Another essential in the quest to keep car ownership costs down is to drive less than the typical annual mileage of about 12,000. Depending on how fuel-efficient their cars are and how they drive them, people who cover this many miles tend to spend at least £1,000, sometimes several thousand, pounds a year on fuel.
So my suggestion to skinflints is to try to limit themselves to buying only about 100 gallons a year. If they buy supermarket fuel that quantity will, at today's prices, cost about £600 annually. With many gently driven cars capable of returning 50mpg on a run, that £600 could buy 5,000 miles of motoring per year, which is more than adequate for millions of drivers in Britain, especially those who do not need to drive to work.
Still not convinced? For the past few years, I've been proving that running a car for £100 a month all-in is possible. I bought a 118,000-mile 1999
VW Polo for £300, shockingly scratched and faded paintwork included. I shopped around to secure a £230 insurance policy for 2012-13. The 4,000 miles I drive it each year costs me less than £500 a year in fuel. Basic annual safety checks and oil changes/mini services work out at about £60. A combination of tax disc (£130), half-price MoT tests (never failed one yet), minimal depreciation (because the car's almost worthless), used parts, minor repairs and incidentals brings the total ownership and running cost to between £1,000 and £1,200 a year.
A friend, Steve Crispe, sets an even finer example. He picked up a used and abused 1995 Ford Mondeo diesel estate for £150 before driving 74,000 almost trouble-free miles at home and abroad. His annual insurance bill is £300, and the Mondeo's diesel engine still returns 50mpg. Apart from a new radiator (£90 supplied and fitted), alternator (£90), second-hand driving seat (£30), timing belt (£120) plus occasional oil changes, replacement tyres and new brake pads, he's spent next to nothing. The large, extremely practical Mondeo estate is a £1,500-per-year car.
Another friend, Nigel Garrett, prefers Mazda MX-5s, which he buys from about £500. He's owned and run several for less than £2,000 a year and confirms that parts for the little Japanese sports car, whether approved or unapproved, are surprisingly inexpensive.
* Despite the penny-pinching enjoyment of "bangernomics", I realise that being a motoring miser is not for everyone. However, running a new family car need not be anything like as expensive as some would have you believe, helped in the main by terrific deals in which factory-fresh motors are offered at half price or thereabouts.
The Vauxhall Zafira 1.6i Exclusiv five-door is being reduced by Pentagon, an official Vauxhall retailer, by 46 per cent. That brings the asking price down to just £9,995.
It is not the spanking-new Zafira Tourer, unfortunately, but the last of the previous generation Zafira. Never mind, a proven, seven-seater family car in this class for under £10,000 is astonishing value for money. Bought today at that price and run for a decade, the cost of depreciation would be under £1,000 a year. Factor in insurance, fuel, servicing, repairs, tax and MoT tests, and over the decade the total cost of buying/owning/running such a car should be, at today's prices, about £3,000 per annum (or nearer £2,000 if the owner has a good insurance record and does less than average mileage).
Paying £40-£60 a week for a 24-hour-a-day personal mobility machine capable of carrying at least five people seems a bargain to me.
* Citroën has just made its C4 £1,500 cheaper. VW has done the same with the Golf. So what are rival manufacturers of mid-size hatchbacks waiting for?
It seems to me that if they want any chance of selling any this summer, they need to reduce them by as much – or more.
Source:- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/columnists/mike-rutherford/9447128/How-to-run-a-car-for-100-a-month-all-in.html
