can't decide - to buy or not to buy...

rocky

... a car, that is. Any car. I cycle to work every day, no mater the weather. I regret not having a car sometimes when it rains, and I was regretting it more often lately . So, over the week I would'nt really be using it (it's a 10 min cycle to work), maybe at the weekend for the odd trip.

Today I was offered an 03 Punto, 38kmiles on the clock, for 5500 cash. The displayed price was 5995, though I know it doesn't mean much. My so called problem is... for the money I would pay for the car + insurance (let's say around 1100 for my 1st year of driving in Ireland) + tax, a total of around 7000 (if nothing else goes wrong), I could rent a car for 140 weekends, that's nearly 3 years, without having to worry about depreciation, car maintenance, repairs.

A small caveat is that the rental insurance has a 700 euro excess, but this is possibly equally true of many other insurance companies, if I took my own insurance.



Any insights into why owning a car is so great (or not), or what would you do in my position, greatly appreciated.

eamon234

very few insurance companies would have excesses that high - plus if you damage a rental chances are they may not rent to you again. If it was that easy we'd all be driving rentals!

The biggest advantage to owing a car is freedom - you can get inside and go wherever you want whenever you want you can drive to the shop or drive to France - plus there's also a certain amount of enjoyment in driving (unless you're stuck in traffic!)

copacetic

as above, once you get a car and get used to it you'll wonder how you ever did without it. granted this might not be a great thing but it is what it is...

peasant

Driving is like smoking ...once you start, you're hooked .
And as you've correctly pointed out ...it's bloody expensive.
But as soon as you have the yoke sitting outside, you'll find it very hard to go back to cycling again.

Financially, your rental idea makes an awful lot of sense ...heck, you could even afford a taxi into work now and then if the weather is really shyte (provided you can get one:D )

But that's all I'll say on this matter, lest I be banned from the motoring forum

(For moral support, there's the cycling forum as well!!)

Seth Brundle

If work is only 10 minutes by bike then the drive won't be that much different. Short journeys like that won't be good for a car.
IMO taxis or car rental would be a better choice.

rocky

It's the weather that's getting at me...

unkel

rocky wrote:

I cycle to work every day, no mater the weather..

Fit and strong hard man. Fair play to ya! Keep it up because if you don't, you'll descend into mid-life crisis soon enough

rocky

unkel wrote:

Fit and strong hard man. Fair play to ya! Keep it up because if you don't, you'll descend into mid-life crisis soon enough

doing my part in reducing my carbon footprint

OfflerCrocGod

rocky wrote:

doing my part in reducing my carbon footprint

Buy a car and stop being rained on

galwaytt

I hear ya, as they say.......but, tbh, you don't actually NEED a car, you just want one, or at least, like the idea of it.......

Regarding the rental - look at it this way....how often would you use it outside of that 10 min ride to work - if the answer is seldom/never, go with the rental idea.

If, oth, you would like to do things outside of that, that you currently don't, then I'd actually buy something cheaper, and probably Japanese, for around 2-2.5k.. An older Nissan Micra, for example. Cheap to run, cheap to fix, and it'll behave as good as a car twice it's price. You'll lose a lot less if you change your mind about cars in a few months, when the weather is fine and you're using the bike more, anyway......

gyppo

galwaytt wrote:

If, oth, you would like to do things outside of that, that you currently don't, then I'd actually buy something cheaper, and probably Japanese, for around 2-2.5k.. An older Nissan Micra, for example. Cheap to run, cheap to fix, and it'll behave as good as a car twice it's price. You'll lose a lot less if you change your mind about cars in a few months, when the weather is fine and you're using the bike more, anyway......

Galwaytt speak heap amount of good sense..

I'd go cheaper again though, and look for a 1k runaround with an nct, if all you want is to keep your hair dry.

the_syco

10 minutes on the bike? And hows the traffic? I ask, as when I went to school, it'd be five minutes on the bike, but if it were raining, it'd be 10 minutes in the car, due to lots of people driving. I still cycled, though.

My point: how busy is it when it rains on the road?

Mahatma coat

As other posters have said a 10 minute cycle throught Dublin traffic is invariably a halfhour car ride, even longer in the rain. then you will have the issue of parking the car at both ends of your journey, this may result in you having to walk from an inconvienient location and gettin even wetter that you would have if you had cycled.

That said it would mean one less smug fckin cyclist passin people in trafic and for that you should be commended.

My recomendation would be

Get a car, but not some pokey little micra or such like, buy a propper sized car, one you could even carry yer bicycle in and forget about taking it to work,continue the cycle and use taxi's when its reallllllllly wet or you feel exceptionaly lazy, instead use the car to tour yerself around the country at the weekend and do interestin things, meet interestin people, see stuff you had no idea even existed bring SO along if one exists, elsu use larger flasher car to pull something .

dont for the love of god buy a car just so you can sit in traffic on rainy days, this will turn you off motoring for life.

Mahatma coat

a few examples as to what I mean, I'm not saying go buy an SUV, but for around the same wedge you mentioned in the OP you can have something infinitley more comfortable


A Classic
http://www.cbg.ie/Car_detail.asp?CBGID=309321&ID=537985&NumPics=1&Make=BMW&Model=318%20i&frmFilter=Default

the more sedate Boy racer
http://www.cbg.ie/Car_detail.asp?CBGID=636365&ID=927479&NumPics=3&Make=Honda&Model=civic%201.4&frmFilter=Default

had one of these, twas fierce comfy alltogether
http://www.cbg.ie/Car_detail.asp?CBGID=612120&ID=902434&NumPics=3&Make=Renault&Model=Megane%20Classic&frmFilter=Default

800 quid, these were good cars
http://www.cbg.ie/Car_detail.asp?CBGID=294245&ID=523128&NumPics=0&Make=Toyota&Model=Corolla&frmFilter=Default

http://www.cbg.ie/Car_detail.asp?CBGID=296491&ID=525282&NumPics=0&Make=Toyota&Model=Corolla&frmFilter=Default

Volvo's, nice motors
http://www.cbg.ie/Car_detail.asp?CBGID=622226&ID=912579&NumPics=3&Make=Volvo&Model=S40&frmFilter=Default

Alfa's, sketchy but cheap
http://www.cbg.ie/Car_detail.asp?CBGID=594267&ID=883999&NumPics=3&Make=Alfa%20Romeo&Model=146%202.0ti&frmFilter=Default

AAAAAAANYWAY, I could go on for hours but ya get the idea right, something slightly bigger is going to have more allround practical applications

overdriver

I cycle a bit too. I wish I did more. You've been managing so far, and the summer's on it's way. Buy a car, yes, but not for sitting in traffic going to work.

I might start a war here, but if I had 5k to spend, there's NO WAY I would buy a Punto. Check out the reviews at www.carsurvey.org.

Spend 1500 on something like an older MIcra, or Corolla, and you'll be insured, taxed and have petrol for the year and STILL have change. And it probably won't give you much trouble.

As somebody said, you can use it at the weekends for travelling, but your bike is the best solution for your work journey.Can I ask, do you have proper cycling-specific raingear? Breathable stuff, like Altura make? I found this made a HUGE diffenerence to being comfortable in the wet. Fit mudguards if your bike's not got them, as the spray will drown your feet, and wet feet are a misery. Anyway, if you haven't got them, get them off eBay, I saved 40 euro on an Altura jacket that way.