Family car options - 2 cars [city runaround & main car]

[dereko1969]

Do you have a Go Car location near you? Might be worth signing up to get rid of second car.

 

[newtothis]

I think this is key - immediate access you have to public transport. While it works fine for me - we are 1.2 km from both the DART or QBC and happy to walk the distance in the morning/evening, dragging a 5.5 and nearly 4 year old can make this a very slow and unmanageable process. And as I said, this works fine if we want to go to town, but going to say Sandyford from Blackrock would take an age via public transport.

If I had to get to Citywest for work (like I occasionally do) after school drop-off (8:35), the only option is in to town and out again, I would be lucky to make it in for 10am - driving I could be there for close to 9:15 (depending on M50 chaos).

I agree with you. I think the critical thing is if you can make the Mon-Fri regular journeys work painlessly. The week-ends, evenings and irregular week-day use can usually work themselves out, but if the day-to-day stuff is problematic, it's probably not viable.

Before I did it, I was dreading getting rid of one of the cars (especially as it was "my" car we were getting rid of!), thinking it would be a real hardship. I was amazed at how easy it was, though, and in retrospect was something I should have done years before I had to do it becuase of finances. It requires a bit of flexibility around who gets the car when and a bit more car pooling with ferrying to/from sports activities with other parents etc., but so far we haven't had to endure any mad multi-bus inefficient routing journeys. Very occasionally, we'll use taxis, but that's probably less than one a month. Leap cards and real-time information have made a huge difference in the usabiliy of what's there. It also encourages a bit more independence in our children (now teenagers).

 

[Kimmagegirl]

My fear is that we give up one of our cars and then decide that we need two cars down the road. Would the insurance company screw us on the cost after being a named driver for so many years.

 

[newtothis]

My fear is that we give up one of our cars and then decide that we need two cars down the road. Would the insurance company screw us on the cost after being a named driver for so many years.

I have a horrible feeling you're right about that. It's an issue that only occured to me about a year ago: I may well be back to square one in terms of getting insurance in my own name in the future. Probably another case of insurance companies using highly questionable criteria to penalise particular people: I'm driving as much as I ever did with the same accident rate (i.e. zero), yet should I need to get my own car I'll be penalised.

 

[shweeney]

do you need the 2nd car at all? If you're only doing 1500km per year on it now. We had 2 cars when the kids were very young but I get the train to work so eventually I just got rid of mine. There's maybe a handful of occasions each year when having another car would be handy, but it's never a showstopper and certainly not worth the expense of buying and running an extra car (which people vastly underestimate the cost of).

My fear is that we give up one of our cars and then decide that we need two cars down the road. Would the insurance company screw us on the cost after being a named driver for so many years.

possibly but compared to the amount you would save from not running a car it would be peanuts.

 

[gnf_ireland]

I have a horrible feeling you're right about that. It's an issue that only occured to me about a year ago: I may well be back to square one in terms of getting insurance in my own name in the future.

Yes, this would be a consideration and was something I have thought about. Not ideal, but we could see

do you need the 2nd car at all? If you're only doing 1500km per year on it now. We had 2 cars when the kids were very young but I get the train to work so eventually I just got rid of mine. There's maybe a handful of occasions each year when having another car would be handy, but it's never a showstopper and certainly not worth the expense of buying and running an extra car (which people vastly underestimate the cost of).

Agree to a degree. I have to point out though, that this is not a financial constraint. We can easily afford to have and maintain two cars, without impacting our lifestyle. Any upgrade on both cars would be paid for from existing savings.

The reason the 2nd car only does 1500km is because its current role is that of a city/suburb run around, with the majority of trips less than 5km return and the vast majority less than 10km return. However, if I was to rely on public transport for these, its likely they could take hours. There is also a convenience factor to consider and the fact that time is money. 2 cars gives us both flexible and freedom.

Not having it would restrict my ability to pop-out during the day (when at home) to run an errand or meet someone, as it would simply take too long. The 2nd car, while not essential, offers a convenience we are willing to pay for.

The difference in your case is you take the train to work on a daily basis. I do take public transport the majority of the time, its only around 80% of the time and the other 20% needs to be factored in. Yes, I could work on a go car type model, but at say 70 euro a day * 25 weeks a year (once every 2 weeks), comes in at 1750 a year just for the work trips.

So I agree, the 2nd car is not essential and would be considered a luxury but one we are willing to pay for.

 

[gnf_ireland]

Hi all
Just to close this out - we have ended up swapping both cars in the last month. We had expected to not change one until January, but got a decent price on it so we went for it...

So we ended up with
142 Toyota Auris ICON model (Northern Ireland import from a main Toyota dealer who is changing the speedometer to a km one)
161 BMW X1 SE model

The X1 was not something we had initially considered, but went to look at them when we considered going to the UK to get a car. Got offered one with low mileage from a main BMW dealer cheaper than I could get it in from the UK

The crazy thing is the X1 has lower road tax than the Auris !!


Thanks everyone for your help and input. Definitely good to get some other peoples thoughts