Keeping a car if you do hardly use it???

[gasman2]

Priorities have changed since i started the project...got a mortgage now

 

[JohnBell]

£30k ready can collect tomorrow.

 

[gasman2]

Can only assume you are at present smoking 20kg of crack cocaine and intravenous heroin

 

[JattAmg]

Can only assume you are at present smoking 20kg of crack cocaine and intravenous heroin

Haha.

 

[WIN]

Sorry just read back from the first post OP. I am in a very similar situation but not quite identical. I have an as new Maserati 4200 2007/07 that I spent a year finding & bought from the 1st owner 3 years ago with 11k miles. He kept it in a garage under an indoor cover, never drove in the rain & never saw the winter weather. I have kept it exactly the same. It has done just under 14k miles now and is pretty much not far off as new. It has appreciated slightly & is certainly not going to depreciate ever I imagine now. As I have insurance that covers me on up-to 10 cars the running costs are not silly high. Maybe 1k per year for servicing/maintenance/consumables.

It is a pure occasional toy and a real special event each time it goes out. It goes to Brooklands twice a year and to some forum meets events & Ace Cafe. I can't see me selling it ever. What would be the point. What can you get at that price that compares or is better?

The only difference to your situation is the C63 may depreciate a smidge & IMHO although an absolutely lovely/cracking car is it special enough as an occasional toy. I might sell it and get something more special that suits your situation & requirements better. However if you love it then keep it & don't worry about the low & occasional use. Don't feel guilty about it or think it doesn't make sense. Who cares if it makes sense. Just enjoy it when you can. You are only here once

ONE LIFE LIVE IT!!

 

[WIN]

I had a Escort Cosworth That I brought when it was 2yrs old N404RPM was a brilliant toy loved it. but then i washed it one day stuck it in the Garage and never got it out for 12yrs. Well me and the partner fell out so i left. And the next thing knew was the x got it all fixed up and was enjoying the car good luck i thought. But as luck would have it. it got stolen. and she got the insurance money. So when you have it enjoy it look at it drive it. BUT DON'T LOSE !!

 

[chrisk2010]

Just read all the way through this and got thinking about what my cousin does.

He buys and sells cars all the time i think two years is the longest he has held on to one but when he finds one he likes that ticks all he boxes he sticks it up above market value with the ethos that "if someone wants to pay that price i'll let it go, if not i don't want to sell it anyway."

I'm really suprised no said keep the car change the wife though

 

[NOMONEYBUTAMERC]

My "spare" car is at the opposite end of the spectrum. A 1998 C240 . Overall in very good nick for the age , and with 140k still drives very smoothly. As with most of this model it has had its share of rust over the years , but had whatever needed doing to it regardless of cost . Current m.o.t. expires end of November and no doubt will require more welding etc. The car was given to me three years ago and I love it , but not nearly as much as my Boxster (which we put 700 miles on last week on a trip to Yorkshire). I have a company car and my wife has her own car . The C240 has probably only done a 1000 miles in the past year and will no doubt get even less use now that I have the Porsche. The mrs has been bending my ear about the Merc just standing on the drive so I guess it will probably be dispensed with at the end of November . Will be sorry to see it go but cannot really justify £500 a year tax , insurance etc to watch it disintegrate.

 

[BD E55]

It's a very tough choice. Head vs heart. Now vs later. My crystal ball is only moderately powerful, as I'm sure most others are.

I had same experience as NOMONEYBUTAMERC, but it was a motorbike which got use once in 2 years. Was worth less than a grand and was SORN but still took up lots of small garage space and just didn't make any sort of sense to keep it. Despite it putting a massive smile on my face and got the pulse rate up when it was ridden! An old school RF900R.

 

[Sam87]

I think there's so many of us in the same position! Yes there are members that drive their cars every day and that's great but then there's those people (including myself) that have a car as a toy. I have a few cars that very rarely get driven, one of them is an e46 m3 (2003 model) that has 27k on the clock. I'm the second owner and I've had the car for about 9 years now. First 2 years I was doing around 1500 - 2000 miles a year and then it was less and less. The last 2 years and a bit the car has done about 200 miles or less! Should I sell it? Sometimes I think I should but every time I get it out of the garage to run the car I get reminded how nice it is (in my eyes) so I just park it back in and leave it there. I also bought a jaguar for my parents as a gift and that had 20k on the clock, it really is like a brand new car and still has the original tyres. My father is not like me, he drives his cars but for some reason the jag is not one of those cars that he drives and he's parked it up next to my m3. It's a shame to have a nice car and not drive it, for that reason I've bought another e46 m3 now that I'm restoring and the plan is to drive this one so I get to enjoy the experience of an m3.
Seeing as this thread has people with low mileage cars, if anyone has a designo model e55amg w211 with low miles and wants to sell it, please let me know as I'm looking to get one but it's so hard to find a low mileage e55amg that is not silver or black!

