Cutting Car Costs - part 1

Although running a car is expensive, if you have a long way to travel to attend a placement, there is no easy train or bus route, and you’re not sure how safe you’d be on a motor bike or scooter, then a car may be the only realistic option.

So how can you minimize costs?

Our top ten tips to save money on running a car are:

· Buy a small car

· Don’t pay what the dealer first asks

· Buy second hand to minimize depreciation

· Choose a reliable model to save on repair bills

· Get a warranty, just in case

· Plan your journey

· Drive carefully – it’s safer and cheaper

· Don’t carry unnecessary weight

· Keep it well maintained

· Watch your carbon footprint

Read on for further details.

If you’re buying a car, assume the price indicated by the dealer is the starting point for negotiation, not the price you’re going to pay. So do your homework. If you know what the going rate is you’re more likely to be able to negotiate a realistic price.

There are websites giving lots of free info here. For instance, if you go to www.parkers.co.uk/cars you’ll find the list price for new cars, a target price if you’re negotiating and free estimates of the value of all used cars manufactured during the last ten years. Remember low mileage cars, with a full service history will typically cost more than high mileage counterparts with no service history.

This is probably pretty obvious but smaller cars usually cost less to buy, use less petrol, are cheaper to service and repair and cheaper to tax (although CO2 emissions will be the main factor in future car tax pricing).

Diesel cars are becoming more popular, as they do more miles to the gallon – but they cost a bit more to buy and diesel is more expensive per litre than petrol, so you need to drive quite a high mileage for this to make a big difference financially.

The biggest cost of running a car is usually hidden until you come to sell it. Depreciation means a new car can lose over half its value in its first three years. Unless your parents are buying it that’s a scary statistic.

The biggest depreciation is in the first few years, so a second hand car will have less to lose and may represent better value – provided it is reliable.

Some cars are more reliable than others – which means less (frustrating) time and money getting them repaired. There are several major surveys of car reliability each year – through WHICH, Auto Express and the J D Power Survey. Try a web search – or if your local library has a reference section they may have the annual WHICH survey. The results aren’t guaranteed - even a normally reliable model may have problems and you may strike lucky with a normally less reliable model. However, what the surveys do is show which manufacturers and models are more likely to be reliable.

As a broad generalization Japanese cars (like Toyota, Honda and Mazda) tend to be most reliable .