Driving Towards Car 5

Back in November my car went for its MOT and came back with a big repair bill. Slightly annoyingly, this came in drip-feed form - I had a threshold for what I'd pay for repairs rather than replace it, and the initial bill was under that; but then there was another thing, and then another, and then another. Had I known the total up-front, I'd have gone for a new car then. Oh well.

For the past few months, unfortunately, the car just hasn't felt 'right'. There's a bit of a noise, and it doesn't feel like it quite has the power I'd normally expect, and... I can't put my finger on it, quite, but it definitely feels like the car is on its way out.

That's not exactly terrible. When I bought the car I said I'd ideally like to get 6 years and 100,000 miles from it but would settle for half of that; it has since done four and a half years and 60,000 miles. If I take it to the next MOT, that would be almost all of the time and two-thirds of the distance I'd hoped for, which isn't bad. (I won't get that 100,000 miles, largely because my annual mileage has dropped a great deal since moving to Livingston. Which is no bad thing.)

In terms of metrics, I'm actually doing pretty well. I've been driving now for 26 years (or just under), and have owned cars for 21 years (or just under). In that time I have owned 4 cars, at a total cost of approx £23,500. That's pretty good - you wouldn't have to try too hard to spend that on a single car, if you were so inclined. In particular, that works out at an average of one car per 5.25 years, and a rate of approx £1,120 per year. (Of course, none of this measures the total cost of ownership. I've been reasonably lucky in terms of repair costs, and my fuel efficiency has never been terrible, but that's still two big costs I've ignored!)

When considering car 5, I find myself torn between two approaches. On the one hand, a big part of me is inclined just to go and buy another Ford Focus - the last two have done me well, they're cheap to run and easy to maintain and repair, so that's a big plus. Also, since I know what I'd be getting, that would take a lot of effort out of the "buying a new car" process. On the other hand, part of me is tempted to go for something a bit bigger and more powerful; indeed, something much more like the car LC currently drives - I've been pretty impressed with it, it's plenty big enough for all three of us plus a load of stuff... (Then again, we don't really need two such cars. If it's just about getting me to and from work, that would be overkill.)

And then there's a small part of me that wants one of those luxury German cars... but that guy will have to wait a few more years, I think!

Or there's one more possibility: maybe I'll manage to get just one more year...