Which car for occasional trips? Dacia?

jbmadd

I have no experience of buying cars.

I am looking for a reliable car, which I will use for trips out of town, shopping, occasional roadtrips, but not for commuting. I’m very open to any brands and sizes of car, but ideally I would like something with air conditioning.

The car which is on my mind is a new Dacia Sandero Laureate for £8,795. For a similar price I know I could get, for example, a second hand VW Polo or similar, but would that really be any better?

Since I won’t be using it every day, I don’t need a particularly luxurious car, but I would like something with very little maintenance.

As I mentioned, I am totally inexperienced in buying and owning cars, so any words of wisdom from past experience would be appreciated.

macman

Annual mileage? Budget? Which engine were you intending to specify?
To get aircon you need to pay for the premium Laureate spec, as you've said, and that brings it up nearer to the price of competitors: it's the base models that are incredibly cheap. Having said that, it's still a lot of car for the money, and should be reliable, since it basically uses Renault Clio components.
However the residuals on Dacia are pretty weak, so the real cost of ownership over say 3 years or so may not be any cheaper than other small cars.
I'd be looking at more sophisticated vehicles such as the Hyundai i10 too.
The bottom line is that if you want a new car at this price, there's not too much competition, but buying second hand would get you something much more enjoyable to drive, and still with some warranty left on it.

loskie

look at joining a local car club or hire a car when needed. No hassles of ownership although will have hassles peculiar to the scheme.

If you really want a car of your own the Dacia or something like a Fiat Panda would do just fine. I have covered a lot of miles in Italy on various trips in hired Pandas and always quite liked them.

For what you need dont buy a diesel.

Foxy-Stoat_3

Whats wrong with a secondhand car?

You can spend less than half that to buy the same thing, reliable car, can be used for shopping trips etc etc with air conditioning.

I spent less than a quarter of your budget on a Vectra C 1.8 petrol a year ago with 50K on the clock, done 10,000+ miles and just had to buy tyres and engine services so far.

jbmadd

@macman Thanks, yes that’s a good point about cost of ownership. I suppose the problem is I don’t know how long I would keep it for. Maybe I should assume 3-5 years. How do I know how much it will depreciate over that time?

To answer your questions, at an estimate, I would say my annual mileage would be 5-6000 and my budget is flexible, but I would prefer not to spend more than the cost of the Dacia (so £9k) - so that’s why the choice as I see it would be new Dacia or second hand something else, that may be nicer but may be more hassle. Also, if I were to buy something second hand, presumably I should reduce my initial budget to pay for more maintenance along the way?

@loskie Yes I’ve thought about a car club and renting etc, but the “hassles”, as you say, would be too annoying for me. And thanks for the point about diesels - that’s what I was thinking, it’s not worth it for my low mileage.

jbmadd

@Foxy-Stoat Thanks - nothing at all wrong with second hand. Where would I start to look? I've had a look on autotrader, but I suspect it's not the full picture. Do you look online, or do you go to showrooms, or private sellers? Just looking for a starting point I guess

Foxy-Stoat_3

I would look for one owner, fully serviced cars upto £4,000 say. I prefer to buy from private sellers at this level. Remember, a trader will sell a £3,000-£3,500 car for £4,000-£4,500.

Autotrader and Ebay.

Keep it local as well, as driving hundreds of miles to look at badly described cars isn't much fun.

forgotmyname

A 5 year old Ford Focus will easily last you another 5 years and save you a lot of money in depreciation.

littlerock

I bought a skoda fabia 1.4, 5 years old, low mileage, last year for exactly that purpose, from local dealer with full service history. Cost £3250. Been ideal. Has ac and capacious boot, 4 door and three in rear at a pinch. Plus it is not too noisy, often problem with cheaper cars. Basically a rebranded VW Polo.

dunroving

Foxy-Stoat wrote: »

I would look for one owner, fully serviced cars upto £4,000 say. I prefer to buy from private sellers at this level. Remember, a trader will sell a £3,000-£3,500 car for £4,000-£4,500.

Autotrader and Ebay.

Keep it local as well, as driving hundreds of miles to look at badly described cars isn't much fun.

Seems these days it is hard to find private sellers online. I've never looked on eBay, must admit, but AutoTrader and Gumtree seem full of trade vehicles.


I think like car repairs, a lot of owners leave "selling" their car to the pros too these days (i.e., they prefer to trade in).


I just sold my 10-year old Fabia on Gumtree within an hour and could have sold it 10 times over. I wondered if it was because I was one of the few private sellers.

motorguy

dunroving wrote: »

I just sold my 10-year old Fabia on Gumtree within an hour and could have sold it 10 times over. I wondered if it was because I was one of the few private sellers.

If it sold that quick and you could have sold ten, then it was because you were selling it too cheap, not because you were advertising as private (bearing in mind many "trade" sellers advertise as private sellers)