who has a second car?

[Androo]

I had a turbo converted Hyundai Coupe as a second car, but although was fun, wasnt as fun as the 350z. With the prices falling so much now, it makes sense to just use as a DD for me..... so down to just the one now.

[FlowerM]

I am very lucky, my 350Z Roadster (2006) is my 2nd car as my 1st car is a GTR (2009)

When the sun shines I use the Z.

When the wearther's bad, or I am doing a long trip, I use the GTR.

Mike Flower (SkyMike)

[Goldcrest Four]

I considered keeping my old car for use in the week and driving the zed just at the weekends. My main reason was that I do 500miles a week, and my old car was doing 60mpg, tyres cost 25quid each and it cost me hardly anything to service myself.

 

But where the idea fell down for me was the insurance. I got loads of quotes and even though im nearly 40, and have 18 years ncb, the cost of insuring the 2nd car threw the whole idea in the bin. I would have though the insurance company would have welcomed the idea of me driving a cheap 2nd car rather than the zed in the week, as surely that would drastically reduce the risk of me having an accident or making a claim. But, instead they wanted something like 550quid on top of the 800quid the zed is costing just to insure the old banger. I was execting the zed premium to be reduced due to lack of risk, and the 2nd car costing a lot less.

 

So I sold the old banger now use the zed full time every day as my main car.

 

If you are only driving at the weekends anyway, then i wouldnt think having a second car would be worth it. You can fit load of stuff in the zed, incl golf clubs!

 

 

What??? I insure my Zed, a Discovery and a Golf with LV= for a little over £500 pa net. (Zed is £274 of that, excess £150, 8000miles pa). I live in rural Worcestershire, clean license. 75%NCB protected.

[rabbitstew]

I considered keeping my old car for use in the week and driving the zed just at the weekends. My main reason was that I do 500miles a week, and my old car was doing 60mpg, tyres cost 25quid each and it cost me hardly anything to service myself.

 

But where the idea fell down for me was the insurance. I got loads of quotes and even though im nearly 40, and have 18 years ncb, the cost of insuring the 2nd car threw the whole idea in the bin. I would have though the insurance company would have welcomed the idea of me driving a cheap 2nd car rather than the zed in the week, as surely that would drastically reduce the risk of me having an accident or making a claim. But, instead they wanted something like 550quid on top of the 800quid the zed is costing just to insure the old banger. I was execting the zed premium to be reduced due to lack of risk, and the 2nd car costing a lot less.

 

So I sold the old banger now use the zed full time every day as my main car.

 

If you are only driving at the weekends anyway, then i wouldnt think having a second car would be worth it. You can fit load of stuff in the zed, incl golf clubs!

 

 

What??? I insure my Zed, a Discovery and a Golf with LV= for a little over £500 pa net. (Zed is £274 of that, excess £150, 8000miles pa). I live in rural Worcestershire, clean license. 75%NCB protected.

 

Whose that with?

[AK350Z]

 

 

What??? I insure my Zed, a Discovery and a Golf with LV= for a little over £500 pa net. (Zed is £274 of that, excess £150, 8000miles pa). I live in rural Worcestershire, clean license. 75%NCB protected.

 

Whose that with?

 

Liverpool Victoria at a guess.

[Stroudy]

Sounds like LV could be better than Admiral Multicar then..

[rabbitstew]

Sounds like LV could be better than Admiral Multicar then..

 

Possibly, I will give them a try. Ive just got a quote just now from Admiral Multicar to see if it had changed since I checked a couple of months ago.

 

You can still only use your NCB on 1 vehicle, so with me putting my 18 years ncb on my 350z its coming back as 570quid to insure that. Then with my old golf tdi as a 2nd car, worth only about 1800quid, its quoting me as 500quid extra on top to include that. So, it is over 1000quid to insure both vehicles. Seems ridiculous that they are quoting me the same to insure a banger of an old diesel as they are the 350z. Out of interest, if I then add the missus`s car (which she is paying 500quid to insure atm), then Admiral also add another £500 to the policy. So £1500 to insure 3 cars. All in all, I can get cheaper prices by insuring them all separately on confused.com, so it seems admiral are offering no discount for insuring all the cars with them compared to other companies.

 

EDIT: Couldnt find LV`s multicar policy on their website, so got a quote for the 350z on its own and they come back with a premium of £885 for the year, with a £650 excess!!! Nice!

[Stroudy]

Hmm. Think we pay about £900 for the Zed and a 2003 Pug 307 HDi D-Turbo, both with limited mileage policies, so i guess thats not too bad as we're both a bit either side of 30 between us with a good few years NCB.

