I own a 2019 BMW 320 touring black edition, 21k cat s. bought it for 15k. got it inspected by a bmw specialist and confirmed it was 100% fine. This car cost me 7k less than a none cat car. I don’t plan to sell it and will run it for probably 10 years. If you are looking at a cat car make sure you get it checked over by a specialist and i can also confirm as a dad of 2 it’s the perfect family wagon.
Good thing about having a budget of around 20k is that you get the best versions of the cars (2016-2021) instead of the newer "buttonless" cars. I wouldn't trade my 2019 X3 for a 2024 one.
Bang on. I deliberately bought a slightly older RS4 specifically to avoid the bloody touch screens. The buttons/screen combo is perfect. Same as my current M2C, buttons for the main bits and screen for the more in depth options.
@@Kempy89 Yep. My 2019 X3 also has a perfect buttons/screen combo. It has carplay/android auto and has a touch screen so would be good on the resale market. Personally, in 12 months of owning this car I haven't touched the screen once. The jog-dial works just fine and the physical buttons on the dash and the steering wheel are perfect. I'm tempted to just keep this car as long as I can. There's no tech in newer cars that it doesn't have.
Mk7.5 Golf r estate is the way to go. Fast, much more sophisticated than the hatch, very practical, good spec on basically all of them and not expensive to run.
Just got a BMW 330D Touring for the same thing. Euro 6, 256hp RWD, H&K sound, 19s, heated leather, upgraded nav. Amazing do it all wagon for sub £20k with space and poke, still does 45 - 50 mpg
Loved this episode, the £20k section is more real world for most of the audience (I’m guessing). Linking this with stock watch and autotrader is genius. Please keep similar content! Keep it up chaps 👍🏻
Glad to hear people are no longer generally defaulting to Rosso Corsa Ferraris. I have a (very) long term aim to own a used one and it would be nice to have a real choice of spec when the time comes…
You should really check out the Mazda CX-30, skyactiv X gt sport ideally. Literally ticks all of your boxes, cheap to run and insure, looks great and the interior quality is insane
Audi S5 sportback (5 door) - I owned a 3.0 V6 SC one (B8) with a mild tune would do 0-60 in 4 seconds in the wet. Very comfy, 30+ MPG and stylish. Not great fun but fast, refined and quality build.
34:47 Tony makes the suggestion that you should financing a car is better as the ownership remains with the financing company who have responsibility for the vehicle. Another suggestion worth considering is that you can buy a car with cash if you prefer, but put a £1 of that transaction on a credit card. This will create a s.75 protection, presuming the vehicle is between £100 and £30k.
I bought a 2017 Alfa Giulia Veloce 280, which had only done 10K ,I have had it 2.5 years and put in 22K, and maintenance is be the great. The only issue I've had I've just put a new battery on it as there are know for this. Regarding the Infotainment argument , most cars of this age are poor, and I would mainly use my phone in any of them. in 2018 models onwards, you can have apple car play and personally, it is nice just having dials and switches to do the basic stuff.
The guy from the Saving Salvage channel had an RS4 a few months ago which was written off because the part it needed was on back order and they didn't want to pay for a hire car. After being stolen it was driven 3 miles before the thieves cut the carpet looking for a tracker and managed to unplug some electronics meaning they couldn't restart it. The carpet was the only damage, cost £900 and came in 10 days......
MA goes into really interesting detail with write offs, for example they may write a car off so they don’t have to pay for a hire car while it’s being fixed.
Sure, a Kia or Hyundai might have the latest tech. But have you seen the crash test results on their cars? The dealership and after sales service ratings? Every one I’ve been in feels hollow, cheap, and loud
Vehicles get written off by insurance companies as Cat N at lot through poor parts availability and the cost they would incur through keeping a customer in a loan car for an extended length of time. Car could be perfectly fine, maybe needing just a wing and a bumper but obtaining parts could take an age. Whereas a private individual could use second hand parts at a fraction of the cost.
Newer cars are being written off after suffering very light damage when on some expensive models a headlight can be £6000. So a light front end bump cool be £15000 plus to repair with new replacement parts
One big factor now is the courtesy car cost, if a 911 is damaged and the policy allows for a hire car at £2000 a month hire it does not take long for them to write it off
Also we bid half of the normal value for a CAT car in PX as a rule on cheaper stuff sub £10k. If we were talking about a £20k A6 px for example, keeping on topic, depending on how generic and desirable the car is I'd be underwriting that car in px at circa £13-£14k max. The hassle surrounding taking them in means that, as Tony suggested, the juice isn't worth the squeeze.
I would really suggest a Skoda Octavia RS. I dont know why tony was so quick to dismiss the octavia, especially the RS models are usually completely stacked with options! The superb is nice aswell but quite big also. Octavia is close to the audi a4 in size
We Germans use to complain about our trainsystem all day long. It is so refreshing to hear that it is EXACTLY the same in some of the other developed countries in the world, despite the claims that it is so much better in every other country. Doesn't make it any better, though.
