The Joy of Bangernomics

The Joys Of Bangernomics.

Cars are no fun any more. No, Let me rephrase that owning a car is no fun any more. Years ago you bought a car and it was your possession. To be treated as you wished. Provided you got it serviced and paid the insurance your were free to enjoy it any way you pleased.  Now days owning a car is practically a full time job in itself. You’re responsible for it’s insurance, it’s servicing, it’s residuals, maintenance, finding and paying for a parking space where nobody will it it (and weaken the residuals), oh a million-and-one things conspire to make owning a car feel more like parenthood than actual vehicle ownership.  You arrange finance to pay for it, it demands expensive servicing and insurance, you worry about where and how you park it, and  if it’s okay there. And every weekend you’re required to clean it, one way or the other.  There is no getting away from it – owning a nearly new car these days is hassle and worry!

And times are tough right now. There isn’t much money about whatever is around isn’t moving much . Do really need an additional, metal dependant on your driveway? If you want to tighten your belt and live a more carefree, less stressful existence – consider a banger!

Lets start with mechanical failure. If your £8000 car has a big problem with the engine costing £4000 to sort out – you’re down £4000 (or £8000, if you can’t find the £4000 anywhere). If, however, your £1000 banger has a mechanical meltdown then the most your could ever loose is £1000. You might have a go at fixing it yourself, you might ask a friend, you might let a backstreet garage do the work – none of which you would do with you £8000 car. Minor bits and pieces – take it to a scrapyard and get them second hand and fit them yourself. A new headlight unit for 20 quid, not 200. If you change a fuse, you can fix most minor problems with a household tool kit and some advice from the Internet.

As far as maintenance and servicing go – take it anywhere. Depending on how confident you are you can do jobs yourself. Forget being told to get it “dealer stamped” to maintain the warranty and residual values as it has neither of these (so you’re no longer responsible for them).  Take it to a backstreet or fixed-price place for servicing – or a worthy local independent if you’re feeling punctilious about it. Bit short of cash this month and the car needs a service? – Change the oil yourself and get it serviced next month when you have more money. Or just leave the whole thing until next month – it won’t hurt anything but the warranty. Which, of course, it doesn’t have, so you don’t need to worry about it.

The fact is that modern cars are fantastically reliable machines, as long as they’re looked after. If you choose to drive an older one and have it serviced when you should and show it a bit of respect when it’s cold you probably aren’t going to have too many problems. And there is another point – if you buy a newish car you might also have to buy a cheap brand. Your banger might well have been 30k a few years ago and this would be reflected in the build quality. It might be older, but if it was better screwed together in the first place then it might still prove more reliable. FIAT or Honda? – you choose.

Okay – insurance is next. You back your £8000 car into a gatepost – you MUST get it fixed!  – think of the residuals!! – Think  of the warranty!! – How this will look!!! – whereas your banger pilot thinks “What Warranty?? – Bugger the residuals!!!”. Similarly you come back to your car in a supermarket to find it’s been hit with a trolly, or someone’s backed a car into it and driven off. Now your average nearly-new driver- this is a disaster requiring an insurance claim and premium hike. Your banger pilot glances at it and think “oh, another dent – how nice – it matches the other side now!”.

Similarly, write your banger off on sheet ice one winter’s morning and (provided nobody is hurt) you only need to worry about getting the wreckage moved. Insurance will not rocket, you won’t have to explain it to anyone other than the traffic police and you won’t have to suddenly arrange £8000 to replace it. Just go and get another one and be more careful next time. Since the car is worth so little you may even like to think in terms of reducing insurance cover to save money. You need to comprehensively insure the £8000 car in case you have an accident. With a £1000-or-less car is that really warranted? You can put up with damage you couldn’t on a more valuable car (like a bent bumper), or just kick things straight and carry on. Nobody is going to steal your banger to order, and even quite elderly cars are now sufficiently difficult to nick that joyriders probably won’t bother, either. Do you really need theft cover?  Even if the car was nicked, would it be worth claiming considering how much it would put the premium up?

Depreciation. Don’t worry about it – you’re exempt. Some nice person pays it for you (the previous owner!)

Finance costs. See “Depreciation” above. Either none, or very low. Rather than a bank you may be able to borrow enough money to get your started from a friend of family member. And that’s assuming your can’t afford to buy the car outright.

Parking is another bug bare of modern motoring. But with a banger you don’t worry about parking it much. Provided it’s not going get a ticket – who cares?. If the kids are playing football in the street you don’t lean out the window and give them what for. You saunter over and close the mirrors and ask they kids to do their best not to hit the car & leave it at that. Ever parked your car somewhere and ended up glancing out of the window to check on it (as if this is somehow going to stop  truck taking it out!)? well – worry no more with a banger. The car wash scratches the paintwork? Face. Bothered. Not.

Still not convinced? Okay – think about the kind of car you can drive. When you’re not concerned with the new list price  then a whole panoply of cars opens up to you. There is no way most people could afford a 3 litre V6 saloon brand new. But when it’s ten yours old it’s value is little different from that of the family hatchback of the same vintage. And the insurance is cheaper for less valuable cars, too.  You can easily end up driving a car that cost £30,000 with almost every refinement going for a fraction of what most people pay for an average family hatchback. And the amazing thing is, with no finance costs, no depreciation and lower insurance premiums the chances are you’ll still pay a lot less than your mate who has a basic family hatch on the never-never!

Bangers also score in terms of flexibility. You can change the Banger, if you want. If you buy a car and find it’s unrelentingly unreliable, or you just can’t get the seat comfortable, or your partner hates it, or the kids do, you can’t afford insurance, road tax or fuel, or you can’t fit your cello in the boot – or maybe you just get bored – sell it and buy another.  Try doing that with a car purchased on finance. Try doing it with one on a lease. Assuming you can do it at all they’ll want a fortune in “cancellation fees” and “Admin fees” and god knows what else. With a banger your liabilities extend the cost of a small ad. How else can you change your car as the mood takes you – without the need to expend your entire working wage on the privilege?  It’s not just the mega-rich who can afford to change their premium car twice a year, or have 2 at once. It’s banger drivers, too.

On a related note. Modifications are cheap and allowable. Say you don’t like the stereo, or you want one with an iPod interface, or sat nav? With a leased car you are very probably prevented from unbolting one unit and bolting in another. Even with a nearly new car it’s likely to “invalidate” the warranty if you do. With a banger it’s yours to play with. Just you try asking a lease company if you can have your car remapped to improve it’s economy and performance – they’ll laugh in your face. With a banger you do as you will – just tell the insurance. Add spotlamps if you want. Change the seats if they’re not comfortable. It’s up to you, and you may well derive a satisfaction from doing jobs yourself.

Reflect on this for a moment – What car do most people have the fondest memories of? Generally it’s one of their first cars, and generally it’s a banger. Remember those carefree days of youth when you had your first car? How you drove it and enjoyed it and didn’t worry about it much when you weren’t actually IN it ? How it was unarguably, definitely *yours*, and you were not merely the poor cluck being bled dry in exchange for being allowed to look after the lease compay’s hatchback for a bit?

And all this is very environmentally friendly. The most polluting part of a car’s life is it’s manufacture. The more you do to keep old cars on the road and in use, the less new cars will be made. Older cars only pollute marginally more than newer cars, so keeping them on the road is best – within reason.

You know. I think it’s safe to say that, outside of cost, there is one important difference between a banger and a nearly-new. And it’s a simply a matter of who owns who.