How I mastered the art of getting cars for free

Top skillz!

My plan for many a year was to buy an old audi for about £800 and run it for 2 years then sell it. This was brought about by buying “nearly new” cars (with a loan) only to find that they often required work that required another loan. So sick of this endless money pit, I decided something drastic needed to happen. And it worked, for a time, until petrol became too expensive and the scrappage scheme forced many potential cars off the road to a premature death.

So, I had a 2L Audi 80 and 2 x Audi A4 1.8L, NONE of which required any work doing to them for the 2 years that I owned them. Considering they had to get through the MOT too, this was no small feat. Considering how badly I treated them and my lackadaisical attitude to servicing (whats the point, it’s old!) they performed miracles.

The 80 had frozen track rod ends – to fix = £700 – solution = buy remoulded tyres once yours have worn down unevenly!!
The 2nd A4 took me all the way to Germany and stayed there for 6 months doing a lap of the Nuerburgring Nordschleife in the process.

Now petrol is so expensive, I can no longer afford to run 2 uneconomical cars (my girlfriend has a saab 2L turbo) and so I sold my last A4 for £500 3 months ago.

So that’s my story, my next car will be a new one (probably a mini cooper) but I love driving old cars. There is always a massive story to tell with old cars and there are certain ways that it behaves that you have to build up a rapport with it. As in clutch, gearbox, brakes, accelerator, steering feel etc, they all give a car its own character which in my opinion, new cars are seriously lacking.

Incidentally I sold all the above cars for just £300 less than what I paid for them after 2 years of trouble free motoring. I can’t see that being possible again!

The second part about new cars is a nonsense. It’s not quite the same to make money and to “keep losses to a minimum”!

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.