2nd Hand Car Purchase - Advice Needed

[bodminman]

Hi there,

 

I want to buy my nephew a 2nd car (My sister is a single parent and skint) as he passed his test just over a year ago and can only get little spells in her car.

 

This is where you kind and gentle souls come in. I have around £800 and want to get him something like a Corsa. ie: something cheap to insusure and not the most expensive to get parts for/get repaired.

 

WOuld you say that a Corsa would be a good choice for cheap and cheerful or would you advise me to be looking at something else?

 

Thanks in antisipation.

[Andrew_C]

Not looked into it, but common wisdom indicates that a Corsa may not be cheap to insure in this case. Lots of kids crash them = £ching! You may do better looking at a larger, less popular, less chav-tastic vehicle.

[bodminman]

Thanks for this.

 

Vectra's have a decent MPG. Would a 19 year old get hammered on one of them or am I best looking at a Micra or something?

[jcollings]

Having just been through this with my 18 year old lad I would say avoid Corsa as a lot of youngsters seem to thrash em and crash em. I think a Vectra would be high too.

 

Best bet is to look for group 1 or 2 cars. A list of group 1 can be found here:

Car Insurance Group 1 | Quotes and UK Insurance Groups

 

People tell me the Ford Ka is quite good too insurance wise.

[rad]

as a guy my first car was a KA, great cars but has a girly appeal, if he is not fussed, id recommend one.

[BTCC_Fan]

I'm 20 now but got my Ford Ka when I was 19. It cost me £1700 a year to insure 3rd party fire and theft with me as main driver and my parents on as named drivers.

 

Had it just over a year now, quite a nice little car - quite responsive at low speeds with just me in it and can get about 39-49mpg out of it.

[bodminman]

I'm 20 now but got my Ford Ka when I was 19. It cost me £1700 a year to insure 3rd party fire and theft with me as main driver and my parents on as named drivers.

 

Had it just over a year now, quite a nice little car - quite responsive at low speeds with just me in it and can get about 39-49mpg out of it.

 

Thanks.

 

He will mainly be using it for his commute to work which is exactly 10miles via very quiet country lanes or 14 miles via the main road route. He currently goes via the country lanes on his push bike which is knackering him out and I don't want him doing this during the winter months.

[BTCC_Fan]

Should cope nicely with that route, as once its up to speed its great, especially since handling ain't too bad either.

[tech_guy]

He's knackered after cycling ten miles there and back again at his age? Jeez. Tell him to stop eating burgers. Seriously though, what about something basic like a Punto? Edited May 29, 2011 by tech_guy

[bodminman]

He's knackered after cycling ten miles there and back again at his age? Jeez. Tell him to stop eating burgers. Seriously though, what about something basic like a Punto?

 

LOL - The poor bugger has alot going on at the moment and I'm hoping getting him a car will help. He's working and studying and and the cycling isn't the easiest route TBH. He's a good lad and doesn't moan about anything!

 

I thought about a Punto but am not sure what the cost of parts etc would be should we need them.

[newpersn]

1.25 mk4/5 fiesta will be nice if u can get a gd spec. I got a 1999 T reg 1.25 LX. Has most of the mod cons (front heated window, air con which works, central locking.

 

I got mine for £300. Insurance should be low.

[mac_shinobi]

Although not cheap on parts with it being a nissan - I've got a nissan almera 1.4 it has taken a lot of abuse ( the same as my honda civic 1.4 ) the nissan has worked out cheaper on insurance, think you can get a nissan micra but obviously depending on age, milage etc will determine the price.

 

Think the best bet would to keep an open mind with regards to manufacturer but limit the engine size between 1 litre to 1.4 at the very most and get quotes for different cars by getting example reg plates from auto trader ( most of the time from photos ) just so you can get an idea on insurance costs. I used confused.com and went through a bunch of different cars just to see which would be the cheaper, once I had established 2 or 3 that were a reasonable price on insurance I then narrowed it down from there with regards to which car(s) I went with as far as going to look at them ( the photos for the most part are deceiving as I found out ) and all the cars Ive ended up with have been nearer to home.

[Guest Guest]

Not looked into it, but common wisdom indicates that a Corsa may not be cheap to insure in this case. Lots of kids crash them = £ching! You may do better looking at a larger, less popular, less chav-tastic vehicle.

 

Agreed you have to look for the least chav cars - insurance group isn't everything. But that considered the corsa is surprisingly cheap to insure.

Have you looked at the black box insurance for him? Basically you get a tracker fitted and certain rules applied to your policy such as "can't drive after 11 at night" and "can only drive 6000miles/year", but iirc if you do need to use it at night you pay £25 for that night.

 

I don't know if it will be the same in his case but for me a vectra is almost as much to insure as my MR2

[cpjitservices]

actually I got a quote the other day (I'm 23 and haven't passed my test yet due to high insurance) I was getting a quote to see how much it is these days and Volvo's came out the cheapest (for me anyway) namely the S40, but then It's Automatic, 1.8L and I Cant see a chav flinging it round a corner or putting a bore exhaust on one.

[mac_shinobi]

actually I got a quote the other day (I'm 23 and haven't passed my test yet due to high insurance) I was getting a quote to see how much it is these days and Volvo's came out the cheapest (for me anyway) namely the S40, but then It's Automatic, 1.8L and I Cant see a chav flinging it round a corner or putting a bore exhaust on one.

 

Personally id never buy an automatic, if the gearbox goes they're ruddy expensive

 

Was the manual version the same ref insurance?

