High spec, high mileage - am I stupid to buy?

Lavendyr

I sold my 2019 Ford Focus to Big recently for about £2k more than any other buying company (Motorway, Cinch, Yazoo, WBAC) were offering. So that's a starter for ten. 

I would never spend £10k on a car for our kids as a first car, at this point in time. I would look for a solid, safe, economical little car with a full service history which may have done a few tens of thousands of miles but which has been looked after, around the £5k mark. Go to a physical car supermarket and you will find better deals and be able to negotiate a bit too (albeit not much as they tend to be pretty competitively priced).

Do not under any circumstances buy their extended warranty, though. If you want to find a third party one then do, but the exclusions are so significant, typically, as to make them useless. The things that will go will be wear and tear typically, assuming you buy a car with a full service history, and those will not be included in that sort of warranty. 

fatbelly

I'm a fan of the Up/Mii/Citigo for new drivers and you can now get nice examples for 3k

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202403217816369
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202401135527313
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202403117430229

Mr.Generous

fatbelly said:

I'm a fan of the Up/Mii/Citigo for new drivers and you can now get nice examples for 3k

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202403217816369
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202401135527313
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202403117430229

The VW up would be a great first car, easy to park, not too fast, in good condition and looks smart. The Mii - rust around fuel filler usually means crud round the fuel pipe inside wheel arch and has rotted from the inside, so the few flakes around the filler are the tip of the iceberg.

Arunmor

Herzlos said:

GunJack said:

Herzlos said:

nah, still good stuff (yes older) around for £1k, you just have to look a little harder to find them...my current one is 20 years old, very cheap to tax, run and insure...

I've trawled through autotrader nationally a few times and rarely find something that runs properly.

Admittedly it may be that the sub £1k car sellers don't use autotrader though. I've had a look on Facebook and there seems to be some decent cars there though well over half still need work for MOT's or are otherwise non-runners. Assuming the sellers of the good cars are honest there's probably something there for a new driver, but much more choice if you can go up to £2k.

The problem is for dealers to sell old bangers and make say £200 carries far to much risk.  Better to sell them as spares or repair then there should be no comeback but even then some will try it.

Bigphil1474

Is a keyless Clio a good idea - would have thought they are prime targets for the car  thieves. Just want to add on the extended warranty front, I've had an extended warranty through Peugeot for the last 3 years. Costs me about £300 a year. Saved me about £300 on the MOT this year due to failing on rear brake discs/pads and a couple of other bits. Discs were covered by warranty, pads weren't. I've found the Peugeot warranty to be pretty fair and it was just dealt with by the dealers so no effort on my part. I did look at Motorwise warranty but the lite version was poor value for me, and the full version was more expensive than Peugeot.

I've had cars from many parts of the world - some bad French cars and some good. This one's currently a good one. (Worst I've had were Italian, particularly FIAT, but more than 10 years ago). 

WellKnownSid

Bigphil1474 said:

I've had cars from many parts of the world - some bad French cars and some good. This one's currently a good one. (Worst I've had were Italian, particularly FIAT, but more than 10 years ago). 

My "Fix It Again Tony" Maria Weekend had 170k on the clock, sold it on with 340k, arguably best car I've ever had.  Only thing outside of servicing and lots of tyres was a new alternator at 285k.

LarryR

Just wanted to say thanks for all your comments and advice, was very useful. 

Goudy

I've this model Clio on a 20 plate from new and it's been faultless, so has the daughter in laws 2021.
Mine's a 1.3 Tce RS Line auto, hers is a 1.0 Tce Iconic manual.

Both these engines appear in lots of cars, not just Renaults.
From Dacia's to Nissan's, even in the Mercedes Benz A Class and they are generally really reliable.

Over that last few years it's repeatedly won all the motoring press's hatchback of the year awards, even beating the publics favourite, the Ford Fiesta. (Our son has one and has had it's fair share of problems).

They also sold this Clio with the 1.0 Sce, that would be cheaper on insurance, but it's really underpowered for the size of car, but there's no turbo to worry about.

I seem to think they are all cam chain engines, so no timing belts.
Both the 2020 and 2021 cars came with 5 years warranty as standard but I seem to think the Renault reverted to 3 years plus the chance to extend at cost for the latest cars.

20 years ago Renault were pushing the limits on things a little, our old 2004 Scenic what a bit of an electronic liability back then, though the mechanicals were always pretty good.
It had all the big and expensive car electronic toys of the time but they were obviously done on the cheap and the dealers weren't exactly on the ball with repairing it, they tended to replace at your cost, usually replace everything in the hope they fixed it!

Since then these electronic systems have improved, so has the ownership experience and particularly the dealership experience.
Servicing is mostly in line with similar cars, an A Service is less the £140 and a B Service less than £200.

There are a few benefits with buying a modern, up to date car for a new driver and that is they usually come with all the active safe kit on them as standard.

Dacia were trying to buck the trend of fitting all this active kit to keep costs down, but even they are now giving in and fitting it to they new models.
I think even the base mk5 Clio came pretty much fully loaded with this active safety kit, which is a must these days to get NCAPs 5 star rating.

I wouldn't worry too much about the 45,000 mileage but I would want to see the service history.
There are a couple of "recommended" additionals to the normal the service schedule that I'd want to see done, like the brake fluid every two years and the spark plugs are another after four years. (or 60k).