First car - limited budget, crippled by insurance.

mollypoppy

regarding your car insurance are you adding your parents on as named drivers as this will lower your premium.

Dazrighthere

I have nobody to add as named driver unfortunatley which is why I'm on a budget.

Joe_Horner

funkycoldribena wrote: »

I dont think you can build up ncb on classic policies.

Some you do, some you don't. Even on a "normal" policy, some classics can be stupidly cheap for new drivers. Two examples (which the OP probably doesn't want to drive):

Daf 33 for a 19 y/o female the day she passed her test: £375 TPFT on a "normal" policy.

Daf 33 for a 38 y/o female, first insurance but held licence for a year: £290 fully comp on a "normal" policy


One he might like but he's not having ours:

Daf 66 Coupe, same 38 y/o, held licence 3 years now, £63 fully comp on a classics policy.

At those prices, do you really care about not getting NCD on the last one?

Things like Triumph Dollies, Austin 11 / 1300, Vivas and so on will be around the same prices. You can get a reasonable Dolly in the sort of price range you're looking at if you hunt. If you hunt hard enough you might even get free road tax for a little bit more (probably less than the first year tax)

One caveat is that it really helps with the running costs if you're happy to do (or learn to do) the basic maintenance yourself.

Dazrighthere

I've had a quick look into classic cars and that seems like it could be the way to go if I need to.

Can't seem to find ANY half decent ones anywhere near me.

I was hoping to maybe find a deal for a used car from a dealer that were offering a years free insurance. Just can't seem to find any info on some google searches.

whatmichaelsays

Dazrighthere wrote: »

I've had a quick look into classic cars and that seems like it could be the way to go if I need to.

Can't seem to find ANY half decent ones anywhere near me.

I was hoping to maybe find a deal for a used car from a dealer that were offering a years free insurance. Just can't seem to find any info on some google searches.

On a used car, you're not going to find anything like that. Free insurance is usually bundled in with a finance / HP deal on new cars because the dealer has the margin to do it.

As a new driver (and a relatively young, male one), insurance companies are not going to want to know without a sizeable premium.

Joe_Horner

Dazrighthere wrote: »

I've had a quick look into classic cars and that seems like it could be the way to go if I need to.

Can't seem to find ANY half decent ones anywhere near me.

I was hoping to maybe find a deal for a used car from a dealer that were offering a years free insurance. Just can't seem to find any info on some google searches.

Whereabouts and what's "decent"? I'm guessing my pet fave Dafs don't qualify but their Volvo 340 series descendants aren't bad for daily runabouts and turn up around that price range, as do the small Triumphs as long as you don't want a Sprint.

s_b

decent classics or bangers as the more correct term are now doing daft money because of the low insurance angle for new younger drivers
as for get a sherman tank kind of car how would op afford to fuel the thing and keep it maintained,these things are best kept for middle class has beens whom the govt are taking their milk tokens off but cant sell their 8 bedroom mansions now the sprogs have sprogged:D
Dazrighthere you will just have to buy the best corsa type buzz box you can afford and take the hits on insurance cost wise,even my insurance has gone up over 22% this month and mine started with the ark and no claims bonus of ark years to match

Furrtiv

I was going to add that classic cars are great, but yep, price going up, especially for things like minis. You might be luckier with something a lot less "cool" like a Morris Minor, but again, purchase price for a decent one might be out of your budget. If you're still interested in classics, look around for the owners' club forums of whatever make and model you like, they're usually full of helpful people and often ave classifieds, too.

Bravehearted_2

It's your first car - why rush to finance and debt over it?

Get a cheap one for like a 1/1.5grand. Take the hit on the insurance as this is almost unavoidable.

It's what I did, only abit younger than you.

Joe_Horner

s_b wrote: »

decent classics or bangers as the more correct term are now doing daft money because of the low insurance angle for new younger drivers
as for get a sherman tank kind of car how would op afford to fuel the thing and keep it maintained,these things are best kept for middle class has beens whom the govt are taking their milk tokens off but cant sell their 8 bedroom mansions now the sprogs have sprogged:D
Dazrighthere you will just have to buy the best corsa type buzz box you can afford and take the hits on insurance cost wise,even my insurance has gone up over 22% this month and mine started with the ark and no claims bonus of ark years to match

You say that, but "decent" is subjective. There are still good examples of unloved models out there going for silly money:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1977-AUSTIN-ALLEGRO-1100-DL-BROWN-LOW-MILEAGE-ONLY-2-OWNERS-/270929452883?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item3f14a75f53

1100 Allegro in 70s Beige. Not tax free and I wouldn't trust the 21k miles without seeing it, but 10 months ticket and tax to end of the year. Easy 35 to the gallon and the £1k+ that you'd save on insurance buys a hell of a lot of petrol (without any installment charges as well).

Maintenance is dirt cheap if you want it to be because anyone can work on these with about 4 spanners, a couple of screwdrivers and a hammer. You will NOT find unexpected, and usually intermittent (so expensive to diagnose), electronic problems showing up after you buy because there aren't any electronics except the radio - and that's if it's got one!

One thing I would say about going that route. If you're not really confident about finding your way round cars yourself, take someone who is to look at anything you're considering - that's even more important with classics (or, as sb rightly describes them, bangers) than it is with newer stuff.

It's certainly worth running a quote on that allegro to see how cheap it might be - a likely thousand quid a year saving can go a long way towards other motoring costs!