How much did you pay for your car?

Not me, but my sister paid £60 for a Ford Zephyr for me, back in '62!

It was a pile of junk, and it never occurred to offer less, partly because haggling was unheard of.
and partly because he was the pastor's son!

Last year I bought a Ford Focus (2011) for 5.5K (43,000 miles)in very, very good condition..immaculate, in fact.. Who's asking for 8.5K??

£650 14 year old Toyota Yaris just over a year ago , no problems whatsoever so far lovely little car
You can’t beat Japanese technology

Mondeo 60 reg 2.0 Ecoboost engine bought for 11K in 2014. Excellent car probably still go for around 5K today as it has a low mileage.

VW Caddy a couple of hundred on the clock from VW.  £9,700.  No issues in 12 years.  No plans to replace it.  Hope to get it to 20 years.

I'm looking for one like that jack, 3-4k for 10 years old with 120-150k on the clock

Cars are sooo ****ee nowadays. I was looking to spend around 8k but man what a boring bunch of junk you get

https://www.carstore.com/search/details/hyundai/i30/manual-diesel-blue-hatch...

Saddo its been brilliant.  Only needed new clutch - probably my fault, battery and brakes during those years.  Only 110k on clock.

got a alfa 147 10 years old for 1500 quid and the only thing i"ve had to replace in 3 years is a bulb and windscreen wiper blade 60 .000 miles on the clock

I bought my 1999 registered company car for tax reasons in around 2003 for £10,000 with 110,000 miles on the clock. I'm still driving it, now showing 380,000 miles.

postman nick ...that has to be the buy of the century

I bought my Alfa Romeo 159 for £3795 3 1/2 years ago it was 8 years old then, had done 78,000m, had to replace front wishbones for about £200 after about 6 months but nothing since just a full service. Absolutely stunning looking car, goes like stink if you want and has every extra that most cars would have cost a fortune as extras, love it, does around 32mpg round town, not bad for a 1.9ltr and about 45 on the motorway.

What ever you Buy if it is on a Forecourt , it will be worth a Lot less once you drive it off it .

2002 nissan micra £925  love it 28k miles

2002 nissan micra £925  love it 28k miles

Aston Martin DBS £124k

SL400 for £42K. Nowhere near as nice as the old 500s but decent nevertheless.

Best bargain i know of was my mate buying an Austin A40 for 50 bob in 1971 that's £2.50p for the youngsters, took us to Great Yarmouth and back for our summer holidays and lasted about a year till it conked out. He took the plates of it and left it where it clapped out! Never heard anything more!

Škoda 1.2k

When I last bought a secondhand  car about 10 years ago from a dealer, you expected to get something off and they expected you to haggle. Now it seems that if the sticker price is £8750, that it is what they want and they won't budge even by £250. When did that change take place?

Internet?

Has put information into the hands of the previously ignorant.

People won't bother viewing if overpriced.

coach- the old fella who sold me the car was my sisters next door neighbour was moving to life in spain and because he got on really well with my sister let me have very cheap i love the car

Manoleeds, I had exactly the same with the car I bought. They would not budge!

forget garages if you want a deal, for modern cars sign up (free) to bca and manheim auctions depending upon where you live

their auction gradings are pretty good, i prefer bca, make sure the auction is direct (as in the trade have yet to get their hands on them ) and that your chosen car has good service history with paperwork etc and the v5, with bca I focus on grade 2 up sometimes grade 3 depending upon the condition report detail

you'll know if it's damaged, stolen, written off etc from their reports, if you choose carefully you'll cut the trade out and save yourself a chunk, just know your prices

I also buy from classic auctions, these are much more dangerous as many of the cars are vendor described so you need to know what you are doing, you can still do plenty of homework on specific cars in the sale, many will have shown up elsewhere, but knowledge of the marque and a local expert in your area will help in buying and running

in the last couple of years I've had a 500sl, alpina b10, fiat 500, alfa gtv and a fulvia (still have it until spring), if you focus on easy to sell cars you won't lose money and most can be insured on classic insurance, my fulvia is £120 a year ins, tax and mot exempt, I paid £8k for it and i'm hoping for 12k plus come the good weather

recently I've been trying to buy 850r volvos, v70r, amg estates or bmw tourings, but any fast estate is fine as they are starting to disappear with the mpv dominance and the good ones that remain are steadily climbing in value, they are more usable and desirable than saloons

re the classic auctions from my experience, brightwells, brooklands, h&h, cca/silverstone, ACA are the better ones, barons is full of garbage, south west have some older bargain bangers but the quality is poorer than the likes of Brooklands, bonhams now doing a sale at Bicester which is ok too, I think the next sale date of these is 25th jan at aca (east anglia)

Paid 5 grand for a fabia estate I hate it why I bought I don't know swore I would never have another modern VW product after last time in 2003 I bought a 1.4 Golf it was 3 years old in 3 months the gearbox went and HGF fooking shed. This fooking thing needs weekly 50 mile runs to keep Particle filter happy. Don't buy one

elise 31 Dec 19 15:50

in the last couple of years I've had a 500sl, alpina b10, fiat 500, alfa gtv and a fulvia (still have it until spring)

Is the fulvia the one with 1st gear where 2nd is in most cars ?  If it is then i remember doing a respray on one a few decades ago, it was like a chocolate brown colour IIRC.

Hi Elise, best wishes for 2020.

What did you think of the SL500? And was it a recent-ish model? The best 500 I had was around 8 years old on a 2002 plate and is still comfortably the best car I’ve driven. As I said earlier, the 400s aren’t comparable in terms of performance or build quality for that matter.

happy n y jm to you & yours

I only bought the sl because it was a cheap one owner car, I didn't have it more than a couple of weeks before I sold it, too small for my hoards of kids and dogs and i'm not allowed to escape

smar tarse … yes, dog leg box, first is where 2nd normally is, reverse is where 1st should be, so can get interesting at traffic lights

Ah that explains why i remember it, i often gave them a "test drive" before i resprayed them