Retired with limited funds. Sell the car?
 

Just had the timing belts etc and cooling fan changed on my lovely R75 white gold tourer with Aubergine personal line trim. Also had an ABS fault fixed. The total cost was £1200 including parts and labour and on average, I spend around £800 every year on the car’s maintenance give or take. Labour costs are far and away the biggest factor of course and it is a 19 year old car! I didn’t grudge paying them; mechanics have to earn a living! My dilemma now that I have retired and begun living on a pension alone (as I suspect are many of you), is that I can no longer meet these costs. I have always used an excellent (fairly) local garage for my major servicing needs and the good will of several of our forum experts for things that are more specialist or do not require the car being raised or approached from beneath,

So what should I do? I’ve run the car for over five years and love it, but I doubt I will ever have the belts or cooling fan changed again! Do I keep and run it in the hope that there’s nothing else of major importance likely to attract high labour costs (I am unable or in many cases skilled enough to do these jobs myself), or do I sell soon and put what money I do have into a more recent car? I know there’s no guarantee that a newer car will be any more reliable of course and that there’s always a trade-off between the upfront cost of newer vehicles versus increasing maintenance cost of older cars like ours. As it happens, my car has been reliable in the years I’ve run it, but that’s because I’ve looked after it meticulously throughout. I doubt I will ever be able to replace it with anything remotely like it!

How much would you want to spend on a fresh car? Is it not possible to run your present favoured vehicle "until it drops", then again consider the financial aspects at that time? If all is going well, why try to pre-empt anything?

Try to find a local reliable vehicle hirer so that you have a fall back available, and make sure you are aware of the limitations of your recovery cover.

Best of luck.

Stay put.

Newer MIGHT mean more reliable OR it might be that if anything happens it's an arm & leg to get repaired.

I've recently returned to the fold from a perfectly sensible and decent 2008 Passat to a 2001 diesel tourer.

I know of a 2013 Hyundai with a full dealer history and just 88K that's just had £1500 spent on her and that hasn't sorted the problem despite all the sensors, gizmo's and diagnostics. It's now into the change something (££££'s) and see if that works - if not change something else (more ££££'s).......

There's nothing like our cars and this forum is superb.

Good luck with your retirement. Enjoy it.

All the best.

Andy.

I find threads like this sad.

You need to weigh up the expected maintenance costs of your Rover verses the cost of purchasing and maintaining a replacement vehicle.

I retired a bit over 2 years ago and so I did not dip into me pension but could spend money on my "hobbies" I got a "part time" job, sort of up to me if I work or not. Are you able to do that?

How much do you want to keep your Rover, how much is that worth?


macafee2

Newer and more modern does not mean less money, in fact in a lot of cases means more money. Don't forget the £50 in depreciation every week a newer car will loose and that with some of the bills I see will make you wish you stayed where you are.

As in the case of the Hyundai I know of several newish cars that have huge sums spent and the fault is still there, one friend with a BMW recently had to spend over £4k to get his car back on the road after the injectors went mad and that was not at a main dealer, he was close to writing it off and that is on a 2014 3 Series petrol with under 60k on the clock.

How about £20 a week in a ''pot'' so when the annual bill comes in you already have the cash. Motoring will always cost but sadly any form of transportation will.

You will struggle to buy another car where garage costs plus depreciation is less than £800/year.

£4000 over 5 years for a car you love. Sell it now and buy what you believe to be a reliable new car (even if it is 100% reliable), for £4000. In 5 years time, you may need to spend £1000 for planned maintenance, belts, brakes suspension or whatever. So back to the £5000 figure, and still have a car worth a grand if you are lucky.

Obviously tax and insurance costs may be a factor over that time.

At least you know what you have and you like it.

It is your money and life, your choice, but that is just my thoughts on cars.

Sent from my SM-A600FN using Tapatalk

It's never easy to obtain the best of both worlds, your quandary seems to be today's luxury, and enjoyment, versus tomorrow's cost effective transport.

So how does this sound?

I would say, keep, and enjoy your Rover, in the knowledge that you have a plan B.

When the Rover next requires expenditure that you can't justify (and that could be 6 months , or maybe 2 years) replace it with a cheap to run, and reliable alternative; or better.

The Rover can be advertised on this forum, for spares, or somebody who will mend it. So what is your replacement transport?

Well first of all, you have just afforded yourself time to look for something suitable.

It could very easily be a small, Japanese car about 10+ years old, which the youngsters of today are embarrassed to be seen in. Apologies to any youngster who isn't.

They are available for whatever you want to pay, as they are difficult to even give away.

To give an example, and where my idea has come from, I inherited a Nissan Micra; nobody else in the family wanted it, or would even think about it.

That was three years ago, and it's been so reliable, and cheap to run, that I would be crazy to now get rid of it.

In those three years it has cost me about £20 odd pounds for a MAF sensor, plus oil changes, and petrol. It's covering about 7000 miles a year.

I hope that this might be food for thought, but in the final analysis, only you can decide what is right for you.

Regards

Mike

As a retiree, you are unlikely to be covering huge mileages, simply enjoy the car, it won't cost as much as running it while you are working, no commuting for instance.

So one oil change a year, the big jobs have already been covered this year, and who knows how long any of us will be able to drive these cars anyway?

It's at the bottom of it's depreciation cycle, just enjoy owning and driving it is my advice ;)

Brian :D

i tend to agree with brian im a retired and only do about 4000 a year so its one service ,even if you get a newer car it may be more less reliable, you might be spending more money than on the rover parts or more expensive and there's all these electronic gadgets in that can go wrong witch is more expense my advise is stick with what you got and enjoy it rgds mark