£5000 to spend on a used car....

BeerBelly

Keep em coming!

Inactive

BeerBelly wrote: »

Apoligies,

Still not sure which cars you mean for that price/age. Am on autotrader now and just tapped in up to £5000 and going from highest to lowest - theres only about 25000 results for me to get through! Some good ones though - been a wally for now doing that in the first palce, was looing at specific models.

I said up to 5000 miles, not £5000 .. that will show the Pre - Reg ones, most are listed with about 10 miles on the clock.

albionrovers

You'll get much more BMW 5-series for 5K than any 3-series. Twice the car too in my opinion, 6-cyl silky smoooth engines.

I got a 2001 520i full leather, everything except SAT NAV with 70K for £4750 in April. Bodywork + wheels mint. My 3rd 520i in a row. Cheap motoring, they'd taken their main hit when I bought them.

Over the moon with it.
Wife has a 3-series....I hate it. Tiny cabin.

kr15snw

I recently had to buy a used car and also had a 5k budget. There are 2 of us but I wanted something with a bit more space and power than my corsa. Ended up with a top of the range 02 astra, love it!

Do you need space? Or would a smaller car (3 door) be big enough for you?

BeerBelly

im open to anything from a hot hatch to 4x4 at the moment, really undecided.

Currently have a 1996 Clio (1.8 16V)

- grown out of it, bit too boy racer!

Got my gfirend and a dog, so ruling out 2 seaters, but everything else is open to me.

AdrianHi

albionrovers wrote: »

You'll get much more BMW 5-series for 5K than any 3-series. Twice the car too in my opinion, 6-cyl silky smoooth engines.

I got a 2001 520i full leather, everything except SAT NAV with 70K for £4750 in April. Bodywork + wheels mint. My 3rd 520i in a row. Cheap motoring, they'd taken their main hit when I bought them.

Over the moon with it.
Wife has a 3-series....I hate it. Tiny cabin.

If you want something a bit special an E39 5 series, ideally as a 528i or 530i is unbeatable if you can cover the higher ongoing running costs over an Astra or whatever. Buyers are not going for the six cylinder petrols so they are available at bargain prices for what they are, pay £2K more for a diesel and you save very little on fuel costs (silly!).

If you want to keep your long term average monthly expense for car use down (a more important budget to make than purchase price IMO) then the likes of a Mazda 3 or Mazda 6 offer a surprisingly BMW like drive for a FWD car and are realiable with reasonable running costs. No trick silky 6 pot engines though.

sarah_elton

Inactive wrote: »

Am I missing something?.. That statement is correct, so why not buy a Japanese car in the first place?;)

You know it makes sense..

No you're not missing something lol. If you get lucky with a Ford or Vauxhall and it doesn't need many repairs it's cheap.

Main thing for me was, Fords and Vauxhalls are cheaper to buy. I got a 52 plate Astra in superb condition with FSH. I couldn't have afforded a similar spec Civic of the same age as it would have been well over budget (I looked as I used to drive mum's Civic and did love it).

EDIT: Just noticed OP's list included a Civic. My mum had one from new. I think it was Y-reg - the first year with the complete redesign and the dash-mounted gearstick. It was a lovely car to drive. Dash-mounted gearstick is the only thing missing from my Astra. It's weird at first but feels completely natural in no time.

otv

Smart Car

people that dont know them dont understand, but

road tax = 35 quid a year
fuel economy = 55mpg
insurance = cheap
service = cheap (mot is 5 quid)

fully modifiable, upto 110bhp - so quicker than you actually think.

im even selling my older 54 plate one, as i have a second smart car now

Idiophreak

Err, given that pretty much the only thing the OP has specified is that they need more than 2 seats, the smart car doesn't seem ideal, immediately...and that's before you take into account the "squashed like a bug" factor...

Inactive

BeerBelly wrote: »

im open to anything from a hot hatch to 4x4 at the moment, really undecided.

Currently have a 1996 Clio (1.8 16V)
.

Well if you cannot narrow the field down, why not go away and think about it, we could perhaps help you then, whatever you buy is going to be better than what you have at present.:rolleyes: