2nd hand car for £2000

Tremour-88

I'm looking to get another car around March time with a max budget of £2000 my ideal car would be a Ford Focus 1.6 but theres so many with huge price differences I'd like to know what kind of decent age / milleage I could expect to get for £2k?

My current car is a 2000 focus 1.8 which is falling apart and have had nothing but issues with it from day 1 (when I brought it the front drivers suppension was snapped) so I'll probably scrap that to a guy I know who'll give me £200 for it, this time i'm taking my mums OH with me since he knows abit about cars

Aswell as a Focus does anyone know any other good hatchbacks (1.6 - 1.8) that would be cheap, reliable and not cost a fortune to repair and maintain?

waynedance

If you mean the suspension spring then this Is common on many cars I know as I work at a garage.

Is your current car high mileage? what is wrong with it? can you not spend some on it to make it good?

Tremour-88

my current car has a huge list of problems i'll list em:
1: Heated front windscreen only heats left side
2: Air direction changer is stuck on windscreen only
3: fan blower motor has bits stuck inside it and makes a horrid noise
4: Rear suppension collasped
5: Steering rack damaged
6: slow puncher in 2 tyres, other 2 tyres are at about 1.8mm and will need to be replaced
7: Central locking only unlocks the 2 front doors
8: The central locking deadlock is perminantly ON with the drivers door so once its locked you CAN'T unlock the door from the inside of the car
9: Heavily rusted rear wheel arch, back & front door
10: Handbrake cable is about to die, took it to garage twice for adjustment and they say it really needs replacing

My current car will cost over £500 to have repaired and its done 130k miles, I would rather buy a newer, more modern car. I brought my current car for £900 and over the past 2 years have spent over £1k keeping it in roadworthy condition and a 1.8litre engine is costing me £225 a year roadtax, 30-35MPG & £900 per year car-insurance.

I've checked the details for a 2003 1.6litre focus and the MPG is 40-47, car tax £165 per year and car insurance £720 so it will save me plenty of money

Notmyrealname

1) Probably just the fuse.
2) Sounds like something has broken
3) Related to 2
4) Not expensive - new springs and shocks at the worst.
5) Shouldn't kerb it then. Still not massively expensive.
6) Normal running costs - £10 a repair.
7) Again possibly a fuse
8) Disable it - plenty of how tos on the interwibble.
9) Doors are cheap from a scrappy. Use Kurust on the arch.
10) Garage charged me £30 inc cable for my Mondeo.

£2000 gets you a car thats going to need repairs in the immediate future. The £1000 in repairs you've had done is £1000 you're not going to need to fork out again for a good few years. How does spending £2000 to save £120 on tax/insurance a year and MAYBE 10-20% of your fuel bill over the time you'll own the newer car save you plenty of money? If you're doing 30k a year and you get 10MPG more it'll take a year to recoup the money. Doing average mileage of 12k a year it'll take FOUR YEARS to recoup the money and that is assuming that in those four years there are no repairs other than normal running costs such as tyres.

By all means get the new car but don't kid yourself that you'll be saving money doing it.

I have a similar dilemma and I'd love a new car. Currently I have a 7 year old Mondeo thats on 160k and long overdue the DMF/Clutch, injectors and turbo failing so at any point any one or all of them could go and land me with big bills. At £650-£800 for each of those items when they do pack up, it is still cheaper to do them than replace the car even if all three need doing in the same year as they then will last another 150,000 miles and probably outlive the motor. What I replace the Mondeo with could have the same issues anyway within a few years of getting it - hence the dilemma.

The point I'm clumsily making is that its pretty much always cheaper to repair than replace a car even though you won't necessarily get the cost of the repairs back if you sell it.

Tremour-88

My car now as had a horrid life and never been looked after, it also needs a cam belt change as its done 130k and there isn't one in its service history which is from 0 - 61k miles, I've spent over £1k on it so far in repairs and don't want to spend another £1k because more and more problems keep coming up, and I need 2 new replacement tyres & 2 tyres repaired how is this £10? brand new tyres are around £60 each and I will not run on budget ones, done that before and lost control in the rain and nearly crashed.

