What a used car really costs to keep on the road, which cars hold their value, and where you stand when a garage bills you for work that didn't fix it.
The cost of running a car arrives at different speeds, and the biggest one never sends a bill.
Fuel and insurance you feel monthly. Servicing arrives a few times a year. Depreciation takes the largest share of all and shows up only when you sell. Running costs of a used car puts real numbers against all of it, and depreciation explained covers which cars hold their value and why.
Maintenance is where a used car is won or lost. Common faults by age sets out what tends to break and roughly when, which is useful both for budgeting and for deciding how old a car to buy. What a full service history really means matters more than the phrase suggests. Plenty of cars advertised with one have gaps in exactly the wrong places.
Cover is the other half. Used car warranties explains the types, what they routinely exclude, and when one is worth buying at all. Wear items are the usual exclusion, and they're also the usual failure.
Two more guides deal with the paperwork and the arguments. Keeping your V5C updated covers the changes DVLA needs to hear about. When a mechanic didn't fix your car covers where you stand on a bill for work that didn't work, including the lien that lets a garage keep your car.
Most of this is cheaper to plan for than to react to. That's the whole argument for reading any of it early.
Ignore the '40% in the first year' figures quoted all over the web, because nobody publishes a reliable number for that. What you can pin down is why some cars drop like a stone and others barely move.
8 minRunning an ordinary used car costs anywhere from about £2,500 a year to £5,000 and up. Which end you land on comes down to insurance, fuel, tax, servicing and how fast it loses value.
12 minWhat actually goes wrong once a car passes eight or ten years old? No official table answers that. Some competitors present their own workings as DVSA data. This guide is built from what really is published: MOT failure records, a reliability survey, and the wear items that do go by age.
6 minThe V5C records who the DVLA holds as the registered keeper of a car. Get that wrong and letters go to the wrong house: tax reminders, penalty notices, the lot. Updating it is free and takes a few minutes.
4 minA full service history means every service the maker's schedule asked for actually happened. On time, with paperwork to prove it. It doesn't have to be a main dealer. No government database will confirm any of it. So a seller's word needs checking.
6 minYour car came back from the garage with the same fault still there. You aren't stuck paying up and shrugging, and you can't simply refuse the bill either. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 sets out what you can demand, and in what order.
10 minBuy from a dealer and the law already gives you free cover, before anyone sells you anything. A paid warranty sits on top of that, and only some of them are worth the money.
9 min