I've also done this for years, but in a slightly different way. I've paid (relatively) top money for cars a bit over-age, but usually with low miles and/or interesting spec's (e.g. 2010, a 40k mile 10 year old 523i SE with m-tech pack, landed and cleared for €5.5k, 2012 - 30k mile 2004 330Ci Sport, 2014 - a silly spec 2002 530i Sport Individual landed and cleared for about the same as the 523i, etc.). That worked well, but doesn't work so much today. Prices for the current equivalent of these cars has gone silly. A micro-mileage 2012 F10 535i from Japan for sale in the UK at the moment would cost over €20k landed. That kills the case for them. Last time out I bought a 3 year old 530e. I have a car allowance that I use to run the daily driver. With the e60 I had before it the allowance was mostly used up by the running and maintenance costs of an older car - road tax (old CC based), servicing, consumables and repairs, etc. With the 530e, I split the allowance, one part for running and maintenance and another to cover depreciation, or effectively a capital contribution to replacing it in due course. The running costs pot has covered everything, including the €2.5k bill I mentioned earlier. Given the mad market we've had since C-19, its only started depreciating in the last 6-12 months. The "net book value" of it to me is about €10k and its current market value is probably €20k-ish. Even without that mad market, I'd have enough in the pot to replace it with similar again, which was the plan. That kind of kills the argument for my version of Bangernomics at the moment. I suspect the Bangernomics costs will probably normalize over the next 12 months or so, because of economics, etc. but it would have been the wrong decision to make for the past 3-ish years in my case.Originally Posted by Big H
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