Some first car advice
- Thread starter Wilderbeast
- Start date
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Hey Guest, Early bird pricing on the Summer Moot (29th July - 10th August) available until April 6th, we'd love you to come. PLEASE CLICK HERE to early bird price and get more information.
haha! Love the mx5 love going on here. I had had one for 3/4 years- a mk2 one (2000) Best car ever, cheap to fix, easy to work on yourself, plenty of good forums too. Great fun car.. cheap too.
Other cheap reliable cars I have found are the Ford Ka- maybe a bit of a chick mobile, and loves the tinworm, but over 4 years with hardly any issues!
Other cheap reliable cars I have found are the Ford Ka- maybe a bit of a chick mobile, and loves the tinworm, but over 4 years with hardly any issues!
I would say another vote for a Ford Fiesta. Did a study on them MANY years ago and found them out to be the cheapest to run, insure and maintain compaired to Vaxhauls and VW. As your doing high milage go for the deisel. It wont set the world on fire with speed but will be practical and economical to run as a student.
http://www4.autotrader.co.uk/search/used/cars/ford/fiesta/postcode/co43sq/radius/20/sort/priceasc
http://www4.autotrader.co.uk/search/used/cars/ford/fiesta/postcode/co43sq/radius/20/sort/priceasc
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If you're not fussed about what the car is you could do far worse than a Hyundai Getz. We had one for my wife for a few years (1.5 diesel) and it was a comfortable car that had plenty of room in it and was just as happy on motorways as it was round town. Bit more room than a Fiesta and quite a good "upright" driving position.
Polo, fiesta, corsa diesel.
Buy old car with 11month's MOT - you can often pick them up for under £500 as perfectly good runners.
As everyone has said, you *will* bump and scrape your car - make sure it's just your car, don't claim on insurance.
Alternatively - are you nuts? Check out the cost and time it takes to drive from Essex to Cardiff. 3hrs driving and £20 fuel each way. Plus cost of car.
That's a heck of a lot of train tickets.
Get yourself a really decent folding bike (one of the ones that is more of a bike than a folded bike IYSWIM), then you can make the most of cheap train tickets and stations.
Buy old car with 11month's MOT - you can often pick them up for under £500 as perfectly good runners.
As everyone has said, you *will* bump and scrape your car - make sure it's just your car, don't claim on insurance.
Alternatively - are you nuts? Check out the cost and time it takes to drive from Essex to Cardiff. 3hrs driving and £20 fuel each way. Plus cost of car.
That's a heck of a lot of train tickets.
Get yourself a really decent folding bike (one of the ones that is more of a bike than a folded bike IYSWIM), then you can make the most of cheap train tickets and stations.
But it is far more practical for taking my mountains of books and equipment home in the car then trying to carry as much as I can through London.
How often do you have to make the journey?
I seriously recommend you draw up a list of the costs - don't leave anything out - for all possible forms of transport.
If going by train, for example, add in some extra for buying at least one meal along the way (yeah, you could pack up a sandwich, but sometimes you'll forget).
For car, you have:
Purchase cost
Insurance
MOT
Maintenance
Petrol
If you aren't doing more than changing the oil yourself, figure the MOT+maintenance costing you around £600 per year.
I seriously recommend you draw up a list of the costs - don't leave anything out - for all possible forms of transport.
If going by train, for example, add in some extra for buying at least one meal along the way (yeah, you could pack up a sandwich, but sometimes you'll forget).
For car, you have:
Purchase cost
Insurance
MOT
Maintenance
Petrol
If you aren't doing more than changing the oil yourself, figure the MOT+maintenance costing you around £600 per year.
EdS
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Toyota Yaris either 1.3vvti petrol or 1.4 D4D --- older style.e
When I took the Discovery off the road to rebuild the floor etc I bought a Yaris as as top gap / works car. 03 plate 45000 miles and less than £1900 inoc tax and MOT done 2 days before I picked it up. 18 months and 30 000 miles later I've kept the Yaris and sold the Disco nearly a year ago
When I took the Discovery off the road to rebuild the floor etc I bought a Yaris as as top gap / works car. 03 plate 45000 miles and less than £1900 inoc tax and MOT done 2 days before I picked it up. 18 months and 30 000 miles later I've kept the Yaris and sold the Disco nearly a year ago
Definitely. I had 2 of these. The 1ltr and the 1.4 D4D.
I had a head on accident in the 1ltr, I was doing 45, the other car was doing 50/55mph. Managed to get the door open etc, and get out (even thought I broke my pelvis). The firemen who attended were amazed at the state of the car given the speeds involved. They said if I'd been in any other car the same size I probably wouldn't have gotten out alive. I hit some daewoo monster of a car, bleedin' huge it was.
If I didn't need a bigger car I'd definitely have another one (one of the older ones anyway) - you can't get much better small car.
