new car needed but already in debt, help!

forgotmyname

£3000 for a 2003 car? OK its done 54,000 miles but the cambelt must be due soon.. Its age related as well as mileage.
Short stop start journeys will work it harder.

A C3 wont stand upto that sort of abuse. You will be servicing it every 4 months or so.

It wont do a lot more MPG than the octavia you sold.

I bought a 2004 mondeo estate in 2009 for just over £2000 so that price is mental. And its a chain so no cambelt worries.

I can get 60+ mpg on a run. Obviously it wont do that with so many short journey's but you say you dont do many miles so that wont make a huge dent.

Plan your deliveries so you park in the middle and walk each way to save on the miles.

oliverr

You can't go far wrong with a Golf. A diesel TDI Golf (or, if too expensive a Seat Leon - same car, just with a different badge, both made by VW Group). I put in a Bournemouth post code on Auto Trader and a couple came up, for around £2,500 for each car. Some with 1 owner from new.

With that value from your Clio and a bit of money off I reckon you could get one for just over £2,000. It'll no doubt be very reliable and fairly economical with the diesel engine.

oliverr

Found these in Bournemouth, both very reliable cars. My mum had a Leon 11 years from new and never served her any major problems.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201212164639612/sort/default/usedcars/fuel-type/diesel/model/leon/make/seat/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/onesearchad/new/radius/10/postcode/bh25nw/page/1?logcode=p

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201212214700094/sort/default/usedcars/fuel-type/diesel/model/golf/make/volkswagen/onesearchad/used/onesearchad/nearlynew/onesearchad/new/page/1/postcode/bh25nw/radius/20?logcode=p

TrickyWicky

fridgeracer wrote: »

i part exchanged skoda for 500 and paid 715 for clio on credit card.

ive found a citroen C3

Although I do rate Citroen better than Renault, you're still going from one French company to another. The french aren't the best at building quality cars. Sure they can make them but I wouldn't trust them as much as a VW, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Volvo etc.

If you want small I'd suggest looking at Nissan to be honest as a lot of th reliable manufacturers don't do small cars but Nissan do.

fridgeracer

thanks for all the help and advice everyone.

i did check yet again before considering the c3, including the cars linked here but although they are more reliable and slightly cheaper they are a much higher insurance group and the big hitter is the tax.

i managed to bring the dealer down to 2900 from 3250 and also taking the dead clio for 400 instead of 200 scrap rate, i got it for 2500. of course i know i could have gotten one cheaper elsewhere, but that's the problem - i cant leave my area and ditch my current job for anything on any day, i needed to to a deal local and being ripped off so many times in the past i wanted to ensure myself that if whatever i did get locally with a warranty did end up having problems - i could spend 5 mins driving it back there, they sort it same day and i dont have to !!!! about with long distance driving and stress with worrying about work.

having a wake up call about how many parcels i have to deliver to make the bare minimum wage needed, i decided to get the c3 since im now comitting myself to finding a non courier job that does not involve driving the car around all day. doing so, will save the C3 and it should last a lot longer. as for cambelt, checked the booklet and with citroen and the 1.4 HDI diesel engines do not need it done until 100K miles under severe conditions, and 120K miles under normal conditions.

in the meantime i have no idea what im going to do, anything really, but in the long term i want to try get into HGV driving, particularly the flatbeds with containers since ive heard countless times those jobs pay a lot more money.

forgotmyname

Yes 100,000 miles or 8 years... Its overdue a belt change.

Seriously the C3 wont last longer. It will be in the scrapyard sooner than you think.

Spend less on the car and more on looking after it. Why would you want to put £3000 into a car and skimp on a belt that could probably be done for less than £100 ???

Thats not money saving. Thats gambling.

HGV jobs that pay good money are thin on the ground these days. Usually its a lot of money because its horrible hours or extended time away from home.

KTF

forgotmyname wrote: »

Yes 100,000 miles or 8 years... Its overdue a belt change.

Should have got the dealer to change the belt as part of the deal.

Same as the VW 1.9 TDI unit that needs one at 60k, you see loads for sale with 58 or 59k as a result so always worth getting the dealer to do it as part of the deal.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Container HGV pay is not good, they make it up to a barely liveable wage by working up to 75 hours a week whilst eating and sleeping in the vehicle during the week to keep costs down.

It like many transport jobs is however very easy work and that suits those who do those hours.

In HGV world as in other industries muck and hard graft equals high pay, but the best pay is in specialist skilled work, car transporters (very hard work) and some tanker operations.

I'm afraid i disagree entirely with getting yourself in further debt, if you must run a car on the cheap then older simpler vehicles (preferably Korean or Japanese but some others) are the order of the day for cost saving.

The job you presently have would be OK for a part time hobby though won;t do any car any good, you'd be better of doing a McD job and walking, sorry but thats the truth of it.

arcon5

You can pickup a mondeo diesel again about 6-7 years old for about £1500. You'd probably acheive 38-42mpg region with you kind of driving depending on your style - but you certainly won't get anywhere near 53 quoted and most certainly won't reduce your fuel bill to £65pm.

I think you are over stretching yourself tbh. Especially being self employed you need to factor in money to be put to one side for holidays etc. Based on the car you mention you would be better off buying a banger for a few hundred quid with 12 months MOT or something similar and replacing as you go.

Strider590

oliverr wrote: »

You can't go far wrong with a Golf.

Maybe back in 1980........

The Golf doesn't deserve the reputation it still has, VW haven't made a reliable Golf for over 20 years. You only need visit the owners forums to see that.