Irish used car buying guide

We recently upgraded our 2005 Toyota Vitz/Yaris for a 2012 Honda Fit/Jazz. Here is my Irish used car buying guide on how we went about researching and selecting our “new” car. This guide is for people looking to get from A-B for as little effort and money as possible.

Do you really need a car?

This wouldn’t be a very good financial independence blog if I didn’t pose this question first. Do you really need a car at all? When our car started to become less reliable and cost more money to maintain, we asked ourselves, could we get away with not having a car at all? Or perhaps if you have 2 cars, can you do with only 1?

Looking back at our expenses since moving back to Ireland in 2014, it has cost us on average 350€/month to own 1 car between us. That includes car, petrol, tolls, parking, NCT, taxes, maintenance and license costs.

As we live near the city centre and could walk/bus/train to main amenities like grocery stores, schools, playgrounds, work etc could we get away with alternatives to owning a car like:

• An electric bike/scooter with child carrier
• Renting a car for longer journeys
• Signing up for car-sharing like GoCar or Fleet

For us, we do a lot of longer journeys to Mayo and Dublin and do regularly drive around to different playgrounds and sightseeing with our son so it felt like the cost and hassle of renting a car or car-sharing for each of those journeys on top of the public transportation costs would not be feasible for the time being, nor would it be cheaper. Maybe once our son is older we can make the switch but for now, we feel we need 1 car.

But it’s worth asking yourself the question and thinking outside the box if you can give it a go. If you do need a car then read on.

Determine your search criteria

Do some soul searching about what you want out of your new car.

For me, my main reason for upgrading our car was reliability for as little cost as possible. I also wanted the new car to last us for another 5-6 years minimum before having to dish out again. Your core criteria may be different but it’s important to keep coming back to them when you need to bring yourself back down to earth.

Cost

Budget

How much are you willing to dish out? Like any big purchase, getting a new car is exciting and it can get very hard to stop your emotions from guiding your purchase. If you have very clear criteria for yourself it can help you to stop getting carried away.

We always try to live beneath our means and only buy cars in cash. If we don’t have the cash, we don’t buy the car. Getting loans for things like cars is very easy to do these days and can make it very hard to keep spending in check. Just because you can “afford” it, doesn’t mean you should get the most expensive thing you can. It can end up costing you way more with all the administration and interest.

What we try to aim for is buying a new car every 5-6 years for around 5,000€-7,000€. This means we need to put aside 833€-1,400€/year (or 70€-117€/month) so that we have enough to pay for the new car in cash when it’s time.

For us, financial security is really important and so when we frame a big purchase in this light, it helps us keep our spending down. If you spent 20,000€ on a car, and you typically save/invest 20,000€ a year, then that new car purchase will mean we need to work for an extra year before reaching financial independence. If you feel that is a reasonable exchange of your limited life, then it’s worth it but if not, it can help you prioritise your spending.

If you’re not focusing on your time to financial independence, another way to look a the purchase is how many hours of your life will you spend working to pay for this car? Figure out your real hourly wage after taxes including things like commute time and cost, work clothes etc – take the cost of the car and divide it by your real hourly wage. This shows you how many hours of your life you will spend at work to pay for this car. A good calculator for this is here.

For example: If you earn 50,000€ for 38hours/week for 48 weeks/year – you take home about 36,800€. Say you spend 30 minutes getting ready each morning and spend about 50€/month on new work clothes. You spend 1 hour a day commuting and about 70€/month on fuel (for work alone). You buy your lunch for 4€/day in a subsidised canteen. This means your real hourly wage (including the additional costs in time and money to work) comes to 13.37€. To buy a 20,000€ car you will spend 9.8 months working to pay for it. Imagine going to work every day for almost a year JUST to pay for your car. If you keep the car for 10 years that spreads it a bit more so that 1 entire month for each of the next 10 years will go towards paying for that car. Converting costs to time really helps put things in perspective as it truly is the most limited resource.

Comparison

It also gets hard to compare costs when you have multiple factors to consider. How long can I expect this car to last? How much is the motor tax? How much is the petrol/diesel/electricity? How do these compare to keeping my current car?

