Buying a brand new car is a highly pleasurable moment, but before you rush into making this considerable investment, have you considered the benefits
Buying a brand new car is a highly pleasurable moment, but before you rush into making this considerable investment, have you considered the benefits of buying a used car instead? Let us take a look at four excellent reasons why you should think about it.
Lower Sales Tax
Buying a new car is a pricy prospect – and it is not only the cost of the car that should be taken into account, it is the extra costs that you have maybe not thought about as yet. Not only will your insurance costs be higher – even with a lengthy no-claims bonus, but you will pay an initial tax payment for your VED (Vehicle Excise Duty). As well as playing 20 percent of the purchase price to the taxman, you could face an initial road tax bill of up to £2,000 if your vehicle’s emissions are high on examination. After that first payment, the cost is fixed at £145 per year for petrol and diesel vehicles. Just the difference in road tax: potentially up to £2,000 for a new car, compared to a fixed £145 for a used vehicle, is a considerable one!
Better Value for Money
If your car purchasing fund is limited, you can get a better car and more extras for your money by choosing a second-hand car. The difference can be enough to allow you to drive a luxury model that has been pre-loved, rather than the most basic small model from new. And used cars may not even have much mileage, especially with car storage options available in the UK.
Less Depreciation
While bookkeepers and accountants depreciate vehicles at approximately a steady 20 percent per year, this is often slightly skewed, with new cars potentially plummeting in value the moment they are driven off the lot, and with older cars from one year being valued at more or less the same as the year before or after’s model. This means that not only will your used car cost you much less than the price of a new one, but it will then hold that value rather well, making it a good use of your money and a reasonable investment.
Do It for The Planet!
Sustainability is an important watch-word these days, as all the stark warnings of scientists in the 70s and 80s begin to come to fruition with the oceans warming, ice caps melting and natural resources running out at an alarming pace. We consume, as a species, approximately the resources of a planet and a half, and if we are not to entirely denude our world, we need to make drastic changes in our lifestyles, more or less immediately. A very simple way to do this, is to opt for a used car: stopping the need for metals and minerals to be mined, reducing the harmful chemicals used in the manufacturing and painting processes from being released into the atmosphere, and making sure that those mineral already mined are used to their utmost, rather than being discarded in a potentially harmful manner.
COMMENTS