Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

That's an assertion that's not reflected by my experience, albeit my experience is buying old performance/sports cars and then being a little obsessive about their condition.

i.e. it would have cost me less to run a brand new 991 era 911 than my (theoretically) old, cheap 996 era 911.

An expensive part of the coolant system shitting the bed then head gasket failure is always a good way to kill a car.

No, I only bought it last November. So far the alternator went, but thankfully within warranty. I've had a full service and also had to get a coolant leak repaired (which is still leaking, I need to go back and bollock the garage). Recently got all four wheels balanced and aligned.

I think people are talking about brake pads, gaskets and bushings rather than performance motorsport engine rebuilds though lol

Shocks/springs/top-plates/coffin-arms/control arms (all OEM) is ~3K, as an example.

I'm talking about mass market cars where the resale value heads towards zero regardless of condition due to over supply. It makes the economics of paying for maintenance rather irrational.

As said, something maybe downstream of the coolant leak or something structural. The Panda died due to suspension mounts. Availability of parts and cost vs value meant I scrapped it for £300. Granted the C Max holds a little more value than the Panda, but it potentially wouldn't take much to make it uneconomical to repair. Eg. if something cost £1.5k to fix, that's half the value of the car, which you would think would be worth doing, but it's not going to add £1.5k in value and something else could equally go bang once I fix the £1.5k problem.

There are plenty 0f 100k+ mile Tesla in the US with only 5% battery degradation.

Also, general maintenance of old motors is basically a non issue so, unlike an old ICE car, you won't be replacing gaskets and hoses and turbos etc etc.

I would say that second EVs will be more reliable purchases than petrol / diesel or hybrid vehicles.

Ah fair enough. Another factor is that I’m able to do some of the work on our cars.
If I hadn’t been able to source parts and do the repair and replacement on my wife’s Jazz after the cat got nicked it would’ve been a write off (£1500 parts alone from Honda). After much shopping around, and having issues with non-OEM part compatibility (manufacture admitted their documentation was wrong), I eventually got all parts and fitted them for about £330.

Same goes for the e46 - thermostat replacement and sorting an ABS fault myself has definitely kept the costs down compared to paying someone else to do it.

But you're trying to solve the problem of sometimes needing to spend £1500 on an old car by definitely losing >£1500 every single year on a newer car.

The resale value is a red herring.

I don’t doubt it, just more speculating what it’ll actually be like. Will the increased prevalence of ULEZ type zones keep demand higher than supply in the second hand market etc. Lots of people will want or need EVs so I imagine a flooding of unsellable petrol and diesel cars into the market and a drought of affordable EV or hybrids.

drought of affordable EV or hybrids

My Tesla is worth more on the 2nd hand market than I paid for it, new, in December. Madness

I'm not too worried about resale. My example above was more a point to explain my desire to not flog a dead horse. I've only ever owned 2 cars. This C Max and the Panda. Both times I bought assuming I'd run them into the ground. The Panda hit that mark a lot sooner than I was expecting, and I'd be annoyed if the C Max does the same.

If the C Max was not contributing as much to local air pollution and didn't give me the back of my mind "something's going to break"*, I wouldn't be thinking about swapping. It drives great (for me) and has tons of space without being a bastard to park.

This is purely psychological based on the age of the car.

It probably also costs me about £1500 a year on fuel as it is a 2 litre, relatively heavy thing doing the usual young family type trips as mentioned above. The hybrid hire car I had recently was doing anywhere between 50-70mpg, so while it is not the deciding factor, that is going to play a part.

Get a motorbike, it will open a new era of riding.

I suspect I am flogging a dead horse at the moment. 14 yr old A6. Faults currently - EGR causing major driving issues (hoping a cheap fix with work - if not £500+ to repair), AC not working, drivers door lock not working, suspension needs some attention. Car also needs a service. It also has some rust on the drivers door which needs attention. Total cost could be £1300. Car value - WITHOUT the faults might be £1500 to £1800.
Time to change?
One point - the EGR issue needs fixed to drive safely.

Another instalment of cars ageing well: VW Lupo, saw one this weekend, cute, would make a great EV conversion once the car version of Bafang appears on amazon

A bit like with campers at the moment. Loads of pals have vans that are now worth 25-50% more than when they bought them a year or two back (SH obviously).

Do people blank the egrs off on the a6? Not very eco friendly mind but I had two cars with the Ford tdci engine and the egr were constantly breaking and quite expensive to fix

I'm exactly the same, l think a personal loan perhaps the best and simplest option

EGR

Wasn't this a throttle body housing clean as a workaround back in the day? Way cheaper

I thought the Nissan Leaf was/is a poor 2nd hand buy,
due to the lack of active cooling of the battery pack?

Only question that occurs to me is how a personal loan affects credit score, being unsecured lending vs a car specific finance product that is secured against the vehicle.

A mortgage (as long as it is affordable) is a positive thing for your credit score I believe, whereas my score goes down when I take a personal loan out, even if the monthly repayments are (relative to disposable income) very affordable.

Ah maybe you're right! So I wonder if there's a difference between say using the retailer finance option, or arranging finance yourself, in terms of say PCP. Does one hit your score worse than another?

Honestly I don’t know- it’s just something I had been wondering about.

This (or preferably blanking) is still the preferred workaround in T5 circles. Maybe a soak in Mr Muscle if things are really bad.