To help compare apples to apples, I came up with a calculator that takes all of these criteria into account and boils each car down to an average monthly spend so you can compare the total cost of ownership side by side of each car you are considering. You can find this in my paid member’s area but it’s not hard to calculate yourself in a simple spreadsheet. Again, this helps to take the emotion out of it somewhat when you can see the true cost over the lifetime against all options. Read on to see an example of our full search.

Mileage

To translate mileage into search criteria I took our average annual mileage of 15,000km and multiplied that by 6 years. That comes out to 90,000km. So I would want a car that I could get another 90,000km out of without needing major repairs to keep it going. The mileage range to put in your search criteria will differ depending on the brand of car.

From our experience, we feel that 200,000km is a reasonable mileage to get out of the likes of a reliable brand like Toyota and Honda without needing any major repairs. This may be more or less for other brands, you will have to research car buying guides for a realistic figure for whatever car make you are interested in.

So if we take 200,000km minus 90,000km, that means we’d need a new car with at MOST 110,000km on the clock.

Year

Putting the max price and max mileage criteria into DoneDeal came back with a range of cars from 1994-2017. We felt for the reliability and lifespan we’d be looking for we’d want at least a 2010 so we added that to the criteria.

Make/Model

Seeing the cars that came back in the search we tried to refine our search further again based on our preferred make/model. I’ve personally only ever owned a Toyota and have found them to be very reliable requiring very little maintenance. My perception of Honda comes a close second. I then filtered for Toyota and Honda to further refine the search.

Fuel type

Being concerned for the environment, we really tried to make this next car an electric one but after much research, we felt the used car stock in our price range at the moment does not have the distance range we would be comfortable with. As we do regular trips to Dublin/Mayo with a 3 year old, we weren’t prepared to need a 20-40 minute stop to charge up once or even twice on the already long journey. We felt that by the time we need to trade up next time, the battery charging technology or infrastructure will be much farther along and the range of the batteries will be much better too so we are holding off another while. As a compromise we favoured Hybrid’s in our search so prioritised those in the filters. Petrol would have been our next choice and then Diesel.

Further research

In the end we broadened and narrowed our search criteria out of curiosity for my calculator. It ranged between 2009-2019 and 3,990€-18,900€. From an average of saving 25€/month compared to our current car for a 2018 Kia Soul EV with 32,000km to costing 663€/month for a 2013 Yaris Hybrid with 146,000km.

We looked at Honda’s, Toyota’s, VW’s, Ford’s, Kia’s, BMW’s and Nissan’s.

Once we boiled it down to a handful we dug deeper into the car reports for that year and make. We watched car buying guides and reviews to see if there were any recall’s, safety concerns or other considerations. I even joined a Facebook group for BMW i3’s in the UK to get an idea of what trouble’s owners are experiencing. Mr. MH talked to our mechanic about their take on the model we were considering as well.

The cheapest options per month were the electric vehicle’s where we would actually save money per month (between 11€ and 25€/month) compared to our current car ownership costs but they came with a sticker price of between 17,500€ and 18,900€ which we weren’t prepared to pay this time around. Also as mentioned above, we weren’t ready to commit to 100% EV due to lack of range. The BMW i3 with range extender was a tempting compromise but our additional research into them ruled them out as they can be expensive to fix, which was a strike against my main reliability/low effort criteria.

The next on the list was the Honda Fit Hybrid at a cost of 18€/month on average if we kept it to 200,000km or 8.2 years. This is the one we ended up going with although on the day we were going to collect it, Mr. MH got reading up on the expected battery range and found that we could likely only expect to get 160,000km out of it (180,000max) and replacing the battery would be too costly at that point, so that brought our estimated average monthly cost to 51€ as we could only expect to get 5.5 years out of it.

Detailed research

Here is a list of all the cars we looked at from cheapest monthly cost to highest monthly cost.

The savings were based on our current road tax of 358, current annual petrol costs of 1,596.

We estimated the savings of an EV would be 100% of the 1,596/year (though this should probably have been lowered to 95% assuming electricity will cost something) and 25% savings of the 1,596 for an older Hybrid. From our reading it was optimistic to expect 30% savings in a Hybrid so we took 25% to be conservative.

