Buying a 12 year old car

We are in the process of changing cars and this, so far, has involved me buying a 12 year old car. Normally we have bought cars which are 3 years old, in other words when most of their depreciation has already taken place and yet there is still plenty of life left in the car.

With our need to be careful in our spending and also through having more time to go searching for the ideal car, I have gone for a car which is 12 years old.  Never done that before.  Feels a bit risky.

As you can see I have gone for a Toyota Avensis and we are in the process of getting rid of our old Avensis.  We are letting it go for a few hundred quid which is about the price of a reasonable bicycle wheel (and without a tyre).

“Extremely reliable but totally dull”

That is what one of the reviews was saying about the original Avensis when we first bought it.  More recent reviews for our newer facelift model are much the same.  It won’t exactly light up the road with blistering performance and yet it should serve us well.

The new car is 12 years old.  The mileage is well below average, in very good condition and it has always been serviced by a Toyota dealer.  For techie readers, it is a petrol 1.8 engine giving 127bhp, manual gearbox and is a midrange model so it has some creature comforts and gadgets without having silly, unnecessary features such as leather seats (which aren’t very vegetarian!).  In the first 1,000 miles we averaged 48mpg which I’m pleased with.  With a bit of luck, it should last us 10 years and be a fairly cost effective comfy car.

Now buying a car of this age is not without risk.  All kinds of things could be held together with sticky plasters.  I did my best to check it over before having a test drive.  Everything seemed okay although I wasn’t sure about the air conditioning which is difficult to test on a day when the temperatures were hovering around zero.  I have since had it re-gassed and it seems to be holding. Having now driven it to the south coast and up to north Wales, everything seems fine.  I have been using premium petrol so far in order to give the engine a nice clean inside.  It is smoother and more quiet than the previous version.

Avoiding car snobbery

It is easy for any of us to get sucked into the need for the latest model, the newest number plate and a nice car to convey a certain image or status.  Christians aren’t excluded or immune to this and yet we all deny it could ever apply to us.

So buying a 12 year old car is, perhaps,my stab at making a bit of a statement.  Perhaps a kind of anti-materialism statement?  If I were completely genuine about that I might have bought a new bicycle, which I could have for the price of the car.  Some would say the cost of my new car would be equivalent to a midrange bike.

Have we done the right thing?  Time will tell, ask me in 10 years time.

Footnote: Rachel is having my Honda Jazz.  I adore that little red car.  It’s been brilliant and we didn’t want to do without it.

So instead I have a grey Avensis which I wonder if it’s the kind of car The Right Honourable John Major would have had: grey and boring?