[cpjitservices]

I didnt try the manual version to be honest, it'll be worth a try - I suppose it still should be cheap it's not like you see boy racers in Volvo's............. Might have a look at a quote for the old 240 2.3 Litre lolol

 

PS - the 'S' Plated and below versions of the S40 are really expensive on insurance (for me anyway) but the newer models and the saloon model was way cheaper I think it was a 'V' and an '02' Plate I tried.

[witch]

Peugeot 106s do well - both my sons had one. Or a Renault Clio. they are not boy racer cars and so the insurance is correspondingly lower.

The cheapest insurance we found was Elephant - my son put every one he could think of on it and it came right down. It is the coop who do the tracker thing look at driving skills and insure accordingly

[Guest Guest]

Peugeot 106s do well - both my sons had one. Or a Renault Clio. they are not boy racer cars and so the insurance is correspondingly lower.

The cheapest insurance we found was Elephant - my son put every one he could think of on it and it came right down. It is the coop who do the tracker thing look at driving skills and insure accordingly

 

Well that's the thing, everyone is different depending on who you are and where you live. Both them cars are most definitely considered boy racer cars around here, in fact 5-10 years ago only the Saxo could have been considered more boy racer than those 2. One of my mates had a Clio 1.4 RT around 10 years ago, his insurance was £2500! His next car was a 1.1 106 to try and lower the insurance a bit, iirc it was around £1600. His next car was a Saxo VTR... see the pattern?

 

My recommendation would be to get his details and look at each car for yourself as it really doesn't matter what any of us think as we will all be different, it only matters what the insurance company thinks.

[witch]

Well that's the thing, everyone is different depending on who you are and where you live. Both them cars are most definitely considered boy racer cars around here, in fact 5-10 years ago only the Saxo could have been considered more boy racer than those 2. One of my mates had a Clio 1.4 RT around 10 years ago, his insurance was £2500! His next car was a 1.1 106 to try and lower the insurance a bit, iirc it was around £1600. His next car was a Saxo VTR... see the pattern?

 

My recommendation would be to get his details and look at each car for yourself as it really doesn't matter what any of us think as we will all be different, it only matters what the insurance company thinks.

 

Wow - I didn't realise things varied so much around the country. Here, you don't buy a fiesta or an astra, corsas are a bit dodgy and loads of kids have puntos and polos so the insurance is high.

I think we could say that a Ford Ka is probably fairly low insurance wherever you are, dont you think?

[cpjitservices]

The ford Ka is an awesome little car, I had an insurance quote (Last year before it went up) of 800 quid, fully comp and that my friends is a good quote for me, and I wreckon if our lass had gotten a license even a provisional with her down as named driver it could have come down a bit, and I also hadnt selected Pass plus which takes off %30 of the cost of insurance

 

Also take note people - I have noticed that on my Insurance quotes that fully comp is cheaper, going 3rd party, fire & theft always seems be about 400 quid dearer on any quote.

[mac_shinobi]

Well that's the thing, everyone is different depending on who you are and where you live. Both them cars are most definitely considered boy racer cars around here, in fact 5-10 years ago only the Saxo could have been considered more boy racer than those 2. One of my mates had a Clio 1.4 RT around 10 years ago, his insurance was £2500! His next car was a 1.1 106 to try and lower the insurance a bit, iirc it was around £1600. His next car was a Saxo VTR... see the pattern?

 

My recommendation would be to get his details and look at each car for yourself as it really doesn't matter what any of us think as we will all be different, it only matters what the insurance company thinks.

 

Totally agree with everyone being different - hence in one of my posts above or on the previous page(s) I suggested to keep an open mind ref makes of car aside from obviously staying within a small engine size ( 1 litre to 1.4 ) and getting quotes using something like confused.com / comparethemarket.com and seeing which works out better to allow you to narrow it down to a few cars and then decide from there.

 

As an example we used to live about 5 miles away from where I am now and before moving car insurance was cheaper and because it was the last 2 months the insurance for both of us jumped up for those 2 months and we now pay slightly more on car insurance due to the area which Im gutted about because its not like me or the missus have expensive cars in anyway shape or form

 

I've got a 1999 Nissan Almera 1.4 and the better half has a pug 306 petrol 1997 1.6, Obviously the 1.6 falls in the larger engine category so tax is more.

 

So not like I have got finance on a brand new car or have a sports car with anything larger then a 2 litre engine with a load of emissions

[steveg]

It's definately worth looking for something less popular. When I was younger the Corsa's were cheap to insure, because Fiesta's had previously been very popular with younger drivers. Obviously now because the Corsa was cheap to insure, it became popular with young drivers so the price went up.

 

When I was 19 I got a 2.0 litre Hyunday Coupe which is about a group 11 in insurance I think, this was almost half the price to insure compared with the 1.3 hyundai accent I had previously! I think its just a case of keep running quotes on various cars until you find one that not many young people have crashed yet! Avoid anything with the word turbo in it - even a small diesel turbo engine seems to double the insurace price!

 

Steve

[kevbaz]

mk2 golf or polo 1 or 1.2 ltr, cheap as chips to run parts are very cheap

[Chris_in_notts]

get something over 15 years old and put it on a classic limited mileage policy with someone like HIC

[jamesb]

My first was a Suzuki Swift - an old one, but never had any problems with maintenance or running and it was relatively cheap to insure (right up until someone rear-ended the car and shrank it by six inches, but I can hardly blame the insurers or Suzuki for that).

 

Nice and efficient too, which is getting more important. Small engine size makes them cheap to insure and run.