Best first car and where to get it?

cazziebo

I'm looking for a car for my daughter (18) who passed her test almost a year ago. She is a student so something very cheap to run. I was hoping to get something for less than £1k and expect insurance to be about £700 - £800. She won't do much driving but I do want her to keep at it because she passed first time with very few lessons so if she leaves it too long then she'll get rusty. Driving mine isn't an option as insurance would be too expensive.

She learned in a Corsa and they seem good cars.

I'm a complete novice when it comes to cars - been spoilt with nearly always having company cars. No idea where to look, or what to look for so ideally need to steer away from potential rip off merchants. had a look on ebay but not sure if that's a good way to go?

Any ideas?

Inactive

I would start off by getting a few insurance quotes, your figures look to be on the optimistic side.

BenL

Although we can offer a bit of advice on here like the above "try some more insurance quotes on the internet" advice you will really need a friend or family member who knows about cars to be with you.

Lower insurance group cars upto 1.4 petrol engines and 1.5 diesels.

KA, Fiesta, Corsa, Micra, Punto, 106, Saxo, Clio etc

Japanese cars are generally more reliable than european models but the insurance groups are higher.

Check parkers.co.uk for prices and autotrader.

I would recommend buying a paper copy of autotrader as if you don't know what you want to buy it will help out a lot.

There is a cars under £1000 section that will be your starting point.

As I mentioned at the start, a car mad friend who has experience of this I would highly recommend.

Some people just know what to look for.

We can give pointers on here but its not like being there.

I went with my g/f lastnight to get her a car and its just like autopilot when you get there as it just comes over the years and even thinking now what I looked at to write down is hard.

There are also "what to look for" and "how to protect yourself" guides in the autotrader and parkers website.

Ben

Hintza

I'm not keen on daughters driving ariound late at night in old bangers. Would just worry me where they were going to break down.

Insurance will be a killer probably around £800+ (boys would be well over £1,000). A second hand Fiat Panda would be a good choice if you can stretch your budget a bit.

Cardelia

With the insurance, look out for companies who do "no claims builder" policies (or something similar) - basically you get 10 months insurance but it is counted as a full year of no claims at the end of the policy. The price often reflects the fact that you're only paying for 10 months rather than 12 and one year of no claims bonus gets a discount of around 35% for renewal quotes, so if you can get it 2 months early you should be saving well over £50 just for those 2 months. Of course, if you'd save that money by getting a cheaper 12-month policy elsewhere then go for that instead, but it's something to bear in mind. I built up 2 years no-claims in 20 months with elephant.co.uk this way and saved quite a lot.

For cars - I'd recommend an old Fiesta. They're cheap to maintain, spare parts are no problem to source (either from a scrapyard or dealer) and there are thousands out there, so you'll definitely find a suitable one if you look hard enough. When looking, make sure the car has been regularly serviced - that's far more important than worrying about mileage.

Fulham_Mark

I got an insurance quote from Direct Line for £550 on a new Fiat Panda
Through U-Switch I got a quote for £332 from Evolution and £342 from Endsleigh.

Same details but with Evolution etc I can say that I won't be commuting in it each day and that it won't be parked on the road. Your daughter would be the same perhaps? I don't have any no-claims and said I hadn't driven regularly.

You can get v low quotes for second hand cars on drivethedeal.com. Can use this to help negotiate a deal at a garage, prices include delivery and seem to be close to the lowest price that a dealer would accept for their cars.

cazziebo

Wow - thanks so much everyone.

I've run some possibles through some insurance search engines and endsleigh were quoting around that mark for an old Corsa - (if I go on as a named driver - think I got that tip from here!). She was just 17 when I tried this so might get a bit better now - also she'll pass her year soon. cardelia - thanks for that -didn't know about the 10 month for NCBs. Because my car is my first after many years on company insurance, I've only got three years NCB myself so wish I'd known this then. And thanks for the tip on regular servicing - wouldn't have thought of that as being more important than mileage but it makes sense.

BenL - don't want to sound like a no-mates but I don't have any friends who are knowledgeable so I'm doing this quite blind. (Actually I don't have any useful friends at all - hmm!) My brother is a real petrol head but lives 200 miles away - and finds it hard to think past landrovers or two seater sports cars! When I got my own car I got a friend to recommend a dealer and he was really helpful and I think I got a great deal but he's not in the market sub £1k.

Thanks again everyone!

Chall

I'd watch out with the 10 months NCB, chances are the only insurance company that will accept it as a year NCB is the one you originally go with, pretty much ties you to one company rather than letting you search around once those 10 months are up.

anewman

Skoda Felicia - Spare parts cheap and easy to source, cheap to insure, and the cars are cheap because people don't want them. They're also usually reliable - certainly no less reliable than a corsa etc. Don't believe anyone who tells you it's a VW in disguise, the only VW things in a Felicia are the steering wheel and the buttons. Everything else is Skoda design which isn't a bad thing.

For example http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/SKODA+FELICIA/Ne-2-4-5-6-7-8-27-44-49-53-61-64-67-103-133-146,N-4294966763-4294966834/advert.action?R=200807304014893&distance=121&channel=CARS&make=SKODA&model=FELICIA&min_pr=&max_pr=&max_mileage=

It's another type of car to plug in to the insurance quotes to see if it comes up cheap anyway.

Cardelia

Chall: In my experience, every company will accept the 10 month NCB policy as a full year. Mind you, I've not done this for 5 years now so things may have changed since then.

Kez100

Can I just add that when I passed I moved to polytechnic (yes, I'm that old) and couldn't afford to run a car because of the insurance so didn't drive for three years. When I did buy a car, three years later, I paid for four lessons in my own vehicle and it worked well for me.