According to the latest AA Cost of Motoring report it costs €12,000 a year to keep the average family car on the road in 2015. That figure is not for a Ferrari or high-end Mercedes-Benz, but for your common-or-garden variety Nissan Qashqai or Skoda Octavia.
Worse still, the 12k figure does not include the initial purchase price of the car, merely the running costs such as fuel and servicing and standing charges like tax, insurance and depreciation. I don't care who you are, but 12 grand (or €1,000 per month to put it another way) is a lot of coin. This is coming from someone who has recently (last week) re-entered the world of car ownership and has no intention of spending twelve thousand euro (say it slowly for dramatic effect) on keeping the ruddy thing on the road.
In fact I plan to spend as little as humanly possible and that is because I went down the road of 'Bangernomics'. For the uninitiated, Bangernomics is the art (or science) of running a car for next to nothing. The term was coined by motoring journalist and author James Ruppert in the early nineties and begins with purchasing a banger.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter will have already seen the car at this point, but for those who do not my banger (technically my wife's) is a 2003 Citroen Xsara Picasso that was picked up for the princely sum of €580.
Considering that kind of money won't even get you behind the wheel of a late nineties Nissan Micra it seems something of a steal especially when you consider that the car I bought came with fresh tyres, was recently serviced (and actually came with a comprehensive service history - not something you expect of a 12-year old family wagon), roof bars (to go along with my camping lifestyle) and had been in the same family for the past nine years (it was a company car in the UK before that), it is something of a gem.
Sure there are issues, there always are, but nothing to get caught up on. The front drop-links need to be replaced but I've already sourced replacements from Micksgarage.com for less than €25 and they will take about 30 minutes for me to change on my driveway. The regulator for the driver side electric window has packed up and while it is a fiddly job it is not a difficult one so call it two hours of work and €50 for the parts from a scrapyard and the car is good for the NCT.
There are a couple of other issues such as two of the five lightbulbs behind the digital dash are gone, but they are not a priority and cost little more than €10 for a pack of five bulbs (may as well replace them all while I have the dashboard apart). Totalling up the jobs that need doing - the NCT priority ones and the 'ah I may as well' ones - and I reckon the Picasso will be good to go for less than €400, meaning the car stands me as close as makes no difference €1,000. Considering there are Xsara Picassos of a similar era being advertised for €1,250 with tax and NCT ours is still cheap. (Yes I know nobody pays the advertised price and those €1,250 cars will likely sell for closer to €1,000 but I didn't pay full asking price either.)
Using the AA Cost of Motoring data (and being generous with allowing for a possible NCT retest) between now and August 2016 the Picasso should cost me €1,582 in standing charges like tax, insurance and NCT. Add in operating costs of 14c per kilometre (the Picasso won't need tyres this year and the €400 repair/replacement costs have already been accounted for) and you arrive at annual costs of €3,822 meaning a saving of over €8,000 a year. Even allowing for the purchase price of the car (which the AA figures do not) that is €7,500 in my back pocket by the time the 162 plate rolls around.
Proof that cars need not be expensive. Now if you don't mind I have a car to valet - seems the previous owner had dogs that liked to shed all over the back seats...