It takes practice to find a really cheap car

My mother often complained that people know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

I admit that I suffer from this. As a middle-aged man who is just entering his fifth decade on this earth and hasn’t had the foresight to work hard and make a stable, good living as a lawyer or city broker, it probably won’t surprise you that I look for the greatest possible utility when choosing our family car.

Every family needs a battle bus. It’s the car you use when you’re taking the long-forgotten contents of your attic to the dump. The car of choice for throwing, in my case, a dirty, soaked and oh-so-smelling Cockapoo and Labrador into the boot. The car for transporting a small amount of stuff worth a house to university – mainly enough Aldi own-brand booze to open a cocktail bar. And the car for setting off at five in the morning for the next summer holiday in Cornwall or Suffolk while the completely thankless refrain of “It would be nice to go on a beach holiday in Greece or Croatia” rings out. one Year.”

The thing about such workhorses is that they come in all shapes and sizes. A friend who has plenty of choice when it comes to driving something special every day relies on his Fiat Panda 4×4 during the fall and winter months because nothing seems to stop the stubborn Italian terrier from reaching his goal.

Considering how long they have been around, SUVs quickly fall into the battle bus/value for money Venn diagram. A few years ago, I bought a BMW M3 E46 from a journalist friend – Jesse Crosse, the former editor of Powerful car Magazine and the guy who gave a certain Jeremy Clarkson his first column. And when he picked me up from the station, he was driving a genuine BMW X5 30d with six-figure mileage on it. He had chosen it because it was cheap, drove well for his type, and he – like the millions of other SUV drivers out there – liked the way it made you stand out from the rest of the traffic.

And then there’s David, with his Ford Mondeo estate. He’s a mechanic, which gives him superpowers when it comes to buying up worn-out cars: he sniffs out opportunity like a bear sniffs out a Spam sandwich in your tent. When a trade-in Mondeo was about to be scrapped because its 2-litre diesel engine had failed a timing belt, he paid £200, rebuilt it, and the car still has over 170,000 miles on it. What does he use it for? Apart from commuting to work, he spends his life collecting firewood in the forest. His boot is filled from top to bottom with logs, and the seats are folded down (they’re never up). The inside of this car literally resembles the forest floor. But he doesn’t care, he has better things to do than spend his money.

I bought a Golf from my brother-in-law for £1500, which proved to be a perfect second car for a few years and only lost half its value when resold. There was a Honda Accord Tourer for £4000 – you know, the one Tooth Advertising car – which served for several years until Mrs. Mills could no longer bear the impression of a “recently deceased owner”.

However, the car I have more experience with than most is the Mercedes E-Class station wagon.

I’m on my fourth now. The first was a seven-seat W210 E320 CDI, which seemed like a lot of car at the time for £5,000. And it was a lot of car physically too. The unabashed hearse shape made it almost as cavernous as anything you’d find transporting stone from a quarry. But within a couple of years I realised I’d missed the telltale signs of impending doom – rust. It started to rot like a shipwreck. And then I accidentally filled it with petrol… the day we left for a family holiday. In Suffolk. Again.

Then I tried to be too clever for my own good. I searched the Mercedes website for the cheapest used seven-seat E-Class with registration and did a trade for the scrap. The catch? It was a 220 CDI (W211), which meant that on a calm day it ran with the zeal of a windmill.

At this point I lost my mind. In 2013 I got myself a really fancy three year old seven seater W212 in E350 CDI Sport specification, paying too much money for a car that my family would treat with the same affection as the shoe cupboard under the stairs. We were proud of it, but by the end of the three year PCP I had come to my senses and got off the drug of finance. That’s when the Accord Tourer came into play and Mrs Mills threatened divorce.

But this Honda, with its unusual ruffled leather seats for the time, has done us proud financially. It has never let us down and has cost us less than a few thousand dollars in depreciation in three years. The fact that it has caused marital strife is a moot point.

After all this time, I felt I had figured out the value equation when choosing a struggle bus. You need something intelligent enough that, when your partner is behind the wheel, they remain happy with their decision to accept your marriage proposal. The kids need to be comfortable enough to happily immerse themselves in the world of their smartphones during the five-hour drive to the top of Cornwall. And the mountain of luggage, the smelly dogs, the rarely used roof rack and equally rarely used kids’ bikes, the frayed sofas, the broken fridges and all the other stuff that makes up the life of a family car needs to fit easily into the boot (695 litres, since you ask) and, if we’re being fussy, be handled by a self-levelling rear suspension.

In my experience, station wagons are the best solution when it comes to loading a pile of junk. The fact that they drive a bit better than an SUV and, at least in my opinion, exude a reassuring classlessness is a Brucie bonus.

And so, three years ago, I happened upon a 2010 E350 CDI Sport. It had had one owner for most of its life, despite only having 50,000 kilometers on the clock. Then a kindly older gentleman bought it and realized he was annoyed that it wouldn’t fit in his garage unless the door was left ajar. At that point, I showed up, took it for a test drive, checked the history, and completed the purchase contract.

I appreciated the taste of the original buyer. The Indium Grey metallic paint is complemented by Almond Beige leather and Ash wood trim, and there’s a tilt-and-slide panoramic glass sunroof. This car would have cost £40,000 in 2010. Yet in 2021, when I gave it a new home, it still looked as good as new and cost just £9,000.

It’s been worked hard in my care. We’re now approaching 100,000 miles and all it needed was a replacement rear suspension airbag. Oh, and there was a recall for the actual airbag as it was involved in the Takata scandal. But aside from routine maintenance at a local specialist, it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to: serving faithfully and expecting no thanks in return.

Three years later, things are still going well. And there have been no threats of separation. If that’s not a good relationship, what is?