March 2024 tax increases

[tomscott]

Z4M increasing from march 2024 to £735 £40 increase this year. What price will it be before it’s difficult to justify?

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Little bit concerned about insurance renewal this year too. My Mini Clubman JCW was £440 in 2021 £645 in 2022 and I’ve just renewed at £935 and had to drop the mileage 4000 otherwise it was £1030. Thankfully we did quite a lot less in 2023 so should be ok.

It seems like all insurance has gone up 50% - house insurance, both dogs. Car insurance apparently is because new cars are a lot more expensive than they used to be, more complex and harder to repair and with shortages of parts loan cars are being given for longer. This is especially true with electric cars. With like for like hire cars the day rate can be staggering and writes the car off.

The other excuse is cost of living costing more to keep the call centres open etc Also the government has thrown a nice bone with changing electric car deal to 2035. It's all bullshit. With all my insurances increasing essentially it’s an extra months wage to pay for the same thing as last year.

Where does it end.

[deltasierra]

With all the computers and electronics on cars it’s expensive to fix them, bodywork is easy, electronics you need the computer terminal at the main dealer to fix them these days, EVs have the battery instead of the engine so shouldn’t be any more expensive.

[john-e89]

It doesn’t end Tom, nor will it I don’t think. Cars like the ZM are seen as the devils work, it and its ilk will be the scapegoats for increasing taxes year on year as they try to tax us off the road. I’m afraid it’s a case of suck it up sweet cheeks or sell out….your choice. Brutal but that’s how it is I’m afraid.

[Vornwend]

I'm not exactly sure what difference it makes, or whether it would work for you, but I almost always renew insurances with different companies through Quidco. Doing that I've managed to reduce or hold steady both car and house insurance costs for each of the last 3 years. When you take into account cashback this years renewal costs are actually less than last year!

[deltasierra]

I stick to the E85 they are cheap fast and fun, if it gets damaged it’s a write off, insured for just myself and wifey £250.

[buzyg]

I worry that the complex electronics is putting smaller indipendent garages out of business. Then the main stealers can charge what they like. It is not just road tax and insurance. Cost of ownership is being controlled far more by the OEMs now than it was 20 years ago.

[enuff_zed]

I'm not exactly sure what difference it makes, or whether it would work for you, but I almost always renew insurances with different companies through Quidco. Doing that I've managed to reduce or hold steady both car and house insurance costs for each of the last 3 years. When you take into account cashback this years renewal costs are actually less than last year!

I do the same but with TopCashBack.
My E85 2.2i was £162 last year. At renewal it went up to £254.
Through TCB I got it with Aviva for £154, plus a £35 cash-back.

'Cos I'm old.

[tomscott]

Ye its first world problems but it puts a downer on the experience.

Same excuses as always but it does like 4k a year the cost per mile for tax insurance fuel and maintenance is starting to get silly.

The thing is ye this is an M but there are loads or relatively normal cars in that high bracket for lower income homes too, older SUVs family’s with 2-3 kids where an older car is the only option.

It doesn’t just squeeze the top end it screws the lower too.

The other thing is you can see it already people are breaking them because it’s more financially viable which means a rare car is only getting rarer and not in a positive way.

On the insurance side I’ve only just heard of locking it in I didn’t know that was a thing. Tbh as a lot of the big name insurance companies are coming off the comparison sites I spent hours getting quotes and tried a lot of companies. Funniest one was Adrian flux £2500! Then they persistently rang me and said they could do a better deal I was like can you reduce it more than £1600….

I am at a disadvantage, my old mini JCW was stolen in 2021 when it was in a garage getting some paintwork done so my NCB went from 14 years to 3 and it was a 19k payout. Although not in my care the fault was deemed mine and the insurance failed to claim back on the garage insurance. Also paying £60-70 to protect your NCB will only protect to 3 years.

All the fb pages are full of these insurance increases and the average insurance in 2023 increased by 53%.

I saw on the z4 facebook page that a 23 year old got a 3.0 z4 for 4k insurance was £1500 last year and this year had risen over 3k. Just makes no sense and sad because young people won’t get into these fab cars. I was 23 when I bought my first M and wouldn’t still be here if I hadn’t.

It will affect everyone regardless of age and NCB.

[brillomaster]

yeah the period between 2006 and 2017 for interesting cars really sucks. thankfully, 2017 cars are now only £180 a year to tax, go figure? but unfortunately most interesting stuff stopped being made before 2017, now its all low displacement, turbocharged units.

i'm lucky my current porsche boxster S is a 2005 car, otherwise it would also be £700 a year. I'd quite like a Nissan 370Z at some point in the future, but they're all £700 a year to tax. and if i'm going to pay that, i might as well go the whole hog and get an R8.

[PDJ]

What is the cut off date to get it £40 cheaper

I was planning on April for tax

Can you buy in Feb for April (don't think so) car is SORN'd at the moment

[tomscott]

Ye I suppose it depends how you look at it. Although coming down in price cars from 2017> if you spend 40-50k buying one so probably £800-1000 a month with a £180 tax but if it’s worth more than 40k and less than 5 years you pay a 50% premium.

Or suck it up and pay the £735 a year.

The other thing is there is very little I would like to swap the Z too that is 2017>.

Because of low volumes of sales car costs have rocketed too. Who would have thought an m3 would be ever reach £80k>

[pvr]

My 2018 X5M with a 4.8 575 hp engine will be dropping to £180 in April from dazzling heights before since new. So it makes much more sense now for me to use and keep that car as nothing else comes close in costs of ownership.

[tomscott]

But when your paying 100k+ for a car its a drop in the ocean.

Plus the fact that a 2.5 tonne 575hp SUV is £180 to tax just shows how broken the system is.

[pvr]

Yep, that is for sure. My 1993 Golf is more expensive in tax than my Porsche 911.

[RAYK47]

my insurance is due for renewal on a few weeks and jujst got my renewal through. Z4 price increase is almost double