How long before my Euro 5 compliant petrol car becomes an issue?

I'm a satisfied owner of a 2010 Euro 5 compliant petrol Audi A5. It's been fully serviced from new, still runs completely fine and comfortably meets all my driving needs. I commute into the London ULEZ zone, but my car is compliant so that's fine.

For my next car I want to go electric, as it seems daft to buy into another petrol or diesel car now, but prices are still very high and frankly none of them appeal to me as a suitable replacement for my A5 coupe for a price I could pay, so I'd rather wait a few years for prices to fall and some more interesting models to come along.

However, I have a couple of more expensive maintenance jobs coming over the horrizon, e.g. the clutch probably needs doing soon. So my question is how long is my Euro 5 petrol engine likely to stay compliant with ULEZ and other similar legislation? In the past I would have assumed that any changes would be signalled years in advance, but the zone expansion happened very quickly so I'm not so sure now.

Realistically, what's the quickest that things might change and make my current car financially unworkable? Just trying to work out how much time I'm buying if I spend on my current car now as I'd hate to drop a couple of grand on it, only to find out I have to replace it a few months later.

Asked on 9 November 2023 by Ian Dudley

Answered by David Ross
Unfortunately there are many other owners of Euro 5 compliant cars who are in a similar situation. Euro 5 compliance came into effect in January 2011, with Euro 6 taking over in September 2015, so Euro 5 cars are now up to 12 years old, so it is inevitable that at some point the ULEZ standard will be moved up to Euro 6. When this happens is largely guesswork - the original zone was introduced in 2019, with the inner expansion in 2021 and the outer expansion this year, so it has progressed relatively quickly. It is worth bearing in mind that Euro 7 is due to come into effect in July 2025, so it is possible that this will be used as a marker for a change in ULEZ compliance.
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