 

[Bluegnomes]

Interesting thread. My Porsche has 8000miles on in 2 years so quite low. It hardly goes out in the winter but I've done 2 trips of 1000-1500 miles across Europe in those 2 years. I'm keeping it (aside from not being able to buy a new 911 at the moment due to factory shut downs etc...).

 

[ferg f]

I ahd an Evo at one point with 520bhp and I was the same as OP.

It was sitting in the garage doing less that 1k miles a year, didn't need to sell but when I added up insurance, road tax, MOT and servicing (two a year) it was costing 2.5k to sit in the garage gathering dust.

Eventually sold and I can say in all honesty I did regret initially but I now look back and think that I did the right thing, it was a shame having a car like that and just locking it up in the garage or taking it for a very occaisional track day. I lost a fortune on it from what I paid out in tuning it so if the OP can get a reasonable price..... go for it.

 

[baxlin]

I’ve been on the verge of selling the JZR for the last couple of years, as it doesn’t do more than 5 or 600 miles a year.

But when VED is £85, insurance is £120, MOT £25, it’s not that expensive to keep. And as I built it myself, it’s not easy to think of getting rid.

But then again, new Morgan 3-wheelers are being advertised at £47,000, and the JZR is shall we say a 'tribute' to the old ones, maybe someone will pay over the odds if I did decide to sell?

 

[zoros]

It doesn't help when you come onto this site every now and again either!
I'm selling my SL55 AMG but every now and again I take it out and wham! I'm falling in luv with it again!
An earlier poster stated that his M5 was the best value for money. Think again. My SL55 was.....wait for it... £103,000 new. At the time it was more than the price of the average house. It was in the top 5 cars in the world that hit 100mph in less than 11 seconds. It was one of ten that could reach 200mph.
And I picked this car up for less than 20k four years ago. THAT is value for money.
It isn't anywhere near as expensive as my Maserati to run. Just changed all the discs and pads all round for less than £700 fitted! That;s the price of ONE disc and set of pads for the italian stallion!
Yet the merc beats the maser hands down for everything except kudos.
I have a BMW 323Ci which is 18 years old. Bought it in August with 33k miles on the clock. The last owner had driven it 600 miles in 10 years. And boy did that hurt. Cars that aren't run often enough - COST!. New tyres, new discs and pads. Sticking calipers, broken springs, clogged fuel filter etc etc.
Cars need to be used or they cost money.
I guess its down to passion and attachment. Of all the cars I had/have, the merc ticks most boxes, most of the time.
However the best driver feedback has to be the (E46)M3. What a car.

Where would we be without our motors eh?

 

[millc63]

My car sits on the drive Mon-Fri as i work in the city. I bought it with low mileage, and while i can see the point when some people say it costs to not drive it (road tax, insurance etc) the joy of just seeing it everyday is worth it for me. And even though i only drive it on the weekends (probably only doing 2000 miles a year) it's worth every penny for the smile it brings to my face. Truly an irreplaceable car. So in your position i would say keep it and enjoy it when you can!

 

[BlackC55]

Reading this while eating my lunch has really made me want to go and get my little car out of the garage! Its no AMG but its the first car I bought with my own money so its quite sentimental. Plus its like go kart, much fun!

I haven't actually looked at it for 3 years....hopefully its still in there...

Natacha

 

[Edd1968]

I've only just come across this thread. In my opinion none of us need the types of cars we drive.
I spent years living in Germany and lived through the 'Wiedervereinigung' in 1989.
Having travelled over to what was then east Germany everyone got from A to B in small crappy 2 stroke Trabbys! They got to their destinations dry if not a wee bit slower.
Which made me think; we don't need 500bhp or convertible cars nothing like that but most of us buy and keep what we have because of the way they make us feel when we drive them.
My vehicles don't owe me any money and I've not invested a fortune into them. They are just as much fun as any supercar I've driven in past lives.
Short and curlies keep them even if we don't use them much.

 

[alabbasi]

Any car parked in a spot that requires me to do a vehicle shuffle never gets driven. Nobody has time for that

 

[Mistergav]

If you don't need the cash then I say keep it. I have an old BMW in the garage, I must have advertised it 3 or 4 times now but I always cancel the advert shortly after.

 

[Edd1968]

If it is nice to look at (and I'm sure it is) then pull it out of the garage every so often, sit down with a glass of something and just enjoy the aesthetics alone.