Road Tax Has Ruined a Harmless Hobby

[GIYess]

No idea why I'm complaining or what good it will do but I'm so fed up.
Had put the hobby on hold for a while when financial pressure of babies new house etc were happening.
Recently got everything settled and not doing big miles for work so thought it would be a good time to look for something a bit interesting. Always loved older 4x4s and wanted to get another.

There's just no way I can stomach or afford £400-700 a year tax. It's completely bonkers!

Now I'm depressed because it's unlikely I'll ever be able to justify that money every year for something interesting.

[Leins]

I know it doesn t make it any better, but it s still a lot cheaper than tax on anything interesting south of the border. We re at 2400 per year for the likes of an E92 M3 or a C63, and that s on top of approx. 30% VRT on new purchase or secondhand import

Only way I found to make it slightly easier to deal with was taxing for 6 months and then putting the car on SORN for the other half of the year

[Master Bean]

GIYess said:

No idea why I'm complaining or what good it will do but I'm so fed up.
Had put the hobby on hold for a while when financial pressure of babies new house etc were happening.
Recently got everything settled and not doing big miles for work so thought it would be a good time to look for something a bit interesting. Always loved older 4x4s and wanted to get another.

There's just no way I can stomach or afford £400-700 a year tax. It's completely bonkers!

Now I'm depressed because it's unlikely I'll ever be able to justify that money every year for something interesting.

Pre 2001 is £360. Get one of those.

[Jo-say8k]

Pre 85 is free, get one of those

[Crumpet]

It is frustrating when 2005-2017 is pretty much peak car. There’s so much interesting stuff, especially with large NA engines, in that age bracket. The good thing is that because of the tax it does appear to have hammered values.

I think the sweet spots are now either pre-2005 or April 2017 up to 2023 (when the tax dropped to when the lane-keep and speed bonging nonsense came in).

There’s a lot of good stuff in the 2017/18 age range; BMW M2s, all the JLR products with the 5.0 litre, Nissan 370s drop down in tax massively, Aston V12s are £195 a year……and all are still safe and modern enough for daily use.

[cobra kid]

Road tax? Has it become a thing again?

[vaud]

If you think VED is expensive then just wait until the kids get a bit older… uniform, lunch money, summer day camp, school trips (£1600 for skiing…) etc

[Jazoli]

cobra kid said:

Road tax? Has it become a thing again?

You know full well what the OP means, don’t be an arse.

[Alex_225]

I know what you mean OP, you can look around at cars from say 2005-2010 and there are plenty of interesting, good cars around for not a lot of cash. Then you realise the tax is ridiculously high and it makes you wonder if it's worth it.

You don't mind so much if it's something really special but for something a bit more normal it makes you think twice. I have a Saab 9-3 V6 and it's a lovely thing but it's not the fastest thing out there yet it's in the highest tax bracket, so I slightly resent the VED.

[MattyD803]

The other option may be a Japanese import.....? Those which don't come over with an emissions certificate / CoC get taxed as per the pre-2001 rates. My 2006 3.5 V6 Nissan Elgrand is for example, only £360/yr. I appreciate that's not 'cheap', but might give you other options. (Besides, typically better spec and condition than a UK vehicle).

Edited by MattyD803 on Wednesday 24th September 08:31

[Crumpet]

MattyD803 said:

The other option may be a Japanese import.....? Those which don't come over with an emissions certificate / CoC get taxed as per the pre-2001 rates. My 2006 3.5 V6 Nissan Elgrand is for example, only £360/yr.

Edited by MattyD803 on Wednesday 24th September 08:28

Is the insurance affected by being an import?

[Origami]

The things that is a bit galling is the cliff edge where a
Slightly older than 2001 or slightly newer than 2017 car with identical emissions is a lot cheaper to tax.

Even for higher value cars it feels unfair

[MattyD803]

Crumpet said:

Is the insurance affected by being an import?

I guess this very specific to the vehicle/person/location etc, and I also have nothing to compare it to....but for the Elgrand with a 'pop top' roof conversion declared, I pay £225 fully comp, with £50 excess and legal cover through Direct Line...so in my example, No I don't believe so. Obviously you'd need to do your due diligence before hand, but its definitely an option.

[Galibier]

GIYess said:

There's just no way I can stomach or afford £400-700 a year tax.

So you can afford the car, and running it in terms of fuel and serving, but not that bit?

And which is it, stomach or afford?

[Huzzah]

It is expensive, but guessing it's why some of these cars are affordable.

[NDNDNDND]

Galibier said:

GIYess said:

There's just no way I can stomach or afford £400-700 a year tax.

So you can afford the car, and running it in terms of fuel and serving, but not that bit?

And which is it, stomach or afford?

I still don't understand why people come back with this response. Yes, road tax/VED/whateveritis can be a very substantial cost of running a car.

I'd quite like an RX-8 as an interesting family car, but tax post 2006 is £760 a year. The car will only really get used for shuttling the kids to school plus the odd extra trip and will only do about 4000 miles per year. At 25mpg (which is what my Dad's old RX-8 managed) at 137.9ppl, that's just over £1000 a year in fuel.

In other words, I'd spend almost as much on tax as I do on putting fuel in the damn thing.

As such, with other more interesting (and older!) cars in the household for fun, I can't justify the tax outlay and we just have a Giulietta MA instead.

[ChocolateFrog]

GIYess said:

No idea why I'm complaining or what good it will do but I'm so fed up.
Had put the hobby on hold for a while when financial pressure of babies new house etc were happening.
Recently got everything settled and not doing big miles for work so thought it would be a good time to look for something a bit interesting. Always loved older 4x4s and wanted to get another.

There's just no way I can stomach or afford £400-700 a year tax. It's completely bonkers!

Now I'm depressed because it's unlikely I'll ever be able to justify that money every year for something interesting.

I agree. The golden age of that sort of thing was 20 years ago. Change between interesting cars every 4-6 months with minimal cost.

I was doing it when I was earning £18k and running plenty of interesting stuff, no I earn a decent amount more than that but don't feel like handing more to the tax man so don't bother.

[Lester H]

This frequently comes up on Shed of the Week when an attractive car with decent performance is scuppered by absurdly high tax which, unlike the purchase cost, returns annually to bite you.

[Crumpet]

MattyD803 said:

I guess this very specific to the vehicle/person/location etc, and I also have nothing to compare it to....but for the Elgrand with a 'pop top' roof conversion declared, I pay £225 fully comp, with £50 excess and legal cover through Direct Line...so in my example, No I don't believe so. Obviously you'd need to do your due diligence before hand, but its definitely an option.

Cheers. I’ve always understood there to be benefits to Jap imports as they don’t use salt on the roads. I might actually take a look at some as I think they even had Discovery 4s with the 5.0 V8s in them.

[ChocolateFrog]

cobra kid said:

Road tax? Has it become a thing again?

That's not funny or insightful anymore, you call it whatever you want I'm pretty sure we'll all work out what you're on about.