Help with buying car for 18 year old

naibsel

Hi,
Hopefully someone can help me.
My partner is 18 and about 7 lessons short of passing her test.
We are looking to buy a car now so she can drive around and maybe pass her test quicker.
I have been driving for 10 years but have no no claims bonus as I have a company car.
My questions are;

1) What car should we be looking at

2) can I get insurance now for a provisional driver or would I have to get it in my name? I got a quote for a 1.1 saxo as her the main driver and it came out at over £1500.

3) Can I just insure it in my name and let her drive it anyway?

PS; We're looking at spending about £500-£600 pound on the car and want something quite reliable, she'll only be doing about 4000-5000 miles a year max.

Any advice greatly appreciated.:beer:

anewman

naibsel wrote: »

1) What car should we be looking at

I would build a short list based on factors important to you by possibly looking through autotrader, i.e. insurance cost, purchase cost etc. Then get some quotes using sites like confused.com

naibsel wrote: »

2) can I get insurance now for a provisional driver or would I have to get it in my name? I got a quote for a 1.1 saxo as her the main driver and it came out at over £1500.

I think it's best to wait till passed. If really so close to doing the test and is likely to pass it's easier to just buy a couple more lessons IMO.

naibsel wrote: »

3) Can I just insure it in my name and let her drive it anyway?

You could, but it's against the law and she will technically be an uninsured driver - and there would probably be consequences for you too being the policy holder. It is best that if the car is hers, and she is the main driver, to make her the policy holder. The cost may be reduced by adding parents on as named drivers, even if they never touch the car. This way you will not be "policy fronting" and she will build her own no claims.

naibsel wrote: »

PS; We're looking at spending about £500-£600 pound on the car and want something quite reliable, she'll only be doing about 4000-5000 miles a year max.

Any advice greatly appreciated.:beer:

There's a big choice of cars around in this price range. I would recommend looking at the Skoda Felicia 1.3 (preferably MPI).

Inactive

naibsel wrote: »

Hi,
Hopefully someone can help me.
My partner is 18 and about 7 lessons short of passing her test.
:

Not sure how you know that is going to happen??;)

busiscoming2

Hi
If you look on parkers before you buy a car, they have the tax and insurance brackets for each car, to help you make a decision. Regarding the insurance, you would have to have the policy in her name, but you could be a named driver, some companies I believe will take into account the fact you drive regularly, and this may bring the premium down.

fatbelly

naibsel wrote: »

Hi,


1) What car should we be looking at

QUOTE]

debred86

I got a ford KA for my first car, and my second one lol. it was quite old but worked well, not much went wrong with it and it was cheap to run and insure. Also corsas are reasonably cheap to insure and are reliable too. I know a few people with peugeots, quite reliable too, not sure about insurance.

Just remember for this type of money, the car is going to be quite old, so more things are likely to go wrong, you'll probably end up speding more money on it. A few people i know have found that one out. Maybe you should try and get a bit more money, then you will also have more choice of cars and have more chance of finding one with less problems.

Autotrader is a good place to start looking.:D