car buying help for first time buyer please!

sensibly_insane

Hi all,

I am looking for buying a used car for my wife from a car dealer. Maximum budget is upto £6k for a car which is around 3 years old with around 40k miles on the clock The cars which I am interested in, are honda jazz and mazda 2. The criteria are reliability, small size, better looks, better handling on the motorway and low depreciation. As this would be my first purchase of a rather decent car, I need your help about a couple of things, please:

1. What is the best way to get an idea of the value of the car and about the depreciation of the car ? I tried whatcar valuations but these valuations vary a lot from the prices which are listed on autotrader? Reading through some posts on MSE, I read about glass's valuation which cost about £3. Is the valuation worht it? Are there any free alternatives?

2. Where should I look for the cars? At the moment, I am looking at the trade sales on autotrader.

Buying through the traders, I just want to avoid any nasty surprises about the car and want to be covered in case there is some major issue with the car. I am not too sure how realistic is it for me to think so.

Any help will be very highly appreciated,

Best Regards

SI

aqueoushumour01

the glass valuation most people refer to is for the part exchange value. try parkers to get a rough idea. you could try pistonheads for another source to find a car

sensibly_insane

Thanks aqueoushumour01 for your reply. Thats really helpful.

aqueoushumour01

no worries. this is what the parkers page looks like http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/used-prices/Valuation.aspx?deriv=38243&plate=85

another place to try for cars is desperate seller http://www.desperateseller.co.uk/findacar/searchpage.asp and gumtree

sensibly_insane

I really appreciate your help aqueoushumour01.
:T

goldspanners

how long do you intend keeping the car? will the depreciation really matter much when you are done with it? or will you be trading it in every 2 or 3 years?

sensibly_insane

Hi goldspanners, thanks for your reply.We might probably change the car after 2-3 years, as this would be my wife's first car. I am sure once she gets used to driving, she might opt for something bigger. Do you have some other suggestions about the choice of cars? Reliability, good looks, small size and obviously the bedget are really essentials.

goldspanners

sensibly_insane wrote: »

Hi goldspanners, thanks for your reply.We might probably change the car after 2-3 years, as this would be my wife's first car. I am sure once she gets used to driving, she might opt for something bigger. Do you have some other suggestions about the choice of cars? Reliability, good looks, small size and obviously the bedget are really essentials.

i like the look of the mazda, but i rarely go for fiats but what about the fiat 500? this should hold its value pretty well,but it does look a bit too girly,but as this is for your wife it might be right up her street.
also the toyota aygo holds its money very well. i did have a look at the toyota IQ with a friend but the amount of money they want seems insane,not in a sensible way though . but it might retain a fair bit of its value over 3 years.

sensibly_insane

hehe, I will definitely have a look now thanks for your time. Not a very big fan of fiats as I had a fiat puto in the past, and it got heated up very easily every now and then. but i will definitely have a look at toyota. One general complaint about small toyotas ( yaris, aygo etc.) is that these cars wobble a lot on the motorway, I am not sure how true is this.