Want a GTI but difficult to justify cost

[golfgtiboss]

Hey guys i would like to buy a new GTI however the finance figures suggest i will pay in the region of £350 per month, which =£12600 over 3 years on a PCP agreement. This ultimately means that i would essentially be paying an extremely large amount of money to 'rent' this car.

My fuel bill would also increase by £500 per year by buying this car. Can i ask what people's thought processes are as there may be an alternative ways of thinking about this that i am not considering...

My current car is a 58 plate BMW 120D which i purchased used (for cheap) which is costing me very little and just finding extreme dificulty in pulling the trigger on the GTI that i would LOVE but just can't get my head around the cost!!!

Thank you

[matchboy]

Hey guys i would like to buy a new GTI however the finance figures suggest i will pay in the region of £350 per month, which =£12600 over 3 years on a PCP agreement. This ultimately means that i would essentially be paying an extremely large amount of money to 'rent' this car.

My fuel bill would also increase by £500 per year by buying this car. Can i ask what people's thought processes are as there may be an alternative ways of thinking about this that i am not considering...

My current car is a 58 plate BMW 120D which i purchased used (for cheap) which is costing me very little and just finding extreme dificulty in pulling the trigger on the GTI that i would LOVE but just can't get my head around the cost!!!

Thank you

What kind of deposit are you putting down?  Are you working this out on the list price or is this after discount (12%)?

[fredgroves]

Yes a brand new turbo charged petrol hot hatch costs more than a old oil burner to buy, own and run.

Obviously its more fun, but how often will you have that fun? How much per hour of fun will it cost and can you afford it?

Whilst a GTI is a perfectly practical form of transport (unlike say a Lotus Elise), its not the cheapest by a long old way.

Only you can answer if its worth it...

[isleaiw]

Hey guys i would like to buy a new GTI however the finance figures suggest i will pay in the region of £350 per month, which =£12600 over 3 years on a PCP agreement. This ultimately means that i would essentially be paying an extremely large amount of money to 'rent' this car.

My fuel bill would also increase by £500 per year by buying this car. Can i ask what people's thought processes are as there may be an alternative ways of thinking about this that i am not considering...

My current car is a 58 plate BMW 120D which i purchased used (for cheap) which is costing me very little and just finding extreme dificulty in pulling the trigger on the GTI that i would LOVE but just can't get my head around the cost!!!

Thank you

I dont think you can justify it on cost grounds. I was running a 160k mile Volvo up until 2 years ago - worth 1800 quid, hardly ever went wrong, did 45mpg, could leave it anywhere.... Decided I needed to change it before it became unreliable (no transport means no pay when you are on a day rate!) so swapped it for a 6 month old E class.... Clearly, the E is much better car and a class up in all ways, but I do resent the cost as it is generally just a family and work hack.

My wife's GTI on the other hand is my weekend toy and whilst it does very little mileage, I don't resent what that costs as it isnt a head purchase and it doesnt need to be rationalised!

Ian

[corgi]

Agree with the above.

If you analysed it on cost grounds you wouldn't buy a GTI. You would buy the cheapest (total cost of ownership) car that would meet your requirements.

I couldn't cost justify my 911 when I bought it used... but I'm glad I bought it.

If you tried to cost justify every purchase you made then you'd rarely buy anything... do you have a Playstattion/X-Box, a flat screen led TV etc. how did you cost justify those?

The decision should be... I want a, in this case, Golf GTI, what am I prepared to pay for the pleasure? If you're not willing to pay £350/month and an extra £40 per month in fuel then, fine, you'd best go and find something that more closely fits your requirement in terms of the balance of costs...

[dubber36]

The car you drive is a lifestyle choice. If you analise the costs, having a nice car makes absolutely no financial sense at all. The sensible approach would be to buy a 12 year old Golf TDI 130 for £1500, budget £1000 a year to service and maintain it and use the money you save to pay your mortgage off. However, not everyone wants to drive round in an older car (not that there's anything wrong with that) we like to have nice things as a reward to ourselves for working hard.

If you don't feel comfortable with the idea of borrowing a whole heap of money to drive around in a nice, new car, then don't. However if you really want the GTI and can afford it, it's going to cost what it costs. Only you can decide what you want to do.

[monkeyhanger]

Well there's no free lunch, running a new car is an expensive business, although the VW residuals do ease the pain.

You'd probably get an R for less money than that GTI right now (you can lease for 2 years at about £6700 all in - a true £279 ave per month cost), with the difference more than making up for the extra fuelling costs between the 2 - something to consider. Once you get in the habit of regularly getting a new car, we can all consider ourselves renters really - no-one keeps a car for 10 years these days.

From a fuelling point of view i'm probably in a similar boat to you, coming from a GTD. I'm getting made redundant next year and there seems plenty of work in my field going right now, so i'm going to buy an R outright with a small part of my lumper. With £5k equity in my GTD at pick-up time and £3600 off RRP, i'm needing to put £22k in. If GFVs haven't been overstated, that car will be worth £19600 in p/x after 3 years, £2400 depreciation for me to suffer. With that in mind, fuelling costs are worth it to me for the extra fun factor in having that R. Those are my reasons to change.

[monkeyhanger]

The trouble with the great residuals on the VW is that they make less sense buying nearly new than new, especially if you need finance and the used lot's APR will be higher than that for a new one, eroding a lot of the sticker price savings.

[dubber36]

no-one keeps a car for 10 years these days.

I kept my last Passat V6TDI for nearly 9 years. (But I do seem to be in the minority when it comes to my opinions on funding vehicles) It got to a point when depreciation was no longer and issue. Yes it needed more maintaining, but the cost of that was way less that the cost of changing cars 2 or 3 times during that time.

[dubber36]

The trouble with the great residuals on the VW is that they make less sense buying nearly new than new,

It depends which car you buy. My old Passat cost me £16,000 when it was 11 months old (£23,700 new.) My current one was £16,8000 at 14 months old (£27,500 new)