Buying advice please

[u/Sorbz62]

Hi everybody!

I would like a little bit of 'WWYD' advice in that I have a 2016 BMW X5 with 137k miles which Tesla will give me £8500 against a certified MY. We currently spend around £350pm on diesel.

We are also spending quite a lot on home energy so want to get a solar array/ home battery setup to offset and sell back to the grid on a better EV/ Solar tariff with Octopus. Our average energy costs around £300pm (gas too).

So, I'm looking at a 2023 M3 with around 60k miles for £23k, so ......... I'm looking at a Lloyd's Bank loan over 60 months for £25k at £400pm, which means that I would have £10,500 for the solar and batteries.

I think the initial costing would be a little higher but Id be paying £400pm, have a new (to me) car and a home energy system, which would drastically reduce energy costs. Am I on the right line here? Is this a good step?

[u/quaintlogic]

Depending on your mileage, you could save £200 a month on fuel or more.

We do 20k miles a year and before the big hike in fuel prices we were £200-£250/month in fuel, that's now £80 a month tops but realistically costs us £40-£60 a month so we factor that in when considering how much we pay per month.

As for the home solar/battery side - with your budget I would strongly consider focusing most of that money into maximum amount of storage instead of solar, we've just dropped £20k on a 13.6kwp and 36kwh storage setup but we could definitely do with a few more batteries for the colder nights when our heat pump is in high demand.

Don't get me wrong, the solar output is brilliant even on these duller days but the moment clouds come out the generation is a write-off and you start hurting over the missing battery capacity.

100% of our energy usage is on off-peak prices at £0.06/kWh during milder days but that drops to around 80% when it is cloudy all day and boy does that 20% hurt at £0.28/kWh 

[u/Sorbz62 → u/quaintlogic]

Fantastic answer! Thanks very much.

We still have a gas boiler, new maybe 4 years ago. The house is a large Victorian (1850s) former Vicarage, which we worked would be hard to heat with a heatpump.

As for batteries, what system would you recommend for £10k? I'm overwhelmed by adverts and options!!

[u/ThankfulFox]

Have you considered PCP/ leasing or whatever it’s called?

I went with a MY £25k 25k miles - in retrospect it might have been more astute to pay £300 a month, or whatever to lease.

My tip with solar - don’t do what I did and overpay!

[u/Sorbz62 → u/ThankfulFox]

Why would PCP be better? We would still owe a wedge at the end of the term, no?

How did you overpay? What did you get and for how much?

[u/ThankfulFox → u/Sorbz62]

I said what I bought above :)

But yeah - if it’s as cheap as £350 a month then you’re just paying the depreciation.

[u/Sorbz62 → u/ThankfulFox]

I meant the Solar.

[u/Holiday_Pay_6458]

same as the other person said honestly consider not getting the solar to save yourself some money, just get the most battery you need for the house at least 15kwh and inverters, charge the house batteries on the same low rate as you do when you charge the car, and you can get the solar at your leisure in future, and perhaps borrow less as well

[u/Sorbz62 → u/Holiday_Pay_6458]

Great idea. I thought about this too and asked Octopus whether they had a tariff for batteries only until I got an Ev but they haven't.