First time car buyer - advice appreciated!

macman

Check out the insurance cost based on the kind of vehicle you are considering before you do anything else: you could easily be looking at upwards of £2K with a new licence. Any comp site can do this for you. Get an experienced driver with a clean record and licence added to the policy as a named driver.
Remember that the major risk that the insurers face with new drivers is third party claims, so don't think that buying a £1K banger insured TP only will reduce your costs very much.

System

macman wrote: »

Check out the insurance cost based on the kind of vehicle you are considering before you do anything else.

I would like to add to this. Don't assume that just because it is a small hatchback or has a small engine it will be cheap. It cost my 19 year old son £500 less to insure a 2 litre Mondeo Estate than it did his 1.2L Ford Fiesta when he blew up the Fiesta and was shopping around for a new car. Fiesta was £1200, the Mondeo was £700, both fully comp.

melb

which insurance company was that with please? Sounds a good deal - also I am surprised in the difference in the prices, although maybe they assume it will be a "boy-racer" type driver in the Fiesta and a safer driver in the Mondeo?

takman

I would recommend that you get a car for around £1000 - £2000 as it's your first car and you can get a fairly decent car for that price.

You can then use the rest of your money for any repairs and servicing that the car requires. You can also pay your insurance in full using your savings and then save an amount monthly that will replace this money after 12 months.

silverdream

Thank you all for your advice ��

As many of you have suggested, I'm going to try and spend 1-3k on a decent little runaround using my savings. For insurance I am going to try and use a 0% credit card and pay it off monthly. I've also started looking at quotes for different cars to get an idea of which may be the cheapest to insure.

khcomp

melb wrote: »

which insurance company was that with please? Sounds a good deal - also I am surprised in the difference in the prices, although maybe they assume it will be a "boy-racer" type driver in the Fiesta and a safer driver in the Mondeo?

Insurance companies use databases: Insurers generally have a 'basic premium' of £x, which is then added to for various things seen as risks - young driver, cheap old car (because their drivers tend to be less careful), cars popular with young drivers (anything 3 door with a small engine usually, as these are more likely to be bought by young, inexperienced drivers and therefore more likely to be involved in claims), location, etc. etc.
Therefore, there are some risks that you are stuck with (age, experience, etc.), but your choice of car is a MASSIVE variable. In this instance, young drivers don't buy large cars with big engines, so the database will have little or no history of risk on such vehicles. Even different models of the same car can vary massively - When my oldest daughter was 17, I bought her a very nice VW Beetle 2.0: under £1,000 fully comp, whereas the 1.4 model was quoted at nearer £2,000.