Quote:
Originally Posted by needforspeed
Thanks for your post .. it's very helpful and the above is EXACTLY what I want. A car that you push hard in without having to get to silly license losing speeds to find it's imits.
Presumably an £11K Elise will lose very little in terms of depreciation as well?
Oh ... what's HGF?
I have the money in the bank at the moment, but my better half wants a new bathroom  I've been fixated on what I'm going to swap the 330i for, but to be honest I still really like it. So getting a weekend car would (hopefully) cure me of fantasy car shopping for a while. |
HGF = head gasket failure. Its a common K series issue. Its something that you need to plan for and may experience (c.£500 to fix - AA cover you up to £500), or may not....a few basic rules like not ragging the engine until its properly warmed through certainly help. Also, the 135 head cars are supposed to be less susceptible. But unfortunately there is no definitive way of predicting whether it will go on any given engine/car...as I say, its common, but then that has to be balanced against the number of K series engines that are out there!!
As you say, depreciation shouldn't be a big concern.....buying an S2 for c.£11k will mean that you should figure on a drop of £500 - £1k each year.....probably until it reaches £9k'ish.....thats based on the current market...S1 Elises seem to have bottomed out with £8k buying you a reasonable standard car....£10k gets you a nice spec.....while the S1 is regarded as being a more pure car, the S2 has enough of a following to mean that its unlikely to drop below S1's.....
I think your plan with the 320d makes great sense - as you say its quick enough and also, given you will be driving a diesel daily, will make the Lotus experience even more enjoyable...
I continually debate with myself about justifying running 2 cars for myself, but any car that I would genuinely want to replace the 2 either costs far too much, would lose me my licence, or hasn't got 4 seats for the school run!!
As for bathrooms.........they're very slow around corners........
Edited to add....if you have the money in the bank then get it spent quick...the pressure for the bathroom will only increase!!!!