New vs Used for a first car?

alo6

AdrianHi wrote: »

I drive Hampshire-Glasgow occasionally, if it was a regular trip by myself I would do it this way and get Mum to cover the Portsmouth-Southampton(Eastleight) bit.
http://www.flybe.com/ look up Glasgow to Southampton.
If your prepared to get up early in the morning or fly later at night it's £65.64 each way which is cheaper than driving it when you count the full cost of driving those miles (more than just fuel).

... but we digress..:rotfl:
I don't see why you are tied to the car for another 2.5 years, you can arrange for outstanding finance to be settle on the change to another car, the worst hit is paying out for the car dealers profit margin. Depreciation on a Fiesta is not much different each year in years 1 to 4/5 once you get past the new car initial depreciation hit, which you have buying used.

I go for business, so it could be anything like finding out on the thursday ive to be there for sunday night so its usually in the £110 odd. i flew a few times but its a fear of flying especially with the fly-be tin cans, . 20kg is a pain aswell.

branney

i have owned 3 cars in the last 7 years. i paid £330; £278; £545 for them respectively. i have found that keeping them on the road has cost me £200-500 per year.

so that is £1153 to buy them and £2450 to repair them over 7 years, which equals £515 per year.

compare that to finance payments on a new small car, and £515 would only cover 4 months of payments at most!

Carmony

As a few other responders have pointed out, a reliable second hand car might be your best choice for a ‘first’ car. Chose a reputable dealer if possible, and keep an eye out for dealer and manufacturer approved schemes.

Beyond insurance, another important thing to consider is the overall running costs over the course of the year – road tax, MPG, estimated annual services – to make sure you can ‘afford’ to run the car once you buy it ; )

Good luck!

tomstickland

Go and buy a low insurance group 2nd hand car for around £1500. There are loads. My mother bought a pristine Micra for about that much and it's been a great car.

It's worth looking at the insurance ratings, some models are a lot lower than others.

Mark_Hewitt

lea2012 wrote: »

However if I went down the route of a new car I would try to get one with free insurance,mot etc and would hopefully not be as likely to encounter as many problems with the maintanence etc. But I dont know what offers are available with free insurance etc at the moment. I would also put a deposit down on the car so hopefully the finance may be lower.

Just to point out that new cars are not subject to MOTs! That's only for cars over 3 years old.

Unlike the rest of this thread I went down the other route. Bought my first car at 25 and went for the brand new option, since insurance was going to be £800 I got a Fiesta with free insurance and it saved me a packet. Plus I got exactly the car I wanted with the exact spec / colour etc and I didn't have to worry about if it had a good history or not, as it was brand new, with a 3 year warranty.

Since I didn't know much about cars, buying new saved me the hassle of trying to find a good one.

I've since paid that off and have a different car, but I definitely don't regret buying new, it was the best thing for me at the time. However at that point interest rates were low (I mean properly low, not like at the moment when the bank rate is low but loans are still expensive), and the finance was cheap.

For new the new Fiesta is probably going to be too big for occasional use, it's more like the size of the original Focus! Take a look at the new Ka, looks quite nice. Second hand the outgoing Fiesta is good, I had one for years.

For your first car best to get one as low spec, i.e. cheap, as you can. Then once you've been driving for a few years you'll have a good idea of what you really want when it comes time to trade in.

lea2012

Thanks for the replies, I think considering all you have said that I would be much better buying a used car, particularly as I could pay it off in full.

If I found a suitable car for a decent price I may even be able to buy the car and insurance together for abut £2000 which would be my maximum budget total.

I have been looking around and there seem to be some pretty decent cars for less than a £1000 so if I shop around for my insurance and get a group one car I might not be far off the budget.

I do like the older style fiesta's (the ones just going out) as well as the sciecento (sp?),punto,corsa,lupo etc so will keep my out for any of those on sale soon! Thanks for the advice.