Older cars are far better than new ones. Listen to the screams of the techno brainwashed when they read that.
Firstly I will specify the types of car I’m talking about. The late eighties and early nineties produced many reliable, reasonably quick cars that were simple to service/repair and had no absurdly complicated electronics. As my main example of an older car I’m taking a Peugeot 205 diesel from the early 1990’s because I have owned several and driven a lot of miles in them.
The 205 diesel is extremely good on back roads, having superb handling, light weight and loads of torque. It lacks acceleration over 60mph as it isn’t turbocharged but will cruise at considerably more than the legal limit for long periods of time. It will return 40 to 60mpg no matter how fast it’s driven. If you remove the rear seat it is amazing how much stuff it will carry. One of my 205s (purchase cost £250) took 2 people, 2 mountain bikes, a tent, chairs, cooking gear and clothes 6000 miles across Europe in 4 weeks, returning an average of 52mpg. It coped with autobahns in Germany, goat tracks on Bulgarian mountains and a swamp in Hungary. No problems.
It has no aircon, no electric windows, no computers, no heated seats, no ecus, no air flow meters, no stability control and no anti lock brakes. It doesn’t need them.
In contrast an acquaintance has a Peugeot 308 diesel. It has all of the above electronics. It has a lot more weight, a lot worse handling and vastly more cost. Recent suspension work cost him £600, similar on my 205 cost me £150. Tyres are double the cost. Reliablilty is far worse. Repairs (not servicing) over 3 years for the 308 are £1800 (mostly ecu and other electronic problems). My total cost including servicing and repairs were £400. Economy runs at around 20-30% worse for the 308.
Insurance for the 205 can be done through classic car policies and so is about half the cost.
205 depreciation is nil and can even turn into profit these days. 308 depreciation is awful. One years loss is more than my total running costs for 3 years.
The driving experience in the 308 ranges from poor to numbingly tedious. Little feedback from the steering or suspension give no driving pleasure at all so far as I can determine. It carries less in the back as the hatchback is smaller and less accessible and the interior is actually smaller. Good points- seats are comfortable and aircon is nice 3 days a year in the UK.
The driving experience in the 205 is massively different. Fantastic handling, light weight and brilliant feedback give huge amounts of raw fun. I admit that it’s noisy, the seats are not great and I need a cushion to support my knee on long trips but I don’t care. Jeremy Clarkson once said that “There is always the feeling you don’t need to slow down for corners.” He’s wrong. It isn’t a feeling. You really don’t have to slow down for corners, you accelerate, as many of my passengers confirm when they stop screaming.
In short the 308 wins on comfort and top speed on a motorway (and no doubt safety when you crash deliberately just to end the tedium) but in every other way it is demolished by the 205.
I drive along the road pitying the drivers of modern cars as they work for months just to pay for their expensive, boring, uneconomical cars stuffed with unnecessary gadgets that are designed to break as soon as the warranty expires and either bankrupt them or force them to buy a new expensive gadget box on wheels.
This is comparing a really good old car against a crap modern car you say? True enough but even the “good” modern cars are horrifically expensive when they go wrong (and they will). I live and work surrounded by car workshops and car dealerships both large and small. I know a lot of the salesmen and mechanics quite well. I regularly ask them, in the name of objective comparison, the following question. “Can you recommend any modern car that is fun to drive, reliable, cheap to buy, cheap to run and economical to repair when and if it needs to be? “ In the last 5 years not one of them has come up with an answer. I get told that some cars are less bad than others but nobody can suggest any modern car that has all of the required qualities. Yet when I ask the same question about older cars I get loads of answers and they are nearly all cars from the 80’s and early nineties.
Almost every modern car has very serious flaws in design that make repairs difficult and expensive.
A direct comparison between a 205 and a 206 Peugeot flasher unit fault. 205 flasher unit failed- I drove home, sourced a new one for £6 and fitted it in 2 minutes. A 206 flasher unit shorted out and immobilised the car. A workshop near me had to pay £150 for a secondhand fuse box, instrument panel and sundry other bits. Total cost of labour and parts to their customer- £287. If it was a newer car the cost would have been far more due to the complication and coding of the parts.
A friends Mercedes tyres are £90 each (modest by some standards) my 205 tyres £30 each. They’re all round and black and keep you on the road but my car is much faster on corners and brakes quicker for one third of the tyre cost.
I ran a VW Golf for a while and one of the electric rear door locks jammed meaning it wouldn’t pass an MOT. To get it open the door had to be practically destroyed and a secondhand one fitted. Cost around £150. I needed 3 new door locks for the 205. Cost £19 and 30 minutes of work.
Mercedes A class needed a new driveshaft- cost £700. 205 cost £85. It just goes on and on. If I listed all the stupidly expensive repairs to modern cars I hear of in a month you would be horrified, I know I am.
Modern vehicles are very well designed- from the manufacturers point of view. Not from the customers- unless you like being fleeced. The car will, usually, run reliably to the end of the warranty. After that it rapidly becomes prohibitively expensive to repair which makes you buy a new one, meanwhile they are telling you new cars polute less so you should buy them or be a planet killer. (LOL). A scam in other words. They make money, the government steals more tax and finance companies, who lend you money they’ve conjured from nothing at exhorbitant interest rates, make even more. You’re the patsy who keeps them in fine wine.
Corporations and government conspire to create an environment where you pay all the time. Cars become obsolescant by design. They could be built to last forever quite easily. Banks lend you money that isn’t real but you have to pay them in real labour. Governments tax you for services and wars you don’t want. To the rulers of this world you’re just a slave that is scammed in every way and cars are the easiest to spot scam going.
For your own sake do the maths and the research before you buy some shiny gadget box of a car from a grinning dealer. Add up the cost of finance, servicing, tyres, likely repairs and depreciation. It will quite likely be at least ten times the amount it costs me to run an “old banger”.
Consider that a very average new car costs £20,000. Off the top of my head allow a minimum £10,000 for depreciation and finance costs over 3 to 5 years. Add servicing and repair costs which could be a very large amount as soon as the warranty period is over. Insurance and tax probably £2000 to £2500 in five years. Fuel costs probably 10-30% higher than mine. Your car has cost you at least £12,500, possibly £17,500. Buy a nice car for £50,000 to £100,000 and the costs are horrifyingly more.
My car has lasted 5 years and shows no sign of dying. It cost £250, I have spent a total of £2000 for tax, insurance, MOT’s, repairs and servicing in that time. It is worth more now than when I bought it. Probably £750. My car has cost me £1500 or £300 a year.
Have you gained anything for that extra money?
Did you get to your destination any faster? Was it twice as fast? I seriously doubt it was any faster at all unless you’re a really quick driver.
Were you a bit more comfortable? Possibly. Were you ten or twenty times more comfortable? No.
Did you have as much fun? I doubt it.
What could you have done with that £10-50,000? Bought a bit of land as an investment, helped put a deposit on your son or daughters first house, had some seriously good holidays? Or just not been as much of a debt slave?