I knew I was onto something a few hundred years ago when I suggested that used cars were great value and ideally should not be thrown away.
I am glad some readers agree with me about the whole Bangernomics thing. They also tell me how disappointed they are about how unfixable and expensive modern used cars are.
In the past, I’ve made reference to ‘cockroach cars’ – in other words, used motors that just run and run and are seemingly invincible. Yes, buying any used car is something of a risk and it is always easy to go wrong, but I’ve had a run of previously expensive new vehicles that continued to be utterly reliable. Luxoroaches might be my thing, but I think there are still some basic bangers out there that might do a job.
My default destination for contemporary bangers is always Japan. The Corolla is a legend, of course, and somewhat long in the automotive tooth, but it is reassuringly basic. There are tons around. I looked on a free ad website, which is the only place to look, and there were 500 of them. A few hundred pounds or less gets a dented but reliable 1.3 with the ‘guppy’ face from 1999. The word ‘reliable’ cropped up in every single ad, even the expensive £450 ones.
Find a used Toyota Corolla on PistonHeads
Then there are the forgotten Suzukis. The Baleno is anonymous and the originals are almost all gone from the classifieds, but I did see a 1998 1.6 GS, with a full service history no less, and all for £500. Sounds pricey, but it won’t let you down. Actually, for that money, you can get one of those famously reasonably priced Lianas. A £500 1.6 GL from 2004 is just as boring as a Baleno. Then again, a mint 2006 1.6 GL is £1000.
Mazdas are quite magnificent when it comes to not breaking down – and if you want a bit more room, the 626 is a multimillion-miler. I found a bunch of 1998 2.0s with full MOTs and none of them was more than £300.
Next up, I would look towards Korea. They used to build Japanese cars, after all. Kia Picantos and Kia Rios from 2004/5 can be picked up for £300 pretty easily. The Rios are not great to drive but keep on going.
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Volve depreciation exaggerated
Why do all journalists quote list price when quoting depreciation on used cars, no one pays full list price and therefore the £16,000 loss on the quoted XC90 (£60,000 when new and worth £44,000 a year later) is yet more fake news. As an example, VW recently offered £5000 off some of their new cars on a PCP and it would also be possible to get a discount off list price. Also I recently heard of a £10k discount off a new £25k car, so the depreciation on that Volvo would be more like £6k and possibly less, not £16k.
Cockroaches
May I nominate the Skoda Fabia, Toyota Yaris and Honda Logo as candidates? I think that if you're going for economy motoring, you may as well buy something which is cheap to tax, insure and with good fuel economy too.
But it's worth bearing in mind that nothing built in the last 20 years is truly basic. All have ECUs, fueel injection, catalytic converters, airbags and ABS brakes, any one of which could fail randomly and cost a fortune to fix.
It would be interesting to see Autocar run one of these bangers long term and compare the economics against say a nearly new small car with relatively low depreciation and zero repair costs.
I still see a lot of old