 

Will def get a quote from LV and a few others when its time to renew..

[SnailHerder]

Sounds like LV could be better than Admiral Multicar then..

 

Possibly, I will give them a try. Ive just got a quote just now from Admiral Multicar to see if it had changed since I checked a couple of months ago.

 

You can still only use your NCB on 1 vehicle, so with me putting my 18 years ncb on my 350z its coming back as 570quid to insure that. Then with my old golf tdi as a 2nd car, worth only about 1800quid, its quoting me as 500quid extra on top to include that. So, it is over 1000quid to insure both vehicles. Seems ridiculous that they are quoting me the same to insure a banger of an old diesel as they are the 350z. Out of interest, if I then add the missus`s car (which she is paying 500quid to insure atm), then Admiral also add another £500 to the policy. So £1500 to insure 3 cars. All in all, I can get cheaper prices by insuring them all separately on confused.com, so it seems admiral are offering no discount for insuring all the cars with them compared to other companies.

 

EDIT: Couldnt find LV`s multicar policy on their website, so got a quote for the 350z on its own and they come back with a premium of £885 for the year, with a £650 excess!!! Nice!

 

I insured with Admiral Multicar about 5 weeks ago and was told I can use my NCB on both my cars. That's odd that Admiral told you you can only use your NCB on one car, unless their policy has changed in the last few weeks

 

I was with Swiftcover before, they also offered me usage of my NCB on both cars.

[rabbitstew]

 

I insured with Admiral Multicar about 5 weeks ago and was told I can use my NCB on both my cars. That's odd that Admiral told you you can only use your NCB on one car, unless their policy has changed in the last few weeks

 

I was with Swiftcover before, they also offered me usage of my NCB on both cars.

 

I will check with them on the phone. Using their online quotation form, it specifically says the NCB is per car. But, out of interest, if I put my 18 years NCB down on the golf as well as on the 350z, it actually keeps the 350z at 570quid and knocks 34% off the golfs`s quote, bringing it down to £331 which is more than the 250quid a year I pay for it with Adrian Flux.

 

It will be interesting if an insurance company lets you use your NCB on both cars. All the ones ive ever spoken to havent let me, which is why ive ended up with 3 separate insurance policies, with 3 separate lots of NCB! If companies now do this, it would make life so much easier!

[SnailHerder]

 

I insured with Admiral Multicar about 5 weeks ago and was told I can use my NCB on both my cars. That's odd that Admiral told you you can only use your NCB on one car, unless their policy has changed in the last few weeks

 

I was with Swiftcover before, they also offered me usage of my NCB on both cars.

 

I will check with them on the phone. Using their online quotation form, it specifically says the NCB is per car. But, out of interest, if I put my 18 years NCB down on the golf as well as on the 350z, it actually keeps the 350z at 570quid and knocks 34% off the golfs`s quote, bringing it down to £331 which is more than the 250quid a year I pay for it with Adrian Flux.

 

It will be interesting if an insurance company lets you use your NCB on both cars. All the ones ive ever spoken to havent let me, which is why ive ended up with 3 separate insurance policies, with 3 separate lots of NCB! If companies now do this, it would make life so much easier!

 

Ah yes, they do say that on their website, but I'm a cheeky bugger so I phoned up and asked them. The nice lady had a quick word with her manager and they told me that wouldn't be a problem!

 

Similar with Swiftcover, they don't advertise that they can do that but when I called them up and asked they said they would.

[rabbitstew]

 

Ah yes, they do say that on their website, but I'm a cheeky bugger so I phoned up and asked them. The nice lady had a quick word with her manager and they told me that wouldn't be a problem!

 

Similar with Swiftcover, they don't advertise that they can do that but when I called them up and asked they said they would.

[Demolition49]

Anybody thought of using a bike for commuter in the week, generally you still keep the fun bit the Z gives you plus you save on fuel, tax and insurance? Biking is in my blood now, i think its better than a shed any day :-)

[rabbitstew]

Anybody thought of using a bike for commuter in the week, generally you still keep the fun bit the Z gives you plus you save on fuel, tax and insurance? Biking is in my blood now, i think its better than a shed any day :-)

 

Yep, I used to do 35,000 miles a year commuting into work on motorbikes. Ended up ruining 2 bikes with all the miles. In the winter your bike would get covered in salt and dirt and you`d have to wash it daily. Id get through a back tyre every 4 weeks and a front every 6 weeks. If it rained, id have a waterproof all-in-one, but you`d still get soaked. In winter, id get to work and not be able to feel my fingers for about an hour due to the cold.

