Quality will nearly always beat age. My present car will most probably still be running when it has 300,000 miles on it. Unless you know the model you wouldn't know what age it could be. But I don't care about that. Reliable? I trust it to get me to my wife and kids frequently. They live over 800 miles away. In the next 3 years I will most probably put about another 100,000 miles on the clock. Do it on a newer car and you will lose well over half your money.
That is the problem these days. People want it now even if they don't have the money. Debt? Not a problem. Worry about it another time. Then they have a go at the older generations for not being skint.
Listened to an ad on the radio yesterday. It was for an Audi S-line. 2.5k down and £350 a month over 4 years. So £19,300 to be able to drive a car that you will never own. And you are not allowed to do more than 10k miles a year. And people will do it.
Or you could do it the same way as me and put 18k more away into your pension. Then you don't pay tax on the 18k. So it becomes 25.2k. Then depending on your employer they might match it or better. 50k or more in 4 years....or drive an S-line.
A bit like a government that borrows too much.
I'm fully on board with that thinking - it shows prudence and sound economic thinking going forward. Unfortunately in some instances you get clients who don't (esp the larger ones) - they want to see an executive car because they expect you to be able to put the money into the pension AND get the car etc. At the same time smaller clients think if you turn up in this brand new exec car you're making too much money and overcharging. Tended to find an exec badge on a 3-7 yo car was the best compromise.
Of course there were some who just liked cars, so they're willing to spend the money on something they like, and others who felt because they spent so much time in the car it was worthwhile spending a bit more on it.
I have also seen quite a few people who've spent many years saving into their pensions and doing jobs they didn't enjoy to die quite suddenly before they got to that stage or very soon after retiring and their estate getting only a fraction of the value they'd put in due to the rules.
But I do think in many instances younger people do have the right to talk about unfairness - older generations have had opportunities and lower costs they can only wish for, be it right to buy their houses at a discount, final salary pensions etc and were able to get relatively well-paid secure jobs with almost no qualifications - all my grandparents spent their entire working lives at the same company. My grandparents had a car and white goods when they were expensive commodities and had to be bought on payment plans (ie credit) and their house was full of trinkets they'd spent a surprising amount of money on but were now worthless due to changing fashions - the equivalent of todays phones/tech. They always had an annual summer holiday for two weeks, and as they got into their 50's were having two holidays with one abroad during the colder months. So did many of their friends and they were lower middle class working in local factories or for the council in non-managerial jobs. Yet despite this my nan's bank balance was growing more year on year in retirement than my mum, me or my sister were while working because we had expenses on top like mortgage/rent she didn't.
