Should I chop in my car for a ULEZ compliant one?

A thousand times, yes! This forum needs a good long ripping-a-car-apart thread 😃

Otherwise, personally I wouldn't bother

Nah.

I bought a ULEZ compliant car because I had two sons living in areas with shiny new ULEZ and in regularly work in or around more cities with ULEZ.

But it was triggered by my old car being knackered and needing a lot spending on it - so I was changing anyway.

I’m changing cars anyway too.
don’t need an ulez one (apart from work trips which would be expensed, and one Heathrow trip a year but £25 p/a is no reason to change cars, in fact the increased road tax more than eats that up) but by virtue of most cars being compliant, I will definitely will be.
looking at the wbac and motorway valuation to chop in my current 2013 turbo diesel, the value has gone back up again.
I guess the panic swappers have done so, the media frenzy is over (it’s all about Raac concrete now) and a large majority of car owners have realised it doesn’t really affect them.

@timba +1

Is the leaf no providing enough fault finding and spannering opportunities?

£25 p/a is no reason to change cars,

No it's not. But if a few more cities bring them in it could reduce the value long term then I'd be stuck with a lowe value car trying to buy a higher value one.

Do you ever go to Bristol? More and more zones are going to be initiated I should imagine.

But if a few more cities bring them in it could reduce the value long term then I’d be stuck with a lowe value car trying to buy a higher value one.

Isn't that going to happen with age anyway?

Is the car a diesel? Then possibly yes. Otherwise most petrol cars like my mates venerable Polo are still able to drive into cities with ULEZ. I can’t remember how old his car actually is, but it’s older than ten years, possibly more than fifteen.

Indeed old petrols are still very much compliant - our non-turbo 2012 Ibiza 1.4 16v engine was first used by VW in the early 1990's I believe and is still OK in ULEZ.

Similar thoughts here. My Seat Leon TDI is euro 5. Probably worth about 5k but it's a super economical 60mpg car and I pay zero VED. Don't want to chop in a perfectly good low mileage car. Very rarely drive to London currently, but may have to should my elderly parents get sick in the future. Also trips to France may become problematic with the clean air regulations there.

As you live on the outskirts of Cardiff I'd say no. For the next 4-5 years the worst we'll have is a small zone round the city centre, it'll take a while to expand as far north as the A48. Unless you're going into the zones daily then it's almost always cheaper to stick with what you currently have and just pay the fee as you need to. Add in that the next time they change the emissions limits in existing zones then it'll be a complete banin private diesel cars switching to a Euro 6 car won't make any difference. I'd stick with what you have until you need to change it then go for a petrol or hybrid if an electric car will not suit your usage patterns.

I've thought about it but at a different part of the value curve.

I'd wager Southampton or Portsmouth will be adding a ULEZ at some point in the next 3-5 years.  Portsmouth already has restrictions on commercial vehicles.

Even then so long as I can hit the major routes without being in the zone the consequences will be limited and I'll run our 12 year old mpv until it's not economical to fix. We have the option to use the petrol car (which is compliant) for city trips or the train wherever possible.

The alternative is to burn a load of money on an "upgrade" to a compliant car and still end up with something old enough to chuck the odd financial and mechanical curve ball.

Of course you're talking about a minimal cost to change but you're going from a car that you've put time and money into (iirc) to get right for another car that's not guaranteed to be as good on a bit of "what if" on values.  Also I reckon it will feel like a downgrade.

If it were my money I'd keep the Merc and run it as long as possible until the residual was not even a thing to think about.

I'm not worried about paying the ULEZ, I'm worried about the value of the car.

It is a Euro 5 diesel. I could potentially swap it for something else for no extra cost. Tempted to just advertise it for a high price and see what happens. Then if it sells, I'll get something else.

you’re talking about a minimal cost to change but you’re going from a car that you’ve put time and money into (iirc) to get right for another car that’s not guaranteed to be as good on a bit of “what if” on values. Also I reckon it will feel like a downgrade.

There is that, yes. Looking at Passats, slightly newer than the Merc. But they all seem to have adaptive cruise control which I like and presumably that comes with emergency braking as well. Could save my life one day.

If it were my money I’d keep the Merc and run it as long as possible until the residual was not even a thing to think about.

There is that option, however I do want to change it for an EV eventually when they become cheap enough. But then, that's almost certainly not cost effective.

Outside of London there's only 2 of the 8 clean air cities that charge private Euro 5 vehicles (Bristol and Birmingham) and I don't think this is going to change significantly for say 5 years by which time any Euro 5 diesel will be nearly 15 years old so any further drop in value won't be significant. If you are changing anyway or have to regularly pay a fee I would change to a compliant car otherwise I wouldn't bother.

I’m not worried about paying the ULEZ, I’m worried about the value of the car.

And as I said, by the time such changes roll around depreciation will have done much the same job.

You already paid over the odds for it so selling it at a theoretical loss to buy a lower tier car that will still depreciate (and probably at a higher rate) seems bonkers.

You already have a fairly sizable car to go into the lez zone - unless your towing your caravan into Cardiff city centre I can't see why you'd change it based on a hypothetical future value.

My wife thanks you all for your advice, she says she really appreciates it.

I think you should do it as I enjoy reading your car threads 🙂

I think you are going the wrong way. Instead of looking at ULEZ compliant (future moving goalposts?) look for ULEZ exempt (admittedly they may change their mind on that too).
<p style="text-align: left;">Range Rover Classic or W123 Mercedes should keep us entertained, the shed dragged and may even appreciate in time or make interesting EV conversions.</p>

I wish the CLS could be EV converted...

I wish the CLS could be EV converted…

Any car can be

Could you put the engine from the leaf in the merc?

I wish the CLS could be EV converted…

Any car can be

Any car can be, most of the time I really can’t see the point.
Especially low use classic vehicles.

The commercially available kits are all 'dumb' so they work in classics, there's nothing to interface with. In a modern car you'd have to create a control module that would spoof the engine so all the other modules still think there's a diesel under there. And possibly the transmission.

Doable but hard. And you'd want to build a custom battery pack so that the weight is in the right places and it has cooling and so on. A great challenge but one to think about rather than do.