How old dare you go?

easilydistracted

The later Corsa's also have a timing chain rather than timing/ cam belt so it would probably be worth buying one a little newer than mine to save on the work

newby2

bevanuk wrote: »

Hi,
For £1000 she can't afford to be too fussy. Corsa's are a good choice.
I would look for visible signs of aging, mainly rust (back arches underneath plastic trim, top corners of bonnet, where bonnet meets headlights).
Just go for the lowest mileage, maybe anything below 80k?
With buying any car over a 50k mileage I strongly reccomend getting the cam belt changed (£50 - £80) unless they can prove it has already been done, if that snaps then the repairs to the car would be a fortune!

Just reading my local paper and there is a company just launched a new product to protect you against cambelts and timing chains that break .... seems like a brilliant deal only £29.95 for a year and covers you for £2000 of damage!!! Think I'm getting one! website is cambeltcover

anewman

newby2 wrote: »

Just reading my local paper and there is a company just launched a new product to protect you against cambelts and timing chains that break .... seems like a brilliant deal only £29.95 for a year and covers you for £2000 of damage!!! Think I'm getting one! website is cambeltSPAM

Thank you for your

Do I need to keep my car serviced?
Yes. Your vehicle should be serviced in line with the manufacturer’s recommendation. We do not require a full service history on the vehicle but will require proof of your last service, and that your cambelt has been changed as recommended by the vehicle manufacturer, if a claim is made.

In other words you're wasting money on the warranty as changing the cam belt is the best warranty against damage anyway.

hewhoisnotintheknow

we have an F reg citroen ax in our family, everyone has owned it and it just wont go wrong

we also have a d reg 205d much the same

anewman

hewhoisnotintheknow wrote: »

we have an F reg citroen ax in our family, everyone has owned it and it just wont go wrong

we also have a d reg 205d much the same

The French once made decent cars shocker!

:beer:

newby2

I disagree. So what about the repair bills when one snaps before it is due for a change? My friend wasn't finding her invoice very amusing when it happened to her last year ... £1800 out of pocket!

terryya

How old dare I go? It depends how much I have had to drink!:beer:

hewhoisnotintheknow

anewman wrote: »

The French once made decent cars shocker!

:beer:

They are just the old ones, we have plenty of newer ones!

pinkneonmartini

Be brave GO OLD like 15-20 years old!!!!

two words: FIAT PANDA!!!!!

Excellent first car for a girl! Dead easy to maintain, cheap as chips to buy, and also brilliant for worried dads!

For the girls: Cute, little, easy to park (from being so small), easy to modify using only £20 of halfords vouchers lol, and very girl-friendly in terms of "doing work" 12 inch tyres really couldn't be any easier to change, the "novelty" of having to learn how to work a choke lol, fitting extra speakers/cd players, gives you the opportunity to either have a go yourself, or ask for help from any boys you've had your eye on (friends of mine even pretended to have flat batteries just to play damsels in distress lol) etc......

For the dads: 800cc or 1,000cc so insurance/road tax will be uber cheap, very reliable, in no way boy-racer-ish so she won't be out cruising, most have very low mileage for their age as they have had "one lady owner from new" ie. someone elses gran it won't get nicked (who'd steal a 15 yr old panda?), only initial extra cost will be some fluffy dice possibly a set of seat covers and an air freshner, and here's the best bit: TOP SPEED OF 65MPH ONLY ACHIEVABLE DOWNHILL WITH A STRONG TAIL WIND It'll cope fine in town, tootling to college, dual carriageways, and slow-lane motorway driving, but there will definitely be no traffic light races, overtaking or attempts to burn anyone off

I speak from experience, my first car was a K reg Seat Marbella (fiat panda with a Seat badge on) and it was awesome! No rust, no issues, 38k on the clock, but i wouldn't have cared if it was a rust bucket because it was MINE!!!!

My dad showed me how to change the tyres, the oil, we took the carberator to bits and cleaned it all, replaced the petrol and oil filters, moleyslip became my best friend, and the only thing missing was the driver side sun visor, so we popped to our local Fiat dealership, and they'd just had a written off cinquecento brought in and just gave us the set of visors for free. Turns out cinq/siciento both shared major components with the old panda

I remember being gobsmacked when my dad opened the bonnet and showed me the engine, there was hardly anything there and i could see the road! I think the spare tyre took up more room in the engine bay than the actual engine! We spent days doing all the cheap things to it we could, like covering it in decal stickers, cleaning, waxing, getting funky new stuff like tax dics holders, a tool kit (girly tool kit, mostly containing jump leads, tow rope, torch, first aid kit, water and cereal bars) even bought a new gear knob and pedal set in yellow (£9.99 in halfords) to match the go faster stripes lol.

The best thing about buying a car like this as your first car is you learn alot, and you learn it quickly! And i honestly think it's made me a better driver now, and 7 years down the line, my dad knows i wouldn't even have to ring if i got a puncture etc, i've been changing my own tyres and doing minor work on my cars for years. In fact the first thing i do when i get a new car (even if it's brand new) is get the garage to take the tyres off so i can put them back on myself and tighten the wheel nuts by hand so i know i'll be able to get them off

I can still remember the costs:

£800 for the car
£600 to insure 3rd party fire and theft with privilege in my name
£100 for a service + set of tyres + new hub caps
£50 in halfords for mainly girly crap & pedal set/tax disc holder/filters haynes manual

I personally would buy either of the cars below tomorrow:

1993 but with 76K on the clock http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1993-FIAT-PANDA-1000-CLX-IE-WHITE_W0QQitemZ110455762894QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAutomobiles_UK?hash=item19b7ad2fce

1991 but with 46k on the clock http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/200947346525199/sort/priceasc/usedcars/make/fiat/model/panda/price-to/1000/radius/1501/page/1/postcode/sk96hq/quicksearch/true?previous=%2Fsearch%2Fresults%2Fusedcars%2Fpostcode%2Fsk96hq%2Fradius%2F1501%2Fmake%2Ffiat%2Fmodel%2Fpanda%2Fprice-to%2F1000%2Fsort%2Fpriceasc%2Fpage%2F1%2Fquicksearch%2Ftrue&anchor=advert200947346525199&logcode=p (actually i'd pick this one! lol)

I don't know if you're in the same position my dad was but having had panda's himself he knew they had the "get out and leave it" factor, or to put it another way... if i smashed it to bits, i would survive, but the car wouldn't. Thankfully i never smashed it anyway lol.

cyclonebri1

terryya wrote: »

How old dare I go? It depends how much I have had to drink!:beer:

I got ya;);););):rotfl: