Should I change my car?

[Margotfinn]

My Ford Mondeo will be 5 years old in Jan 09. It is in fairly good repair. I have been offered 3000 GBP for it however I still owe finance of apporx 6000 (bad isn't it!). I would like to buy a 2 year old Alfa Romeo and it will cost me a further 6000 to change. The dilema is do I change my car now (and take the 3000) or wait for another year when it will be worth absolutely nothing. It's all money!!!

[Postdog]

Just a personal view from experience concerning all things - if it ain't broke don't try to fix it. Sounds like you don't need the hassle of extra debt either, but the bottom line is, does the car get you from A to B, whereas even with a newer car, there is no guarantee of that.

[eastern]

In the current economic climate I would think long and hard about spending 6k on an Alfa Romeo, Alfas depreciate like crazy and are not very sellable for that reason. As previous person said "if it aint broke dont fix it". Plus due to all redundancies etc there will be a lot of people turning cars into cash, so you might get a bargain later on.

[buildersmate]

Yes, they depreciate like crazy for the very reason that they don't generally last too long. Italian styling may look nice, but that isn't the attribute that gets you from A to B reliably.

[Skyline D]

You are saying that your current car has negative equity of �3k on it are you? Quite an achievement on a five year old Mondeo!

I can't see anything to gain from trading it in then and rolling negative equity into a new deal which presumably will also be financed and is actually costing you �9k? Especially if your own car has no problems at the moment. You may as well run it into the ground whilst it works and work on paying off the debt in it as you go. There's no way a car worth �3k now will be worth nothing in a year incidentally. More like �2k or so.

If on the other hand this is one of those daft deals where the �6k is payable as a lump sum shortly and your finance ends then you have a problem, particularly if you can't afford to actually fund the �6k.

[LCDMAN]

I was at first shocked that a Mondeo not yet 5 years old would have such little value, but a quick search on Autotrader shows 783 Mondeos nationwide upto 5 years old, valued between �3K and �4K so it's probably in the right ball-park, if a little low.

How come you still owe �6K on it? Did you pay through the nose or what? How long have you had it?

Lastly, how do YOU know it's only worth �3K, just because that is what you were offered? - still sounds too cheap to me (depending on the mileage and condition of course). I would check for similar model, age, & mileage on Autotrader for a good clue as to it's actual value, not just go by what this (apparent) con-man has offered.

As someone else has said, in another year it won't be worth nothing - as it ages then the depreciation slows down. In another year it will probably be worth �2-2.2K.

[karmgirl]

I've heard that Alfa Romeos aren't the most reliable car and parts can be expensive too.

[Margotfinn]

Thankyou everyone for all the good advice. I will stick with what I have got.

[themas]

In any case, if your finance is a Hire Purchase agreement you could not sell it - it doesn't belong to you, but to the finance company.

[joggerjayne]

Never mind the money.

Get the Alfa.

Financially, cars never really stack up, so follow you heart, not your spreadsheet.

J x