Beginner driver, first car .. questions?

orange-juice

mollycat wrote: »

Don't beat yourself up too much about this, lots of people think like that......including people who try to put a premium on a ridiculously low mileage car when selling.

Hope you didn't pay over the odds because of the mileage?

Well done on trying to learn about properly looking after your purchase though!! :T

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1050?

I'll let you decide. He'd advertised it as £1190 on auto trader, not sure if he was actually expecting it but that's the price AT's valuation so I guess that's where he plucked the figure from.

iolanthe07

I bought Honda Jazz 1.4 (03 plate, 45k on the clock)

I don't know whether this car has a cam chain or a cam belt, but if it is the latter you need to get it changed if there are no service records. Cam belt failure can be catastrophic.

System

orange-juice wrote: »

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1050?

I'll let you decide. He'd advertised it as £1190 on auto trader, not sure if he was actually expecting it but that's the price AT's valuation so I guess that's where he plucked the figure from.

I don't think I'd be unduly worried that I'd paid over the odds. For future reference treat any low mileage car with caution for the following reasons:

1) Its done lots of short journeys. This means town driving so its doing far more gearchanges, braking more etc than a car that does long ones so the the clutch, brakes, gearbox, suspension and steering all get more of a hammering than they would on a long journey. I do more gearchanges getting out of town than I do on the rest of my 30 mile journey to work. It also means that the vehicle doesn't get properly warmed up so moisture in the engine doesn't get burned off so when you take off the oil filler cap to check for signs of head gasket failure you can actually see failed head gasket "mayonnaise" even though the head gasket is fine. In the case of a petrol car it also means that it'll have spent a lot of time running in "cold start" mode where extra fuel is dumped into the engine and that can get into the oil thinning it out and increasing wear.

2) Its been stood a lot. That means you're more likely to experience issues with things like brake calipers seizing. It also means that when the engine has been started there's been absolutely no oil whatsoever on the moving parts for the first few seconds of it running.

Both of the above are why cars that do low mileage, typically below 6,000 miles a year, actually go on an abnormal service schedule.

It isn't uncommon for an older car with low mileage to have issues you'd expect with ones doing well over 100,000 miles including engine failure.

Ideally you want something that has done somewhere around average miles, 10,000 a year.

cajef

iolanthe07 wrote: »

I bought Honda Jazz 1.4 (03 plate, 45k on the clock)

I don't know whether this car has a cam chain or a cam belt,

Honda Jazz have always used a timing chain not a belt.:)