Good car on a budget!?

mummytofour

I would go for a 205 had one and Loved it wonderful car, cheap to run andi sold it on after 18 montsh for what i bought it for! Fab little cars..

stellagypsy

Can reccommend the Yaris 110%, had mine for 3 years, has cost me NOTHING in maintenance, runs on thin air. I spend about £30 a month on petrol and get £100 back in mileage payments from work!!! I have the 999cc GS VVTi, it is VERY nippy, the 2 others who drive it are amazed it is only a 999cc. It is a VERY safe car, Road Tax is in the lowest band and insurance is cheap, especially considering I managed to have 2 at fault accidents in 1 year in 2003!!!

A friend's partner has a repair garage and does recovery work and says that there are fewest breakdowns on "older" cars which are Japanese (eg, Toyota - most reliable IHHO - Nissan: - I had a Sunny for 10 years and apart from 2 clutches @ £140 each, that also cost me nothing to run - Honda and Mazda - no experience of these 2 makes). Also very good for reliability are VW, but you tend to pay a bit more for them (but I think it is worth it - I had a Polo for 5 years @ zero maintenance - they just keep on running).

I've owned cars for the last 30 years and don't like ones that cost me money. As a woman driver, garages try and rip me off (don't even try to argue the opposite point of view to me - THEY DO!!!!!!!!!) so I look for reliability as the first factor in anything I buy. The worst I ever owned were a Rover (NEVER again) and a Fiat , yet I had another Fiat previously that was OK, however my bad experience has put me off them. Ford are a bit hit and miss, had an Escort that was a bit dodgy but a Fiesta that was fine. Only had a Peugeot as a hire car when I pranged my Yaris and I did not like it at all - JMHO.

I will run my Yaris till son passes his test and then he can have it - at least I know he will get a reliable car that has not been thrashed. I would definately consider buying another but would also look at Honda Jazz, new Fiesta and any VW I could afford. Don't like designs of current Nissans much.

HTH,

Stella

PS - when I passed my test in 1975 I bought myself a Hillman Imp for £195 that lasted me for 2 years!!! (tillit fell to bits). What a heap, but no one will ever know how much I LOVED THAT CAR!!!!! I guess £1000 now is the equivalent of £200 then!!!

blue_haddock

stellagypsy wrote:

Can reccommend the Yaris 110%, had mine for 3 years, has cost me NOTHING in maintenance, runs on thin air.

If you can show me somewhere to buy Yaris's from for £1000 each i'll have a dozen off you! And when you say it's cost you nothing in maintenance over 3 years do you mean to say you haven't had it serviced?

I would say something like a little Pug 106 or Citreon Saxo/AX would be suitable - can pick them up for the sort of money your looking at paying, easy to work on and parts are cheap through places like german, swedish and french. If you do want Japanese reliability either a nissan micra or a Toyota Starlet can be bought for less than £1000.

Just remember that regardless of which car you buy when your spending £1000 it will probably have 1 or 2 little niggles.

hr4033

DON'T GET A CORSA!!!!! They have a problem with the gearbox. After about a year of replacing my clutch cable which broke quite a few times, and having to put up with didgy sounding gear changes, I had to pay 600 pounds for a new gear system or something. And it's not just my car, the garage told me it's a design fault with corsas.

sfboy

I have a fiesta, they look slighly better than the Ka's IMO and are pretty nippy, petrols slightly more but I drive around in neutral which saves a few quid

braken2000

how do you drive in neutral, surely you need a gear to go forward (or back in some cases).