Buying my first car

itgirlinuk

OK. Let me try and find someone with good knowledge about cars. Trouble is lot of my friends in London dont drive and no one knows a lot about it.

And let me look at private sellers too.

And is £4000 too much for 2000 V Reg Corsa then? I am not happy paying that kind of money for a 5-year old, but all traders have marked it up to the same price. Maybe they check autotrader before pricing!!!

ArsenalFC

I would advise against getting a corsa, they are not as good as a polo or a yaris. The yaris is the one u should go for if spending £4000. Otherwise the micra is a very good choice.

burbs_2

Hi

I have not been able to read the whole thread, not enough time but i agree with ArsenalFC on the whole. I sell cars for a living and i would not touch a Corsa with yours if you know what i mean. They are awful cars and for some reason they go at stupidly high prices.

You say you have £4000 and want an automatic in your OP, have you looked into Motobility auctions, very good choice here and low prices as well.

I would not look at Micras either, i think they are awful looking cars and if i was spending 4 grand on a car i would not dream of looking for a Micra.

ArsenalFC

I would never advise anyone to spend £4k on a micra cos they do look bad to part with that much cash. She was looking at the micra as a budget option, spending <£2k. So I advise her on that car if she doesn't mind that it does not look good in bubble shape.

£4000 go for yaris/polo. I would personally get the yaris as the car is very good, the polo is also nice looking and good. This will be down to you, which style you like.

burbs_2

I guessed that you was not advising her to spend £4000 on a Micra mate, i was just saying that if i did have £4000 to spend on a car i would rather spend and not even look at the Micra - true its going to cost you half of your budget but it is an awful car and ugly as you like. Still, each to their own.

jjames_3

If you buy a car based on what it looks like you are asking to be bitten, and bitten hard.

Try asking the thousands who bought a Renault Laguna then complained to JD Power about all the breakdowns.

You buy a Micra with your head, because it is cheap to run and very unlikely to break.

Can I ask, what your definition of a good car is? Please don't say Peugeot, Fiat, Citroen or Renault......

itgirlinuk

Definition of a good car for me is easy to maintain and drive, cheap as well and very practical. I am not big on looks, but I do have my preferences. I would never buy a Ford Ka. A bubble micra, I might start to like it and appreciate it. But I do like a Yaris or a Golf. Except that Golf is out of my reach.

Someone else mentioned Motobility auctions - how do I find them? I will googley-goo them and see if I can find them. But aren't auctions dangerous for someone with so little knowledge of a car???

I must thank all the regulars on this post - Arsenal FC, jjames and others on this thread (i cant see your names right now! so not mentioned your names). You have been very helpful. And my thanking is hopefully not going to kill this thread!

burbs_2

http://www.british-car-auctions.co.uk/main.asp?page=453

thats all you need to know about the motobility auction dates.

Auctions are dangerous if you dont know what you are doing, if you cant take someone along with you then be very careful. If you think about it though, dealers (includiong myself) do get cars from auctions as well, they are not only there to sell dodgy cars on

itgirlinuk

So that rules out the auction for me. I dont have friends who know about cars. Oh dear! Will anyone source this for me from the auction? And will it cost me a lot to get someone to source a car?

And it brings me back to autotrader and local shop windows.

jjames_3

Motability auctions can be a great way of getting a relatively new, low mileage vehicle. You can buy through a broker, but they tend to charge a fair whack. Do you know your mechanic fairly well?