More than half of Britain's cash-strapped motorists say they haven't got the money to pay their next car repair bill, according to a new survey.
In the poll by car care company Warranty Direct, 53% said they'd struggle to pay the average garage bill of £273.
Of the 3,000 owners questioned, 72% said their cars were essential to their everyday lives.
However, those most reliant on their motors were among those least able to pay - with drivers in rural Northern Ireland and the North West of England most likely to say they were car-dependent, and the most likely to report that they didn't have the cash for a repair.
A spokesperson for Warranty Direct, Duncan McClure Fisher, said some motorists were putting their heads in the sand.
"In the short term you might save a bit of cash by not servicing your car, but eventually it is going to need work doing on it and you're only increasing the likelihood that it's going to be a very expensive repair job on a 'mobility-fatal' part," he said.
In January, AutoTrader found that a similar proportion of drivers were worried about paying for repairs - and that one in 10 were even delaying putting their car through its MOT because of money worries.
