Advice to buy a second car

twokids

I do need to buy a second hand car. It has to be realiable, cheap to run, preferably 3 or 4 years old and with low mileage.
For a family of 4 with two children. I have budgeted £4,000 -£5,000.
Any suggestions.

Thanks

anewman

Might help to know approximate ages of kids in terms of rear leg room and things like that.

I think you might be able to get something like a toyota yaris in your budget which should be cheap to run and reliable.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

Low mileage is irrelevant. Condition > mileage.

anewman

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers! wrote: »

Low mileage is irrelevant. Condition > mileage.

Agree 100%, plus if you get a car with say 80k miles on the clock with a full service history you know it's not been clocked. Cars with high mileages will generally be driven on the motorway which is generally good for cars. Also there's an argument that if the car has been well used, anything that will fail has failed and been replaced for you already.

AdrianHi

twokids wrote: »

I do need to buy a second hand car. It has to be realiable, cheap to run, preferably 3 or 4 years old and with low mileage.
For a family of 4 with two children. I have budgeted £4,000 -£5,000.
Any suggestions.

Thanks

What size of car are you looking for?
Vauxhall Vectra / Ford Mondeo?
Corsa / Fiesta?
How many miles and what sort of trips will it be used for?

twokids

Kids age: 3 & 1

size of the car: not very big but roomy enough. I've got a Rover 25 and run out of space. Ford Mondeo probably too large.

type of use: in town and ocasional trips

Thanks

AdrianHi

twokids wrote: »

Kids age: 3 & 1

size of the car: not very big but roomy enough. I've got a Rover 25 and run out of space. Ford Mondeo probably too large.

type of use: in town and ocasional trips

Thanks

The car that leaps eagerly to mind for the size you are looking for and that budget is a 4 to 5 year old (may be a little younger for 5K) Skoda Octavia estate/hatchback, around 80K miles. You can get a 110bhp diesel for that money, but mechanically speaking a petrol engine is more appropriate for mostly town use, diesel designed for open road driving.
Skoda Octavia always rates highly for customer satisfaction.

A more stylish option would be a 4 to 5 year old Mazda 6, avoid diesel at this price and age, but we are into Mondeo size car now.

twokids

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your reply.
Yes I do like Mazda 6 but it seems a bit large. What do you think about Renault Scenic or Xsara Picasso and the likes.
The whole buying-a-car experience is mindblowing. Too many options!

Inactive

twokids wrote: »

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your reply.
Yes I do like Mazda 6 but it seems a bit large. What do you think about Renault Scenic or Xsara Picasso and the likes.
The whole buying-a-car experience is mindblowing. Too many options!

Renault and Citroen are rubbish compared with Mazda and Skoda for reliability.

AdrianHi

twokids wrote: »

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your reply.
Yes I do like Mazda 6 but it seems a bit large. What do you think about Renault Scenic or Xsara Picasso and the likes.
The whole buying-a-car experience is mindblowing. Too many options!

My wifes Mazda 6 is coming up 5 years old and under her company car allowance rules has to change it soon. We looked at the Mazda 5 (we have two boys 3 and 1) and felt that in the quest to provide 7 seats the car had become compromised as a good 5 seater with decent boot. We would prefer another Mazda 6 and put up with parking issues... however we are looking at it as a long range cruising car. In my opinion something like a Mazda 5 is best suited for short range pile kids and friends in one day, shopping and DIY store purchases the next and cope with car parks.
This seems to be what you are looking for.
I cannot help it, when the bottom 1/3 of the JD powers customer satisfaction survey has been occupied mostly with French cars for as long as I've been reading it I cannot bring myself to think well of any French car (queue stream of happy French car owners....:o)
I would be looking to Toyota Corola Verso, VW Touran, Focus C Max, Vauxhall Zafira but I'm less familiar with price ranges for these.

Hintza

Some of the suggestions look quite big. What about a Honda Civic?