I've been thinking for a while that Ferrari California's are great value. Looks great, sounds great and really comfortable. Can't see them dropping in value too much either now.
50% off is dreamland. Cat N = 20/25% off Cat S = 30/35% off. We see more cars getting written off these days and it’s not all down to the damage or costs related to the car. The big more recent cost incurred is the hire car for the customer while their car is off the road. It is all included in the repair bill calculation, so these days that has a massive impact on things. Lots of other things too but my main point is it isn’t all about the damage to the car. 👍🏻 I don’t buy cat cars (although I did in my younger days) but I have a mate who has run his autosalvage business for 30 years.
If the car is primarily to drive in and around town, London I suppose, do NOT, I repeat, do NOT buy a diesel car of any kind or brand. The potentially fuel savings in fuel economy will soon translate into large garage bills. The newer cars, from 10 yrs ago onwards are crammed with anti-pollution systems that will go wrong with the cars being used on shorter journeys and frequently in star/stop cycles. They need to do regular long distance to perform well and be kept working fine. Go petrol or petrol-hybrid, as in self charging hybrid not the crappy mild hybrid stuff and you can’t go wrong. Octavia Combi VRS petrol Golf Variant MK7 or 7.5R 3 series touring, 4 pot petrols are great. Volvo V60, XC40, go for something either the 4 pot turbo petrol, not the 3 cylinders.
I had a Mk1 MX5 that was written off but they never updated the register so I could sell as normal. It only needed a new bumper and sidelight but the car just wasn't worth much
Not just repair costs. Imagine having a Ferrari waiting to be repaired. Like for like loan car means the insurance company is paying out a massive amount each week for the loan car. Soon starts adding to be a big bill.
Difference in value isnt 50% (wish it was) 25-40% is the usual range with most people agreeing a cat car is valued around a third less than an equivalent non categorised example. Thats 20k for a car that would otherwise be 30k
285 miles paddington to truro £400 @ £7 a gallon is just over 57 gallons So 570 miles round trip. Surely the Jag doesnt average 10mpg on a run ? Btw there are 2 tricks to massively reduce ticket prices. 1. Use a split ticketing site 2. Book in advance Oh and obviously dont travel on known busy times/dates
Excellent session guys. Train travel is the pits. Slow, unreliable, filthy, and very expensive. It deserves to fail. The 250 GTO example you talked about (chassis 3505GT)is the ex Innes Ireland car in team UDT Laystall colours. It wears the Ireland family tartan strip on its nose after having been restored to its original colours after a period in Japan in retail red. Why someone would eradicate all that history, is a complete mystery to me. It was a successful race car. It was ordered for Stirling Moss, but that was the year that he had his life changing accident at Goodwood, so, as far as I am aware, never took delivery.
BWM is the obvious, boring choice… For £20k you could get a rare, quick, practical, safe, fully-loaded, *Volvo V60 Polestar* in the best colour... Rebel Blue!
Travel by train in Canada is absurdly expensive. It makes no sense to me... I can drive my Dodge Caravan directly to my Dad's place (400 kms) in 4 hours for about $80Can, so $160 there and back. By train? Tickets START at $315 Can return trip. WTF?!? And that only gets me 85% of the way there. Someone would have to meet me at the station and drive me the remaining half hour to his place, then take me back to the station for the ride home. I quite enjoy traveling by train, but it's much less convenient and WAY more expensive.
In California, we are spending 10s of billions on a train from LA to San Francisco that is slower and more expensive than flying - why? Government stupidity!
Wish you guys would talk about Dacia more. I just bought a brand new Sandero step way with everyone on it for £18k. Has ACC, heated seats, LED’s, sensors, camera, blind spot etc. brilliant cars. Build quality is great. It’s not exactly like Mercedes are making world class quality cars anymore, we all know the A Class uses Renault parts. 90bhp, 50+mpg average for a big ish car. About £200 for extended warranty a year. CarPlay/Android Auto etc etc Perfection.
Lads at 31:10 into this I may be jumping the gun here but have a look into the 'writing off' with electric cars 😂. People often say 'newer cars just get written off' well that is 100% true with EVs. Lack of bodyshops approved to repair EVs and safety concerns around batteries and damage within close proximity to battery packs ect they get written off if they get nudged by a gnats knacker.....
Always had a seat reservation when I travel by train. Very late booking or full may mean no seat. Also if a train gets cancelled, then the next train normally cancels all seat reservations.
Not watched yet men save it for my Friday bath I know it's the weekend when I hear you. But as boring as I may sound two 7 year old Toyota avensis estates anything other is showing off. We are all guilty of showing off me too
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