First time car buying advice questions

juliushibert

I've never bought or owned a car before but now keen to buy one for a bit more freedom. 

Having spoken to a number of friends everyone keeps saying what a lottery it is and not to spend over £4k as you never know how long it'll last for. But most websites like MSE, all suggest that buying second hand makes frugal sense. 

So I'm curious, why would anyone buy a car that's more than £4k second hand. Seems like there's plenty above that price. All of varying ages and milage. 

Would anyone suggest buying a first car like a Fiesta, Ibiza or Fabia that is more than £4k second hand. Seems like most from the last 5-10 years are atleast £5k+. Is there any benefit of paying on finance Vs cash sum? 

Also for a first time car purchase, looking for a simplish buying process and some sort of gaurantee, backup of reliability, would you suggest buying from a big local second hand dealer, car supermarket or a local small private second hand dealer? 

Ectophile

Do you know what sort of car you need (or want)?  How important is reliability?

At the one end of the spectrum are the "bangernomics" people.  They will buy old very cheap cars, anything that looks like it will run for a year or two.  The moment anything expensive goes wrong, the car is scrapped, and they buy another one.

Other people won't want to buy anything more than about three years old, because they are worried about what the reliability will be.  And they don't want people thinking they are too poor to drive a decent car.

You really need to decide where you sit between those two extremes.

Finance on a second-hand car can be expensive (more so than on a new one).  If you can pay cash, do.

AdrianC

Ectophile said:

At the one end of the spectrum are the "bangernomics" people.  They will buy old very cheap cars, anything that looks like it will run for a year or two.  The moment anything expensive goes wrong, the car is scrapped, and they buy another one.

Other people won't want to buy anything more than about three years old, because they are worried about what the reliability will be.  And they don't want people thinking they are too poor to drive a decent car.

You really need to decide where you sit between those two extremes.

I sit firmly between the two...

There is no such thing as a cheap car.

Either you can guarantee that you will spend a lot of money in depreciation and finance, or you have the potential to spend a lot of money on maintenance...

And, yes, I mean "maintenance", not "repairs".
Some of that maintenance is scheduled - servicing. Some is unscheduled - sorting things that have reached the end of their life.
This is where I differ from the disposable "bangernomics" people. I have mechanical sympathy. I buy low-purchase-price older cars, but I don't drive them into the ground through neglect. I maintain them. I'm happy to spend more than the purchase price on maintenance, because I'd rather have an older car that isn't wasting money on depreciation and finance, but which works well and is reliable.

greyteam1959

First thing to do is find out which cars are cheapest to insure.
Then base what you buy on that.

Mercdriver

greyteam1959 said:

First thing to do is find out which cars are cheapest to insure.
Then base what you buy on that.

Hmmm I'm not sure I agree with that.  Insurance is an important factor for sure, but it's not the full picture.  Is it a safe assumption that the OP has only just started driving?  

OP - how long HAVE you had your licence?

A_Lert

I think as long as you're not getting something very luxury or high performance, it doesn't affect the insurance all that much. Location, age, location, years experience, location, no-claims, and location are the main factors.

burner03

A_Lert said:

I think as long as you're not getting something very luxury or high performance, it doesn't affect the insurance all that much. Location, age, location, years experience, location, no-claims, and location are the main factors.

Not to mention where they live.

Jonesya

Some brands are more consistently more reliable than others so if you want reliability and fewer repair bills, buy one of them.
Japanese and South Korean manufacturers generally score highest for reliability - Toyota, Honda, Hyundai etc

As to why anyone would spend more than £4k on a used car, aside from issues around getting the model/trim/mileage you want, think of how many years of use you are buying for your money because sometimes for a bit more money you can get a newer used-car with a lower average cost per year of life. 

CasualBagger

juliushibert said:

I've never bought or owned a car before but now keen to buy one for a bit more freedom. 

Having spoken to a number of friends everyone keeps saying what a lottery it is and not to spend over £4k as you never know how long it'll last for. But most websites like MSE, all suggest that buying second hand makes frugal sense. 

So I'm curious, why would anyone buy a car that's more than £4k second hand. Seems like there's plenty above that price. All of varying ages and milage. 

Would anyone suggest buying a first car like a Fiesta, Ibiza or Fabia that is more than £4k second hand. Seems like most from the last 5-10 years are atleast £5k+. Is there any benefit of paying on finance Vs cash sum? 

Also for a first time car purchase, looking for a simplish buying process and some sort of gaurantee, backup of reliability, would you suggest buying from a big local second hand dealer, car supermarket or a local small private second hand dealer? 

The last car I bought was a Hyundai i30 Tourer that had less than a hundred miles on it for £14.5k - pre-registered at a main dealer.

This is expensive but, two years later, at 18,000 miles it's still worth £11k, it has required zero maintenance other than scheduled services and to be honest I will probably keep it until it is uneconomical to fix. This means I only need to interact with a dealer once in, perhaps, 15-20 years? 

Whereas the bangernomics people are constantly buying £2k cars and selling them for scrap every couple of years when something breaks - paying the dealer his margin every time. 

I can see a few more advantages:

- I know I am not neglecting my own car, whereas it's a lottery if I buy someone else's. 
- My car has a valid 5* NCAP safety rating (they expire after 6 years as safety technology improves)
- It's nicer than a used car. There's no harm in enjoying yourself every now and again rather than MoneySaving all the time. 

Buying a new car is a lottery and a big financial risk unless you trust the reliability of the brand you are buying from. Next time, I will probably go for something around 1 or 2 years old if I'm not dead by then, but I'll probably always stick with Japanese (NOT Nissan) or South Korean.

There usually is no benefit to financing a car instead of paying cash unless there is a big discount for doing so (though, then the car is probably overpriced if "discounts" are flying around). 

Buy from anyone - main dealer, car supermarket, private seller, doesn't really matter. Don't let who they are prevent you from getting a competitive price - use Parkers / Autotrader as a good guide for prices. 

Also, when you buy, make sure you get an independent car mechanic or someone who knows a bit about cars to check it over. 

strawb_shortcake

I've always bought at the lower end of the market, the best car cost me £200 and it flew through MOT every single time. I bought it from a friend and it had been superbly looked after, it eventually died a few years back after the clutch went, hindsight now tells me I should have repaired it. Since then I had two £2k cars one got written off after 16 weeks, the other the bottom end went after two years back in March.
When the garages opened back up I decided to pay a bit more, intended to spend £5k, however for that I could roughly a 10 yr old car, high mileage and unknown knowledge about how well they've been maintained. 
I decided to spend an extra £4k, I was able to pick up a 4 yr old car, 20k miles ex mobility and FSH, I decided I was in on the long haul with this one so that extra £4k represented massive value for money, I now put money aside every month to pay for servicing, MOT and planned work. I know some aren't keen on the low mileage but I'm happy with it.

noclaf

Newer cars are putting me off due to increasing conplexity, more things to go wrong and higher repair costs. My car would probably get me £600-800 if I sold it tomorrow but I have no qualms spending on maintenance as that's what keeps it reliable.The car cost me £5k and it's taken a lot of a abuse over 10 years but just keeps going so for me I've already got so much value out of it. Could not see myself spending over £10k on my next car as don't think it's necessary even though I never say never ...there are temptations out there...