Now that we have our Hybrid we are seeing about 31% savings (getting 725 km per 40L tank vs 500km in our old Vitz) so that brings our cost per month back down to 41€ if we keep it for 5.5 years.

Expected mileage for petrol or EV was 200k while Hybrid were reduced to 160k.

KM	Year	Make/Model	Km left to expected mileage	Years to max mileage	Cost	Road tax	Total road tax savings	Total petrol savings (Hybrid/EV)	Total cost after savings	Cost per month after savings
32,000	2018	Kia Soul EV	168,000	11.2	17,490	120	2,598	17,875	-3,383	-25
26,000	2018	Nissan Leaf	174,000	11.6	18,900	120	2,691	18,514	-2,704	-19
40,769	2015	BMW i3	159,231	10.6	17,490	120	2,463	16,942	-2,314	-18
39,701	2017	BMW i3	160,299	10.7	17,950	170	1,945	17,056	-1,450	-11
58,501	2017	BMW i3	141,499	9.4	17,450	170	1,717	15,055	279	2
93,752	2011	Toyota Prius Hybrid	106,248	7.1	6,500	170	1,289	2,826	1,986	23
85,295	2011	Honda Insight	114,705	7.6	6,995	170	1,392	3,051	2,153	23
54,000	2011	Toyota Vitz	146,000	9.7	5,250	180	1,674		3,177	27
46,000	2011	Toyota Vitz	154,000	10.3	5,500	190	1,663		3,438	28
32,000	2011	Toyota Vitz	168,000	11.2	6,250	180	1,926		3,925	29
94,951	2010	Toyota Vitz	105,049	7.0	3,990	190	1,135		2,456	29
48,000	2014	Honda Insight	152,000	10.1	10,000	180	1,743	4,043	3,815	31
80,000	2010	Toyota Vitz	120,000	8.0	5,000	180	1,376		3,225	34
59,289	2012	Toyota Vitz	140,711	9.4	7,000	170	1,707		4,894	43
100,000	2011	Toyota Vitz	100,000	6.7	5,150	190	1,080		3,671	46
77,248	2012	Honda Fit Hybrid	82,752	5.5	6,950	170	1,004	2,201	3,346	51
31,000	2013	VW Polo	169,000	11.3	9,250	190	1,825		7,026	52
99,660	2011	Toyota Vitz	100,340	6.7	5,800	190	1,084		4,317	54
66,500	2012	Toyota Vitz	133,500	8.9	7,650	190	1,442		5,809	54
88,514	2011	Toyota Vitz	111,486	7.4	6,500	190	1,204		4,897	55
60,125	2014	Toyota Yaris Hybrid	99,875	6.7	8,750	170	1,212	2,657	4,483	56
95,000	2013	Toyota Vitz	105,000	7.0	6,500	180	1,204		4,897	58
32,187	2009	Kia Rio	167,813	11.2	5,950	570	-2,439		7,990	60
91,174	2014	Toyota Prius	108,826	7.3	10,000	170	1,320	2,895	5,386	62
74,030	2013	Toyota Vitz	125,970	8.4	8,750	180	1,444		6,907	69
73,101	2015	Toyota Vitz	126,899	8.5	8,950	190	1,371		7,180	71
69,461	2016	Toyota Vitz	130,539	8.7	9,950	190	1,410		8,141	78
89,000	2012	Honda Fit Hybrid	71,000	4.7	7,500	200	719	1,889	4,493	79
98,000	2012	Honda Fit Hybrid	62,000	4.1	6,900	170	752	1,649	4,100	83
111,554	2012	Vitz	88,446	5.9	6,900	270	484		6,017	85
83,000	2015	Honda Fit Hybrid	77,000	5.1	8,849	180	883	2,048	5,519	90
88,514	2011	Toyota Auris Hybrid	71,486	4.8	8,499	180	820	1,902	5,379	94
6,999	2019	Toyota Yaris Hybrid	153,001	10.2	18,750	120	2,366	4,070	11,915	97
81,000	2015	Honda Fit Hybrid	79,000	5.3	9,995	170	959	2,101	6,536	103
16,650	2018	Toyota Auris Hybrid	143,350	9.6	18,750	180	1,644	3,813	12,894	112
86,002	2015	Honda Fit Hybrid	73,998	4.9	10,000	170	898	1,968	6,735	114
89,001	2014	VW Polo	110,999	7.4	9,495	500	-1,095		10,191	115
29,801	2018	Yaris Hybrid	130,199	8.7	17,950	180	1,493	3,463	12,595	121
96,768	2014	Yaris Hybrid	63,232	4.2	9,250	170	767	1,682	6,402	127
94,951	2015	Ford Ecosport	105,049	7.0	12,000	270	574		11,027	131
93,342	2014	Corolla Hybrid	66,658	4.4	10,000	180	764	1,773	7,064	132
100,001	2015	Corolla Hybrid	59,999	4.0	9,995	170	728	1,596	7,272	152
143,231	2013	Yaris Hybrid	16,769	1.1	9,950	170	203	446	8,901	664