I was quoted £240 for complete new rear suppension so not cheap, I would rather invest in another car even if it only gives me 1 year problem free I do around 14k miles per year so the fuel saving will be big for me, lower tax is also nice & as a young driver (23) the insurance savings will also help. I've seen a few cars in my area which are Focus 1.6 Ghia models, 02 - 04 reg with 70k - 90k miles for £1,695 I think thats a good investment, either way I'm getting a new car I just wanted advice on how much I could get for my money

Also before I got my current car I had a 1997 model Escort Ghia, instead of replacing it I poured money into it for repairs to keep it going, it lasted an extra year at a cost of over £1.5k (Gearbox, Clutch, Engine, Tyres, Wheel, Suppension, Wing mirrors, Battery, replacement door since 1 siezed up and wouldn't open, new central locking module) and having to disable pretty much every eletrical item in the car so very inconvenient, I don't want to repeat that experience

Strider590

Tremour-88 wrote: »

I'm looking to get another car around March time with a max budget of £2000 my ideal car would be a Ford Focus 1.6 but theres so many with huge price differences I'd like to know what kind of decent age / milleage I could expect to get for £2k?

My current car is a 2000 focus 1.8 which is falling apart and have had nothing but issues with it from day 1 (when I brought it the front drivers suppension was snapped) so I'll probably scrap that to a guy I know who'll give me £200 for it, this time i'm taking my mums OH with me since he knows abit about cars

Aswell as a Focus does anyone know any other good hatchbacks (1.6 - 1.8) that would be cheap, reliable and not cost a fortune to repair and maintain?

What's wrong with this picture??

"My Ford Focus was crap from day one"
"My ideal car would be another Ford Focus"

Genius :rotfl:


Would I be right in saying that your family have always had Ford's?

Tremour-88

Nope, not always I've always been given my previous cars from family members, Ive used a Escort, Laguna and Focus so far.

I love the Ford Focus, mine was good for about 1 month then all kind of problems came (a dodgy garage sold it to me just as they were closing down), they are good cars I just happened to get a very bad one of the bunch and was never looked after or serviced properly, they are a good car though and the main reason I want one or a mondeo is that there cheaper to maintain than rival hatchbacks and theres so many on the market you can get a decent price.

avantra

It sound like you really fed up with her, well sometime you just want to sit in something a bit tidy, I know many will look at this from purely a financial angle but when you buy any European made car for £900 it's just pot luck, you might get a good one but in most cases your fault list will go on and on, I can understand this as I was in the same situ with my Rover 45.

If I had 2k to spend today I would look for a 2005-2006 Korean vehicle with reasonable mileage 20 to 80 k) up to two owners with a good service history.

Why?

The Kia's Chevrolet's and Hyundai of the that era are cheap but well put together, don't rust easily bar some cheap paint and tough plastics if you can give a hoot about such stuff.


I would go for a Chevrolet Lacetti aka 'reasonable car', these cars took a lot of beating in Top Gear's 'star in a reasonable car'.


I don't know many people who owns them but the one I do know say they do the job without a fuss.

AlexisV

VW Golf / Seat Leon / Skoda Octavia / Audi A3

Generally the Golf Mk IV based range is best alternative to the ubiquitous Focus in your price bracket.

CrazyRatLady_2

Car tax wise - not sure how a 1.6 is only going to cost you £165pa. I've got a 1.6 Golf and it costs me something like £215pa...

Tremour-88

CrazyRatLady wrote: »

Car tax wise - not sure how a 1.6 is only going to cost you £165pa. I've got a 1.6 Golf and it costs me something like £215pa...

It depends on the cars age, my current 1.8 focus costs me £225 a year, the car tax for a 1.6 Focus is £165 (2002+) - £185 (1999 - 2002)