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Mazda 3 depreciation + general advice
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sturatcliffe
Original Poster
2 posts
121 months
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Thursday 28th August 2014
Hello,
Completely new to these forums, and don't have a lot of experience with car values etc so any advice much appreciated.
I bought a 2010 Mazda 3 2.2d just over a year ago, and paid £9,999 on finance with Black Horse. When I bought it it had 56,000 miles on the clock, but I've now racked up 73,000 as I have a daily commute of around 50 miles round trip.
Generally it's been absolutely fine, but I've had a few additional costs over the usual service / MOT / tax / insurance. I've had new front pads and discs, 4 new tyres + wheel balance as I've been having issues where the whole car vibrates at 60-70 mph.
After the balancing the vibrating virtually disappeared, but is now starting to do it quite badly again, is this likely to be a balance problem or is it more likely to be bearings now?
The main issue I have is that I was chatting to a guy from work who seemed to think webuyanycar / wewantanycar actually give fairly accurate valuations, so I got one and they reckon the car is now only worth a little over £6,000. To lose £4,000 in a year seems fairly steep to me, and if it's likely to keep depreciating fairly quickly, by the time my finance finishes in 3 years time it won't be worth much at all.
I was originally only going to spend around £7,500, but increased to £10,000 so that whatever I bought would hold value better and be worth more toward my next car. Now I'm just a little concerned that I may have another sizeable bill to find the cause of the vibrating + fix it, I'm also approaching what I believe to be a fairly big service at 75,000 miles, and I'm not entirely convinced the clutch is going to last a whole lot longer either.
Is this car worth keeping hold of and paying for the upkeep? Or is it going to keep depreciating this quickly and I'd be better off swapping it now for something better?
Cheers
Stu
ORD
18,120 posts
132 months
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[news]
Thursday 28th August 2014
The bad news is that you overpaid by a fair bit and are probably getting nailed on the finance, too, so you'll have a few years of quite expensive motoring. What were you expecting a 7 or so year-old Mazda 3 with not much under 100k miles to be worth? Not a lot is the answer, unfortunately.
Another way to look at it is that the Mazda will bottom out in terms of value quite soon, at which point you will have almost no depreciation to worry about and 'free' motoring in that respect.
mike13
722 posts
187 months
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Thursday 28th August 2014
I'm surprised that you got offered £6000 for it, i thought it would have been in the low fives, it does seem a big devaluation but as previously said you paid well over the odds for it i'm afraid
sturatcliffe
Original Poster
2 posts
121 months
Thanks for the feedback, I bought the car from a used car supermarket who would match the price if I found the same car cheaper, which I couldn't!
Ah well, live and learn. If I was to swap it for a 2008 BMW 325d / 330d, with around 60-65,000 on the clock, would I be shooting myself in the foot again? I don't mind paying upkeep costs of a nice car, but I would rather it be towards something that is likely to give me something back when I come to upgrade in 3 years.
As for reasons for buying a Mazda, I came from a 6 year old 1.8L petrol astra with 63,000 miles which went from £5,000 to £1,700 in 2.5 years - 500 quid more than I got for trading in a 10 year old 1 litre toyota yaris with 91,000 miles.
mike13
722 posts
187 months
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[news]
Thursday 28th August 2014
If you don't get bored, run the Mazda into the ground, financially you've taken a big hit already so it will devalue more slowly now
The Moose
23,035 posts
214 months
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Thursday 28th August 2014
WBAC are a total trade bid and depends on what they're looking for. If it's a popular car then they pay a little more than you'd expect.
Owned by BCA I believe so they know what this stuff sells for at auction.
ORD
18,120 posts
132 months
[report]
[news]
Thursday 28th August 2014
sturatcliffe said:
Thanks for the feedback, I bought the car from a used car supermarket who would match the price if I found the same car cheaper, which I couldn't!
Ah well, live and learn. If I was to swap it for a 2008 BMW 325d / 330d, with around 60-65,000 on the clock, would I be shooting myself in the foot again? I don't mind paying upkeep costs of a nice car, but I would rather it be towards something that is likely to give me something back when I come to upgrade in 3 years.
As for reasons for buying a Mazda, I came from a 6 year old 1.8L petrol astra with 63,000 miles which went from £5,000 to £1,700 in 2.5 years - 500 quid more than I got for trading in a 10 year old 1 litre toyota yaris with 91,000 miles.
Hmmm. Hard to say, really. The BMW will probably be worth more in 3 years, I expect, but it will cost you more in the meantime. Also, do you think you'd get one for £6k? I'm not sure that's realistic for a good one.
You're buying cars at a mileage where, to the average punter, they have about 3 years of average miles left before they are useless. The average punter is wrong, but his opinions are very important in setting prices. If you take a used car close to 100k miles, it will usually be worth very little.
Gixer
4,463 posts
253 months
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Thursday 28th August 2014
mike13 said:
If you don't get bored, run the Mazda into the ground, financially you've taken a big hit already so it will devalue more slowly now
This. I bought a new Mazda 3 for work. My annual mileage has dropped now but for the first few years I was doing 40-50k miles a year so it become worth very little very quickly. I keep looking at what I'm going to get when I do need to replace it but it just keeps on going. It will clock by 350k miles later this week. Original clutch lasted 223k miles (mines a 2l petrol btw) and that included a lot of those miles in and around central london. Overal its been very reliable. 185k I replaced the acc belt tensioner pulley. 223k the clutch and at some point I changed the front wheel bearings. Rears are original although one has just started to whine. This year the alternator went, unbelievably the bearings in it were still fine. I also replace he starter while I was down there. Up to about 315k the car aged really well. It drove really nice and tight still, never used any oil between servicing, nobody believed the mileage. However from that point it has aged more quickly. It now uses a little oil etc. I'm struggling to decide what to replace it with tbh. Ideally a small van would suit me but apparently you can't transfer your NCB over from car to van and they're a nightmare for being broken into.
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