Japanese import considerations

Low mileage but tired engine

If you’re looking for the above criteria, you will find a lot of almost brand new looking older import cars from Japan with very low mileage for the year. There is a reason for this:

In Japan it is very costly to own a car older than 3 years old due to their high cost of emissions certifications. Ireland is one of limited number of right hand drive counties that they can export these to when no one in Japan wants to pay the high costs of owning them.

The mileage is also low because it takes them much longer to get short distances. So while the mileage is low, the engine may be tired. A bit like you measure tractor use in hours rather than miles. When you are considering the longevity and how may years you may get out of a car, you’ll need to take this into consideration. For example: A non-import Toyota may last 300,000-400,000km but an imported Toyota may only get 200,000km before they start causing you trouble.

Insurance for imports

It can be hard to get insurance for Japanese imports because the replacement parts are not easy to find if needed. Be sure to check with your insurer first before your purchase the car. We have found only Liberty or Aviva will even quote for Japanese imports and you cannot fill out quotes online as they do not have them in their databases so makes shopping around each year more difficult or even pointless. Luckily we have found Liberty to be fairly competitive anyway so we haven’t found sticking with them to be painful from a cost perspective.

Higher spec

Still, we like the imports because the interor’s are impeccable and the spec is typically higher (tinted windows, automatic transmission, windows and mirrors etc). For our last car for example we had a 2005 but it was equivalent to the 2008 Irish models.

Radio limits

The other weird thing is that the radio stations in imports are limited to a different frequency so if you don’t get a range extender/adaptor you will be stuck listening to RTE radio 1 – not all bad as if I hadn’t had this limitation I likely wouldn’t have discovered FIRE when I did as it was an interview on that station where I first heard Kristy from Millennial Revolution talking about their experience retiring early.

You can get radio adaptors relatively cheaply and if you get the car from a dealer, sometimes they will convert the radio/console to an Irish one. Ours put in an android console which catered for the Irish radio stations.

Toll card reader

In Japan, they have electronic toll car (ETC) readers in some of the newer cars. If you don’t have a card in the reader or don’t have credit, when you start the car, there is an audio recording in Japanese that will play. These are wired into the car so you will need to get it removed by a mechanic if you don’t want it to sound every time.

Reversing beeping

In both of our imports, when you put the car in reverse, it would beep inside the car. The wires for this were very deep in the car so could not be disconnected easily and was quite annoying. The newer car still has the beeping but it’s a much more pleasant tone and volume.

Irish FIRE event

In other news, there is an Irish FIRE event coming up on Thursday Sept 16 at 5PM for 4 hours. Speakers include Irish FIRE aficionados and even the godfather of the FIRE movement JL Collins. Get the tickets for 10€ here (50% off) using promocode MMH50. You can access the recording for 90 days if you can’t attend at the time. I’ve presented at one of these in the past and the time and effort that goes in to just 1 presentation is massive so the 10€ or even 20€ for the tickets is a steal. These events are great inspiration to keep going and keep thinking outside the box on your own financial independence journey!