How I mastered the art of getting cars for free

Nice article, thanks.

This might sound like one of Del Boy’s uncle Albert’s “Befowa the woa” stories because it was a while ago, but I bought a TR6 (2.5PI) at auction for £300. I ran it for 4 years / 70K miles, did nothing to it other than replacing the odd gasket, then sold it for just under £500.

Felt like a great deal at the time, but how I wish I could have afforded to keep it!!

That was all before auctions became popular with the general public, which has caused prices to rocket, but you can still get great bargains especially if you’re prepared to drive unpopular or outdated models. Citroen Picasos (with apologies to doting owners out there), for example, have been hammered out at rock bottom for years. My local auction was flooded with Toyotas after their first few recalls.

I know that some of you will be nervous about buying at auction. Don’t be. There’s a short cooling off period during which you can get a full refund. I use a trusted mechanic who can usually give my purchases the once-over at a couple of hours notice. I use that time to give the cars a good thrashing before they go on the ramps. Not been seriously disappointed yet, considering the cost.

(PS for younger readers: The TR6 was the last real sports car Triumph made. It was hot, with big wing mirrors so you could watch porches straining in your wake. Beware of anybody that claims the TR7 was a sports car – unless they’re hairdressers – in which case, just humour them.)

I remember a neighbour who, in the 1980’s bought a not very old but unpopular Talbot Solara at auction for £300. He sold it privately several years later for a profit..

My latest car, a Nissan Primera 2.2dCi T-Spec with all the extras you can imagine, 3 years old and 95000 miles cost me just £4200 private buy because it is an unpopular model, but basically it’s sound. It’s done 156000 now, does 50+ mpg for me and is worth about £1500. I don’t think 61000 miles for £2700 depreciation over 4.5 years is bad going for a modern car. The real savings will come if it keeps going for another three years or more without a major fault. I’m always happy if during the time I have a car it costs under £1000 a year in depreciation & unexpected bills. So far I have achieved that with, since 1984, a Talbot Horizon, Peugeot 309, Rover 420, Audi A4 and now the Nissan. Latterly I have bought 3 year old high mileage cars, but the Audi was 5 years old and I was surprised when it needed a gearbox rebuild at 140,000 miles.

How are you EVER doing it for free, buy car 1. at £30k and even if you get it discounted, say to £25k, unlikely but let’s assume, they would never ever sell at a price that could see it put up for sale the next day and make money even, so assume you hit the goldmine of cars and sell this one for £24k, you have lost a thousand, so in order to have done it for free, you need to get a car you can sell for more than you paid, the older it is, the more issues,more likely to break down, more odds and ends need replacing, and as for “drive it until it’s a classic” yeah, not gonna happen in todays tech driven,eco friendly world. What is classic about a gas guzzling project?

Because for example, take old style Toyota Rav 4, vs the new hybrid-no plug in,self generating energy hybrid that is, so the old one is going to be more expensive for tax and the older it is the more the fuel consumption, the longer you drive it the less of a classic it is, simply because a car has got to be special to begin with, iconic, something the average car or suv etc just isn’t going to be in 10,20 or 30 years, let alone 2-5.