Best car for maximum £4000?

Ithilien

I'm looking to buy a decent second hand car with a budget of maximum £4000, less would be appreciated.

It needs to have 5 doors, diesel engine and be reliable. Also fairly cheap repairs if needed (so no BMW's etc).

I've been looking at the Mondeo and the Focus, but the Mondeo seems cheaper for the amount of car you get (maybe there are more Mondeo's for sale and it's less wanted?) - something like this (please remove the space in the link - I wasn't allowed to post a link due to spam issues): www. canfieldgarage.co.uk/used-cars/ford-mondeo-2-0tdci-130-zetec-5dr-6-high-cross-lane-east-201150435821010[/url]

Insurance wise I know I'll be paying around £1600-£1800 as I haven't had insurance before in the UK (and before that was until 2008 in Belgium on a company car registered as 2nd driver so I doubt they would take that into account for NCD). I know that's steap but I'm ok with it - I have never had an accident so insurance should go down after a year surely?

Is there another car I should be looking at? I want something not too small (will mainly be doing motorway miles) and sorry but I don't like French cars.



Thanks for your opinion!

pitkin2020

mundanos are cheaper due to supply and demand, the market is flooded with them so prices are lower than cars that haven't been driven by sales rep from every town in the UK.

New diesels, reliable and cheap repairs just don't go together i'm afraid. Diesels are still pretty reliable but when they go wrong it generally won't be cheap. Do you really need a diesel or are you just thinking that you will get better fuel economy hence you'll save money?? If you aren't doing atleast 10-15k a year I would really consider a petrol. With the price of diesel now compared to petrol (around 7-10p more) along with the fact you will pay more for a diesel they aren't always the cheaper long term option.

Totally agree about the french cars lol

Notmyrealname

pitkin2020 wrote: »

With the price of diesel now compared to petrol (around 7-10p more) along with the fact you will pay more for a diesel they aren't always the cheaper long term option.

Rubbish. I recouped the entire cost of my Mondeo over the petrol variant in 60,000 miles even though it cost £1000 more.

mikey72

over 5 years on average then?

brightonman123

see what taxi drivers / police are using - they need to be reliable, and fuel efficient too..

might be worth asking what they do with ex service models..?

forgotmyname

Knock him down a grand and that would be OK.

Low mileage is not always a good thing, Lots of short city work and the car could have more wear and tear than
a car with double the mileage.

Rebob

Just got a kia carens for £3500 with 24k miles. It is a 2.0L diesel. There are a few around. Asked friends who have owned one of any potential problems and they could not think of anything and they are quite popular as taxis so must be reliable and economical.

pitkin2020

Notmyrealname wrote: »

Rubbish. I recouped the entire cost of my Mondeo over the petrol variant in 60,000 miles even though it cost £1000 more.

FAIL, clearly you didn't read my post. If you are only doing low mileage, less than 10k a year lets say there is no real saving to having a diesel due to the higher price of diesel and the higher purchase price so in the long term the diesel isn't a cheaper option.

I find it quite funny that you boost about it taking 60,000 miles to recoup the cost of your diesel mondeo over the petrol version, as already pointed over 5 years (average annual mileage). A lot of people don't keep their cars that long so clearly an average driver doing 12k a year who only keeps their car 3 years wouldn't have recouped any money!!

I am a fan of diesel and have always preffered diesel cars over petrols but with the price of diesel ever increasing you have to be doing the annual mileage to justify the extra cost of fuel, servicing and purchase price. Its not hard to work the figures out and make an informed decision as to which suits you best.

asparagusnextleft

Skoda Octavia?

wba31

Honda Accord. Every day of the week for me

almillar

I don't really consider BMWs to be that expensive to repair or run (obviously we're not talking about taking ANY £4k car to a main dealer!), and they are certainly cheaper to repair than Jap - built cars. Things like the Civic built in the UK might be different.