Buying a car these days low budget

Herzlos

The car buying services have largely killed off private sales, so there's a lot less available on paid platforms like Autotrader that aren't dealers.  Plus the last few times I've looked, it's virtually impossilble to find something good at that price range as they are either spares and repairs, or £500 cars with a markup.

For proper bargain cars now then you'd need to look in the free places: gumtree, facebook, notice boards etc. 

daveyjp

A friend just fell lucky and picked up a decent 2007 C1 for £900. 

Owned by same person since 2010, but now has to hang up his keys. 

HillStreetBlues

Exodi said:

Personally I think it's a false economy buying cars that cheap. Inevitably you'll be dropping a multiple of the cars values in repairs every time the MOT comes around.

Not always so, my car is getting on a bit, cost £1,500 and in 4 years has needed a new battery (my fault) and 2 new tyres.

paul_c123

Exodi said:

Personally I think it's a false economy buying cars that cheap. Inevitably you'll be dropping a multiple of the cars values in repairs every time the MOT comes around.

My most recent cars have cost: £600, £700, £175, £325, £1400. All have long MoT or passed their MoT with only advisories.

The false economy is buying a car which costs (say) £5000-8000 but it has "issues" similar to a cheap car and because of the sunk cost fallacy, gets expensive repairs done to it.

GunJack

As a long-time Bangernomics practitioner, I'd say it's still viable to buy cheap and run 'till death. For example, my last 2 cars had done me 8 years of cheap motoring for a total all-in buy & maintenance cost of approx. £2300 (900 for the first, 1400 for the second) and lasted me 3.5 years and 4.5 years respectively - the second one was sold on with 6 months MoT remaining on it.

When buying cheap, always buy on the condition of the car, ok it probably won't have FSH or a full/long MoT, but if it's in good condition all round neither of those have to be a problem. 

I always start off a new car search on Autotrader, but will always consider Gumtree, a local supermarket car park where people park up with For Sale signs in the car window, etc. Must admit I'm more wary of FB Marketplace and ebay. 

GunJack

Also, something else to consider - the newer the car, the more likely it gets a "can't find the fault even after chucking thousands at it" fault, for example Adblue faults and the like....

jimi_man

Exodi said:

ButterCheese said:

You might struggle on Autotrader, as most dealers won't touch old low value cars, and may private sellers won't bother with the £30/month cost of advertising.  They usually go on FB marketplace

Personally I think it's a false economy buying cars that cheap. Inevitably you'll be dropping a multiple of the cars values in repairs every time the MOT comes around.

I seem to recall stats (including MSE itself) saying that buying cars for that sort of price then running them for as long as possible, is the cheapest way to run a car, which makes sense. Especially that over the last 30 years, cars have become much more reliable.

I do it slightly differently - I buy a car 3-4 years old then run that for ever if I can - hopefully 15 years.  At least that way you get to know the little issues/foibles with it and can deal with them as you go along.

The worst way is to use things like PCP or buying new and replacing every three years type of thing. 

So I think there is some sense in what the OP is saying. 

Dustyevsky

Kim_13 said:

There's a chap on YouTube (Car UK channel) that is a dealer in the budget end of the market. He's in Cheshire and up to £5k, so I'm guessing it would be more than that if you were looking in the South.

Not necessarily. I'm in the South, and we have a YouTube dealer here in the sticks (Chops Garage) with a sound reputation. He has a few cars around £3.5k with 3 month warranties, which he honours. We bought an auto from him a few years ago at £2.7k, and we've had no big issues with it. 

The other consideration is that cars from around '08 to '12 are often more easily serviced and repaired than their more modern equivalents. There are also millions of miles clocked-up between them, creating reputations....for good or bad!