Update. Just finished work and reading through all responses general consensus has changed my mindset.

Current car is a ford fiesta. Which most garages by me have all said they don’t do work on. Unless I take it to ford directly but the cost of that might end up more than the value. I paid 8k for it when I got it second hand. So my resilience to pay 2k on repairs.

I will have a look at dash replacement though. Given the way the heading is I figured that I wouldn’t be able to spot one in.

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I’m looking to get a new(ish) car and am wanting some real experience to give an insight into it.

I currently have a car that’s from 2012. About 180k on clock. Ac failing. No built in dash map etc.

I’m looking at upgrading to a 2021/22 era hatchback.

I have almost 100K in a HISA. And enough money in my day to day to be able to buy a car in the 20k range.

However as I’m still not on the real estate market (yay still struggling to get out of rental)

Would a finance option 1. Affect preapproval status or limit lending for property. 2. Be able to pay it off obviously terms dependant. 3. A benefit I see is being able to trade in my car so no need to worry about roadworthy etc.

Or buy outright. Attempt to sell my current car privately and get more for it. But risk an expensive roadworthy cert to be able too

As from what I’m seeing car costs are more in the 30k range for the style I’m chasing.

Toyota chr/yaris cross style vehicles.