Car Trouble

I’ve had my car in for repairs again this week. The ancillary belt was slipping and the braking system has been taken apart and the discs and pads changed as it was still wearing unevenly. I seem to have had a few things that needed fixing over the last year: the engine temperature sensor, exhaust heat shield, brakes in various types of disarray and other odds and ends that have either worn out or come loose due to repeated, daily pot-hole abuse. The car is now almost 8 years old and I am beginning to wonder whether it has seen better days. I added up all the repairs over the last year and it came to around £800. I haven’t had to pay that as it is still under an extended warrantee and, had I been paying for his myself, it is likely that I could have had it done more cheaply using pattern parts via independent garages. The warrantee has turned out to be quite a wise investment but it is due to run out in a couple of months – after that, I’m on my own.

One of the hardest things with car ownership is knowing when to call it a day. I’m not very good at it but I think a big factor of when to swap vehicles is not financial but whether you actually like the car or not. Having said that, I ended aimlessly throwing money at the hateful Mazda Premacy diesel which we had for around 3 years. I just couldn’t believe that what was a relatively new car could have so much go wrong with it. I finally gave up when it was only 5 years old and the saving on constant repair bills was remarkable. On other cars it has varied: I spent more on my old Volkswagen than it was worth because I liked it but my Almera was sold on when the bearings started to go in the gearbox - at 150,000 miles it probably made sense to change it but whilst I respected the vehicle for it’s no-nonsense build quality I never really felt an attachment to the car. It was merely a solid workhorse.

I actually do like my Yaris. Toyota have a reputation for making automotive white goods but the Yaris has character. It is also a good design (albeit a 15 year old one) and the real-world fuel economy is still exceptional. However, the car itself is realistically too small for what I want to use it for. I actually bought the car intending to use it for a short commute but my job was then relocated much further away. In fact I originally intended to buy a Toyota Aygo (or a similar Citroen C1 that appealed to me at the time) but I just found the Yaris to be that little bit more grown up. As it is, it has served me well but I am concerned as to which direction the repair bills are going. After the latest repairs it is working well but I am still rather mistrusting about the brakes and, whilst they may not have caused any problems to date, it still has the original battery, most of the original suspension components (and it sounds like it!) as well as items such as the clutch and exhaust which could require expensive repairs in the relatively near future. Then again, they may not and that’s the quandary.

If I was only needing to use a car for local urban journeys I’d stick with it but I do need to cover quite a high mileage and, rather than waiting until something catastrophic goes wrong and make an emergency replacement purchase I think it would make more sense to buy a replacement in a more controlled fashion – probably something nearly new and probably Golf-sized (although not a Golf which is the ultimate car-to-buy-when-you-don’t-know-what-you-really-want). Of course, that does mean swapping potentially high repair costs for actually high depreciation but that does mean less hassle in terms of organising repairs at garages and it should make the running costs predictable if not exactly low. As it is, I’ve got the last couple of months of warrantee to cover me. After that, I can keep an eye open for any attractive looking deals.

I suppose I am reminded of a quote from a friend of mine: “if you own a car you may as well throw your money at the road”. This is perfectly true and if I could make do with public transport I would quite happily not own a car at all. Unfortunately, public transport isn’t a remotely practical choice for me so I will have to stump up for something more reliable. This does mean I can look forward to the fun of test drives and the not so much fun of dealing with car salesmen.