What do you really need?
It's easy to be seduced by a shiny sports car, or feel that as everyone else on the school run has a large SUV or MPV, you've got to have one too. But think about it carefully: what are you going to use the car for? Is most of your motoring around town in stop-start traffic?
Do you regularly travel long distances on the motorway, or never venture outside city limits? Do you need to tackle steep, slippery rural roads, or un-surfaced tracks? Will you want to tow a trailer or caravan? Do you carry many passengers, or often need to transport large, unwieldy objects?
Is your life or lifestyle likely to change in the near future? We all know people who bought a two-seater convertible, and then promptly had a baby or started to refurbish a house…
Remember that new cars are now taxed according to their engine emissions, a measure to dissuade people from buying large, high-consumption and high carbon-output vehicles.
Legislation like this is only likely to get more punitive in the future: besides the upcoming £25-a-day London congestion charge for cars in tax Band G, many local councils are considering higher charges for parking permits and other graded tolls for less eco-friendly vehicles. Do you still want that Range Rover?
Small is sensible...
If you're trading up from an older car, bear in mind that most small superminis and even tiny city cars are perfectly bearable at motorway speeds these days. Most can happily cruise at 70mph-plus quietly and smoothly, and while few people would want to commute round the M25 every day in a Smart Fortwo, if you only need to do the occasional long run out of town, it won't be too horrid or scary an experience.
Most small cars are also more practical - and much better-equipped - than they used to be, many models having fully split-, flat-folding and even sliding and swivelling rear seats to maximize their load-carrying potential.
They're also quite literally bigger - these days, a Polo is larger than the early Golfs, for example, and the current Fiesta is considerably larger and roomier than its predecessors in the 1970s and '80s. And cars haven't just grown lengthwise; they are invariably wider and taller, as well. On that note: make sure you have space to park the new car and check its dimensions. Measure that garage, or the gates to your driveway… plenty of people don't, and regret it.
