.

Thanks for the comment, Wavechange! I too am always wary of this sort of thing.

Went first thing today to do the paperwork etc. ready to pick it up tomorrow.
And yes, I checked the boot and all the right stuff is there. Made sure the towbar was folding properly, and the 2 other options were also there. Also noted that it has Michelin tyres fitted. I regard these as the best – my other car has Micheln Energy Savers that have so far lasted 44,000 miles on the front with 2.5mm left; (rears still have 5.5mm), and my caravan had a blowout on the cheap Chinese tyres that the manufacturer had supplied it with, and that has had Michelin Agilis tyres on for 9 months which have also made it more stable in winds or when being passed by coaches.

I’ve long been impressed by the life of Michelin tyres, Jeff. Your impressive figures suggest that that driving style might also be a factor. 🙂

Yes I drive with sympathy for the car.
But I don’t drive slowly. Always at the speed limit (unless it’s unsafe), and also try to keep my speed up round corners, but without scrubbing the tyres (and NEVER brake in a corner or turn the steering too quickly – rather ease it in maintaining the momentum of the car.)
A high speed driving course at Donington helped me greatly in learning this technique.
When I worked 38 miles from home I used to love being closely followed at 60, the speed limit, and then losing the following car when I went round corners that they couldn’t manage at my speeds. Even better when it was someone in a flash car who had been trying to push me to go faster in the 60 bit. My car is a very boring 7 seater without a lot of power.

Also drive with sympathy for the Dual Mass Flywheel that diesel cars have. Violent dropping of the clutch can seriously damage the DMF (as well as the clutch).
My current car (which we are keeping for at least another 4 years) is credited with 47.1 mpg combined. I have kept a spreadsheet since the car was new (6 years) and it has averaged 48.4. So I’m hoping that the new one will achieve its claimed 76 mpg combined.

Jeff, I drive in much the same manner. Thus given where I drive (not that much in towns) I can always match or even exceed the manufacturer’s quoted combined fuel consumption. Thus it’s easy to ‘do the sums’ and work out the likely cost saving if buying a newer, more fuel-efficient car.

In contrast, a colleague often complains about his mpg. I had a (mercifully brief) ride with him, and I’m not surprised at his car’s apparent thirst – full acceleration and hard braking from traffic light to traffic light, zero anticipation, excessive speed (you all get the picture). He’s only avoided speeding fines because where we live there is virtually no Police presence on the roads and the speed cameras are fixed and obvious (yes, he emergency brakes for those of course!)

CSMA does have some good pices, but I checked the price of my new car on CSMA/LLoydsTSB and there was very little saving. I negotiated a much better discount.

But also watch out. One of the cars I looked at was actually dearer than list price via CSMA. I can’t remember which one and currently the carselect website is down so I can’t backtrack to find out.

I don’t agree at all. Nearly new cars are not necessarily good value.
With a 2nd hand car you’ll struggle to get 100,000 mile warranty, £3,000 discount, the latest ecomony tweaks which manufacturers do to reduce the emissions (and therefore the road fund licence and taxation costs to company car drivers) and you might not get exactly which features and extras you want. Add on to that the fact that you don’t know if has had some intermittent problems that haven’t been fixed, or if it has been abused or even crashed and repaired, then I’d rather not bother.
There must be a reason that someone sells a nearly new car. Maybe a company employee leaves and their company car is surplus to requirements, but even then, the companies that I worked for shuffled the cars around when this happened so that they would minimise losses on the now nearly new car.
You need to be very careful with nearly new cars.

As someone who is concerned about the history of a secondhand car, I can relate to these concerns, but you will save rather more than £3000 by not buying new. That first journey from the showroom wipes a great deal off the price of a new car. Also, the price of new cars is inflated because those that sell them know that people want discounts, so you are not really getting a huge discount.

I used to assume that there must be something wrong with cars for people to replace them. Many replace new (and used) cars that are working fine. But I agree that you have to be careful buying anything secondhand.