 

Not to mention, having to get changed into your leathers at both ends, having car drivers cut you up and having to be mega alert all the time. Even then I still got knocked off my bike twice by other car drivers. The bikes I used tended to have a 120mile range on the tank, so id have to fill it up every day which added to the commuting time.

 

For me it ruined what used to be a fun weekend activity as after riding the bike all week the last thing I wanted to do was to go out for a ride at the weekend. I even tried to get around this by having 2 motorbikes. One sports-tourer with a larger fuel tank and longer wearing tyres for the daily commute and a sports bike for the weekend. But even that didnt really work for me.

 

In the end I bought a cheap old Peugeot 106 Diesel for 800quid on which tyres lasted 40,000miles rather than 2000 miles and returned 55mpg. Sure I got stuck in traffic, but it was much more relaxing and cheaper to run! Overall, by getting into work early and leaving late, and factoring in fueling, getting changed, my commuting time was about the same.

 

Still, at one point I was using a brand new Ducati 748SPS with marchini magnesium race wheels, termini race cans and a superchip for my daily commute which certainly got you to work with a smile. I even had strap on knee sliders in case I wanted to pop out in my 3 piece suit at lunchtimes! Ah... memories!

[stanski]

my old second car really is very old 1973 in fact!!

To echo a few others points its down to circumstances - for me I used the Zed daily but it was going to bankrupt me but thats due to the 700 miles weekly commute. People mentioned I should get another car for that and save the Zed for weekends but not for me as its a lot of money just sat on a drive doing nothing? However family plans meant I had to sell it in the end (no regrets really)

It was great enjoying the Zed daily but at the same time those service intervals crept up every 3 months for me, then tyres but it was petrol costs that finally put the last nail in the zed coffin.

 

If you can afford to run one daily and you dont work in a job where it might get damaged then use it. But those trips to the tip etc would warrant a second cheap car (or van)

[webbtay]

we have on 04 clio which is used for trips to b&q, camping trips etc. and the zed is used for more driving-based stuff like weekends away or weekend day trips out of london. both cars are only used at weekends but if you need a practical car for lugging stuff, the zed ain't it. i wouldnt take it anywhere near a b&q carpark!

[geoff-r]

I have an Audi A3 for commuting, it's perfect only downside is it means I can get into the office in all weather due to it being a Quattro. Ideally though I'd only have the one car because I often feel I don't have the time to drive my Nissan which is a crime.

[redleathersbest]

Hi guys I joined the site a while ago but this will be my first post. I have an 06 azure gt which is used by myself or the wife most days,we also have an older leon cupra which is great when we need something nippy but that still has 4 seats and doors so can accomodate the mother in law and is handy for hauling stuff to the tip,and have now just bought an 08 c4 Loeb coupe that will be driven by whoever is not in the zed.

We are both a bit older than most of you guys so the combined insurance for all three cars on fully comp. with protected no claims comes in at a tad under £700 with the zed costing £270 of that through e sure.

[SteveM]

Anybody thought of using a bike for commuter in the week, generally you still keep the fun bit the Z gives you plus you save on fuel, tax and insurance? Biking is in my blood now, i think its better than a shed any day :-)

 

Yep i use my bike (ZX12r) to run back and forth to work and keep the Roadster for sunny evenings and weekends. i have a 2001 SAAB aero 5 door that i use to lug stuff to the dump or go fishing in and we have a SEAT Leon TDI 150 for my wife to use as a daily driver to her work and back (about 50 mile a day commute)

 

Use Admiral Multi car for the 3 cars and i have my own bike policy. all 4 vehicles are fully comp insured for under a grand (on the down side we do have to pay nearly £900 a year in road tax for all of them though )

[slimjim]

Why have a shed for moving crap around when you can just the Wife's car?

God I hope she doesn't read that!!!

 

If you have ACCESS to another car, I don't see the need for a shed.

But if you don't you are best off to go for something like an estate so you have LOADS of room for moving stuff.

Something totally the opposite to the Zed.

[SteveM]

well for us the Z was an extravagant toy to buy and we tend to use it as such.

 

i go fishing for the weekend a lot of times and therefore take a car out of the equasion. some of the tracks i go down to get to the lakes are a bit rough and ready hence the 10 / 11 year old car that i dont really worry about.

 

the wife goes rock climbing with friends hence the need for a decent sized hatchback as she needs to take a fair amount of gear when she goes and we tend to both go and do our thing on the same weekends so we cant share a car.

 

if i get the train to work it takes me nearly an hour where on the bike it takes me 25 mins... in the car the same trip would take nearly an hour and a half!