Cheap to run car suggestions please.

Bicycle_Boy

Im after a cheap runaround for my partner who will use it for a couple of miles a day with the occasional longer journey (35 miles max).
We have 2 young children so a 5 door car is preferable.
Ideally the car would be in catagory B VED (i.e. £35 per annum road tax), a low insurance group, and be as economical as possible.

The leading candidate so far is a Daihatsu Sirion - does anyone have any experience of this car or any other suggestions?

Many thanks for your help.

Pink.

Hi Bicycle Boy,

You should get more help with this on the Motoring board so I've moved your thread across.

Pink

custardy

what price is a cheap runaround to you?

GarethK

I paid 600 quid for my R reg Citroen Xantia, perfect family car, and being blessed with an older type turbodiesel engine, means i can run it on pretty much neat vegetable oil! Doesnt get much cheaper to run than 49p a litre, with the added bonus of being carbon neutral!

Bicycle_Boy

My budget is up to a maximum of £3K.

Many thanks,

Bicycle Boy.

Bicycle_Boy

I am now looking at a Fiat Panda 1.3 Multijet (Diesel) - may have to up my budget a bit though - does anyone have any experience of this car?

Many thanks,

mkoprulu

I've been doing some research recently on cheap to run cars and i can recommend you a toyota yaris d-4d 1.4 diesel. I am yet to read a negative review about it... Autotrader has some examples around and below £3k mark.

dopester

I'd go for the Toyota Yaris as well. It's safe, well-built, looks nice, and has almost bullet-proof reliablity.

I wouldn't bother paying the premium extra for a diesel model unless your going to do serious mileage, which doesn't sound like it would be the case for you. The 1.0L is a fine machine indeed, very safe and reliable with low VED.

Good thing about the Yaris is that it's now a mature car that's been in production for many years.

Any serious mechanical faults that came to light on earlier generations have been indentified and fixed and refined.

That's a problem with any new model of car from any manufacturer imo. It's only after a few years / tens of thousands of miles, that faults can come to light.... and the Yaris now has a long pedigree of being very reliable.

Also, to burst the bubble of diesel lovers, the new generation of diesels seem to be very complicated engines/systems.

Manufacturers have had to find ways for diesels to meet the new Euro5 emmission standards, and that's added a whole new dimension to the complexity of new generation diesel engines.

It seems even dealer mechanics doing repairs can struggle getting their heads around how to fix some of the faults on new-gen diesel cars.

Yes they may give that warm feeling of saving costs of fuel... the downside it is seems when they go wrong, they go wrong in a bigtime and expensive way.

I'm not an expert with diesel engines at all, but am just relaying some of the increasing views I've been reading from many informed postings on many a car forum about next gen diesels - where many people are going back to the simplicity and reliability of petrol engines.

Transactionumber

Get a Nissan micra 1.0 cheap insurance,no cambelt to worry about very very reliable and cheap.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Recommending cars, its such a minefield, there are so many things to consider.

Yaris is featuring, but on another forum the genuine exhaust is a whopping £850, dare say thats including the cat though.


Vehicles can appear cheap initially, but some service let alone repair items can be astonishingly epensive eg cambelt and clutch replacement.

If your handy mechanically, get something a little older that will be able to be fixed by yourself.

If your not able to repair your own then you'll need inexpensive servicing, and good reliability, i'm thinking Kia (picanto/rio) or Hyundai getz, probably find the getz will still have a fair warranty left cos they came with 5 years.

Bicycle_Boy

Thanks for the suggestions everyone - I have actually considered the Kia Picanto (there is a dealer quite close to me) and you do get a lot of features for your money (Air Con, MP3 player, etc etc).
I will also check out the Yaris and Micra.

Thanks again.