buying a second hand car-help please!

emmysmum

Hi, I need to replace my 04 plate punto with something larger. I've had it for 7 years, and its been great, but with baba number 2 arriving spin, a 3 door car with a little boot isn't going to work out :-(
So, I'm looking for a fairly roomy family sized car, with a large bout that can easily accommodate a double buggy. Something quite reliable, with relatively low insurance and road tax (realise um not looking for much!!)
I've got £7k max to spend, and was thinking of buying outright rather than getting a lease. maybe 3-4 years years old? Have no idea really about If I should be discounting b cars that have done over a certain number of miles?
Would appreciate any advice! Thanks

forgotmyname

You want low tax but willing to spend £7000?

Yes dont buy cars over 100,000 miles. The fewer people that want then the cheaper they are for me to buy.

My car was 5 years old when i bought it yet paid just over £2000.
I buy with 120 - 130,000 miles usually.
Ive done more miles in this car than i would normally do and its hit 170,000 now but still going strong.

So why not buy a Mondeo estate.. £2000 will get a nice last of the MK3's OK it may cost £100 more a year to tax than something costing £7000 but £5000 buys a LOT of tax.

Netwizard

forgotmyname wrote: »

You want low tax but willing to spend £7000?

Yes dont buy cars over 100,000 miles. The fewer people that want then the cheaper they are for me to buy.

My car was 5 years old when i bought it yet paid just over £2000.
I buy with 120 - 130,000 miles usually.
Ive done more miles in this car than i would normally do and its hit 170,000 now but still going strong.

So why not buy a Mondeo estate.. £2000 will get a nice last of the MK3's OK it may cost £100 more a year to tax than something costing £7000 but £5000 buys a LOT of tax.

You posted exactly what I was going to put, pretty much

Spending £7,000 to save £200 in road tax every year doesn't make any financial sense, yet there are plenty of people who will blow £10k on a little sh1tbox because its £30 tax and 60mpg!

I agree with the MK3 mondeo. Good cars. I actually saw a 51 plate (ok its getting on a little) MK3 Mondeo 1.8 LX for sale the other day for £300 with 6 months MOT and a few months tax. Proof if it were needed that you don't have to spend thousands to get a good, honest reliable car.

My current car I have had for 3 years, it cost £800. My previous car cost £100 and I owned it for 3 years before stuffing it in a hedge! THAT is MSE!

Richard53

+1 for the Mondeo estate. It came out best in class in a group test run by Car magazine at the time (2005-6 ish). Huge load space, nice to drive, fairly good economy (42 local, 52 long run), and it's been reliable so far. If you ignore the fact it's a Ford, it's actually a very good car. I will be keeping mine until it dies.

You could get a decent one for under £2k, which leaves a lot of money left over for a) an emergency car fund, and b) improving your life.

Joe_Horner

Slightly left-field, but with that budget it might be worth looking for the very best of the real bangernomics cars.

I'm biased because I've got one, but things like the Pug 405 diesel estate won't cost you more than £1k or so for the very best, and the very best will be very good indeed.

They don't rot, the engines go on for forever (500k has been known) as long as you stick to the oil changes, and they have no nasty electronics to fail. They also give a fairly easy 40 - 45mpg overall, with 50+ easy to achieve on a run. And will run on veg oil - if you can find it cheaper than diesel nowadays.

The only real downside is that you really need someone who knows what they're looking at to help you pick that "best of the best" example.

NewUserHere

Problem with the Mondys are the DMF are renowed for going. And the turbos - particular if a 130BHP

Netwizard

NewUserHere wrote: »

Problem with the Mondys are the DMF are renowed for going. And the turbos - particular if a 130BHP

A fair point, as ours went on our 130 TDCI, but once it is done, its done.

depending on the mileage the OP will be doing, a petrol powered car would be a better option perhaps?

andydiysaver

emmysmum wrote: »

Hi, I need to replace my 04 plate punto with something larger. I've had it for 7 years, and its been great, but with baba number 2 arriving spin, a 3 door car with a little boot isn't going to work out :-(
So, I'm looking for a fairly roomy family sized car, with a large bout that can easily accommodate a double buggy. Something quite reliable, with relatively low insurance and road tax (realise um not looking for much!!)
I've got £7k max to spend, and was thinking of buying outright rather than getting a lease. maybe 3-4 years years old? Have no idea really about If I should be discounting b cars that have done over a certain number of miles?
Would appreciate any advice! Thanks

if you have 7k you can get a pretty good motor for that, without any credit or HP involved. just don't go for the big/polluting engines that'll knock your tax down, up to 60-70k on clock also fine these days, you wanna price up your yearly mileage, add it to the clock and put on the number of years you don't intend to buy a car again, add it and be happy with the final figure. it generally goes - cars from east, more reliable, parts cost more, cars from the west i.e. ford etc, less reliable, parts dirt cheap


regards
Andy

emmysmum

Thanks for the replies, hadn't thought of an estate car, they just seem massive compared to my little punto! If it makes a difference, I'll be using the car for driving around town, driving 6 miles to work a couple of times a week, and maybe weekly trips to nearby cities etc to visit friends and family, 60-80 mile round trips.
Hadn't thought of a diesel either, have only ever had petrol.
I'll be on maternity leave again soon, any my income will drop considerably, hence looking for something with quite low running costs.
Is the "dmf' something that's expensive to fix? I don't know much at all about cars, neither do friends/family-they've mainly gond down the buying a brand new car and keeping it until it dies route!

nash1977

The DMF is expensive to replace, the clutch should be replaced with it.

If you go for diesel, make sure the car has a full service history as you don't want the turbo to fail, which is another expensive job.

forgotmyname

DMF and clutch replacement is faitly costly when looking at a cheaper car. But its not something your going to have to do again unless you hammer the clutch or do over 100,000 miles.

£600 at a smaller garage and £1200 at a main dealers. Sounds bad when a car costs £1000 or £2000. But a £10,000 car will have the same part and just as likely to fail.

They dont suddenly fail like one day its working and one day its not. It will start to rumble for many miles beforehand. Plenty of warning before they need replacing.

Lots of cars petrol and diesel have them. But petrol cars tend not to kill them so soon. But a lot is down to the driver.
Hammer the clutch and do a racing start at every set of lights and it wont last as long as someone that gradually builds speed.