First car for 17 year old

Janey1a

My son is taking lessons and will be looking for a new car once passed. I’ve seen lots of sites with suggestions for first cars but we’re finding they’re not particularly accurate. For example one site states Fiesta which was always a popular first car but the insurance is sky high, even doing a quote for 21 days time.
Anyone on here actually bought a car for a 17 year old male in the last 6 months? Please could you let me know what car they bought and how much the annual insurance was.
thanks

fatbelly

Best of luck. Can't give any current examples myself.

If you have 3k available, consider a skoda citigo/seat mii/ vw up.

What does an insurance search throw up for one of them? I fear it's still going to be massive

Read this?

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance/young-drivers/

facade

You need a car that would make the average 17 year old cry- one that his mates won't get into, even if it is raining.

These are cheap to insure for this reason.

Check out the insurance on a Fiat Panda or Punto, Skoda Fabia with the 1 litre engine, Hyundai i10, Kia Rio, Chevrolet Spark, Citroen C1 & clones etc.

born_again

At the other end look for cars that are out of the norm for a 1st time driver.

DullGreyGuy

facade said:

You need a car that would make the average 17 year old cry- one that his mates won't get into, even if it is raining.

These are cheap to insure for this reason.

Check out the insurance on a Fiat Panda or Punto, Skoda Fabia with the 1 litre engine, Hyundai i10, Kia Rio, Chevrolet Spark, Citroen C1 & clones etc.

Aren't your suggested cars all exactly the sort of thing that young drivers drive? Certainly i10, C1 are. 

I wouldn't get fixated on tiny engines either, even a 1L engine car is perfectly capable of getting to 50mph and is just as likely to kill a pedestrian if hit at those speeds as a 1.6L engined car. 

Your totally right on looking for something thats simply not associated with young drivers at all but its more the type of car than the brand. Direct Line group learnt that the very hard way when they offered Citroen 2 years insurance on any Saxo bought for circa £150 with the only requirement being that the GTI/VTS was 21+.

Lorian

Start by looking at cars of insurance group 3 or less (not actual sure you'll find anything less than 3) i10 base model or similar. It will still cost a huge amount.

Scott_Chegg_

I'll say Citroen C1 as we have 2 in the family. Both my son and daughter have them. My daughters is a  3 door 2012 model in sky blue and my son has a 58 plate in black 5 door. They are cheap to run, regularly do 60+mpg and are cheap to insure.  Road tax is £20 a year too.

I have done some of the maintenance on them from parts bought on Ebay. Other work has been a new clutch which was £70 fitted. 

 

photome

 insurance is going to be mega bucks whatever car you choose

have you tried adding yourself as a named driver or fitting black box

tacpot12

I can only recommend that Fabia out of all the cars mentioned. Most have dreadful NCAP scores as they built down to a price and in small cars you are closer to the accident so you want thicker metal not thinner! 

jimbo6977

tacpot12 said:

I can only recommend that Fabia out of all the cars mentioned. Most have dreadful NCAP scores as they built down to a price and in small cars you are closer to the accident so you want thicker metal not thinner! 

Ncap scores nowadays have less and less to do with "passive" safety (eg thickness of metal) and more to do with "active" safety which generally means electronic systems liable to go wrong and be expensive to repair. 

Rather than a Fiesta what about a Mazda 2 which was built on the same platform? 

WellKnownSid

born_again said:

At the other end look for cars that are out of the norm for a 1st time driver.

My (now 18 year old) just (May 24) renewed the insurance on his brown 163hp 5 cylinder Volvo estate for £945 (first year was £1250-ish).

The trick is to think outside the box…