Selling a car - the spoilt daughter factor!

It's another world. A friend of mine's DD had a hissy fit when she didn't get a car for her 18th like all, her friends. Parents gave in and bought her one!!!
My DDs thought this was madness.

Treat DDs like princesses and they expect the world. I didn't even pay for driving lessons let alone the car, they wanted these things , they budgeted for them.

Where are you, gadaboutgran? I wish we could find a reliable car for my son, he loves minis and has inherited a few thousand. Yes, all of his friends have cars, but that is because all the public transport here stops at 5.30pm to 6pm. He wanted a summer job in the nearest city but wouldn't be able to get home, even many of the shops don't shut until 6pm ands certainly not supermarkets and pubs. I taxi him about as it is, but I have to say he does seem a little daunted at the prospect of being in charge of a car all by himself - I wonder sometimes if the teens are less enthusiastic to own a car than we are for them to have one and get out of our hair.

Wait until teenager discovers what it will cost to insure a convertible, likewise, probably, 'the car that all teenagers want', what ever that may be.

Both my two had old bangers to begin with. This meant insurance was limited to 3rd party fire and theft, so much cheaper, and if they did anything to damage their cars they had to repair it themselves, find the money for a repair or scrap it and save £400 - £500 to buy another banger.

As they were both safe and sensible drivers from the off when a few years later they could afford a decent car they had notched up three or four years of no claims bonus to make fully comprehensive insurance affordable.

Well I am proud to say we've never ever bought our daughters cars! They just had to do without until they could buy their own, boo boom.

Ours lived in cities so neither needed or wanted a car when they were that age. Apparently now insurance is much more expensive than it used to be for the under 25s.

It went up hugely last year, just as mine started to learn. The cheapest is about £900 per year, to insure him on our cars would be £2000 to £3000. It's catch 22, he needs a car to work, and needs to work to run a car. We have been besieged by flyers dropped through our door from teenagers wanting babysitting and gardening jobs to keep their cars running. That's definitely new.

My daughter went to university in a very old and battered Mini that her Grandad bought her for £200 (way out of our reach at the time) She was very amused one day when she was surrounded by American tourists raving about her "Cute Little Car" I think they'd have bought it on the spot if they could have got it home.

Insurance is a bugger isn't it? My daughter's been driving for 22 years now and never had an accident, but she has had one car stolen and written off and several damaged in attempted robberies. In each case the insurance paid out as little as possible.

A relative of mine had to buy his son and daughter a car.
They both managed to get good first jobs which offered sponsorship to go to college part time but there was no reasonable public transport for them to get to work.
They are both now doing well and he thought it would have been a pity if they could have not taken those jobs.

Frank

Where there's a will there's a way !! if they wanted to get to college that badly they would have found a way either with car sharing and paying for petrol or getting up & buying a bike.
I can appreciate youngsters in out of the way area's needing a car but just because friend/aquaintence has one is over the top,mine have worked for their's and all started with a cheap safe banger.

What amazes me is the number of youngsters who are bought NEW cars for 18th birthdays. DD inherited her Metro from a deceased relative and we spent £300 on son's 18th birthday banger. Both needed cars for work/study.

I think it's fine, if you can afford it, to buy your children a second hand car, but totally unreasonable for a young person to expect a new car. It's no wonder marriages go wrong when young people have been so spoilt and have never had to make do.