Recommend me a car for £4k please?

[askintstudent]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could recommend me a new car if possible. I used to own a Fiat Punto and it was shocking and cost me a fortune in repair bills.

I actually have £5k but have budgeted £1k for the insurance as I am only 21 and got my licence in 2005.

I am looking for reliability more than anything. I was looking to get a Ford Focus or a car of similar size.

Can anyone recommend another car or is the Ford Focus the best car to go for with my budget?

Thank you.

[epz]

a 4k car can be just as costly to keep going as a banger if you dont know what you are doing, its not enough to buy new and most second hand cars unless they are really nasty will be old enough for someone to have done some damage to it.

frankly you have probable been stung by the fact your previous car was a fiat so probably made of chocolate, i would go for a vw based car like a scoda.

if you are really worried about cost then an old merc could make financial sence. youll get a decent 190e for £800 odds and cause they are so over engineered mechanicaly but lack most of the complex electronics that cost a fortune to fix they are cheap to repair. they also cost buttons on classic insurance and have loads of style, i miss driving mine not least cause my bimmer bills all seem to be for more than i paid for my merc, its not even that much better to drive unless you drop the hammer

[piggeh]

For £4k I got a Skoda Fabia 1.9 TDI Elegance with 40k miles on the clock last year (is an x reg but meh). Very reliable (one £70 this weekend was first thing thats gone wrong), diesel so saves on fuel costs, and because its the elegance it has standard fit immobiliser, alarm, so its only group 5 insurance. The only downside to early reg is that pre PD (pump dusche) engines (which I think were released in 2004) have 10k mile service intervals whereas post-04 (PD) are variable servicing and nearer 20k intervals. Petrol ones would be slightly cheaper, depends on your mileage.

Otherwise I would look at the Focus, Civic (VERY reliable apparently), Leon.

Probably Civic and Focus would be two frontrunners for reliability and inexpensive repairs when anything bad does go wrong.

[ArsenalFC]

Focus is a decent choice, so are toyota corolla, civic, yaris, seat ibiza, leon, skoda. They are all good cars, pick one u like best in terms of specs and looks. I'm already thinking of seat leon or ibiza when i downgrade from my bmw 323ci coupe next summer.

[Parisien]

Toyota 1st, 2nd and 3rd

[movilogo]

Get a Hyundai Accent - you'll get one within warranty period!

or get a Nissan Micra :)

[Tustastic]

Hi there, I don't know much about cars but I'm very happy with my 1L Kia Picanto GS. I got it for 3.7K when it was 1YO with 7K mileage. Had it for 6 mths now and not one thing has gone wrong with it in 4 thousand miles.

[shown73]

Rather depends on what you want it for, runabout, commuting, or fairly high mileage. Most Japanese/Korean small cars are cheap, boring, characterless, and amazingly reliable, but for 4 grand you could even pick up an "s"-type Jag. Just depends on what you want from it, so really, the decision is down to you, it is impossible for anyone to advise you. Check the reliability on somewhere like "Honest John's" website, and go from there.

[askintstudent]

Thanks for your ideas so far guys.

I want a car to use mainly for commuting to work. I am looking at reliability as the most important factor.

So far I have decided on Ford Focus,Honda Civic or Volswagen Golf.

[foreign correspondent]

i bought an ex motability (which means regular services etc) deawoo lanos about eight years ago for about two grand. It was two years old and had done about 30k miles. It has now done 100k and has been totally reliable. Had to replace a ball joint and ABS sensor in that time, but thats about it!
Yes, its not exciting, not dead cool, but it is tidy and has been very cheap and no hassle!
BTW auctions are realyworth looking at - I worked at a prestige car dealership for a while and almost all the part x cars they take in go straight to auction - nowt wrong with em, but not their brand mark, so unsalable on their forecourt.
Apologies for the bad typing - just been to the pub!

[arrowsmith]

Most Japanese/Korean small cars are cheap, boring, characterless, and amazingly reliable,.

Compared to the euro soap boxes most of them seem quite a bit more exciting and full of character to me.