Spec a car for new-ish driver - on finance!

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23 May 2005
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Essex
Hey all,

Managed to write off my corsa. Ice, and a crap car don't go together. Tough bend makes it even worse. Either way, I'm going to be looking for a new car pretty soon.

I got out a loan to buy the corsa, but luckily I seem to be getting a decent-enough insurance payout for it, which will be enough to settle up the loan I took out (minus interest, of course). So therefore, I'll be back at square one - no monies and no car!

So therefore I've decided the best option for me is to get a newish/used car on finance from a dealership. I'll have a decent enough car, hopefully with some warranty left to cover any faults, and with any luck something that drives a darn site better than the godawful corsa.

Because I've not been driving long (6 months thereabouts), it'll need to be a small car.

I've mainly been looking at Micra 1.2's, Grande Punto's and Citroen C3's, all of which don't seem too bad to insure. I've been told Yaris' are also quite good, but rather expensive.

I've set myself a budget of around £6-7k, which should be easy enough to pay off monthly!

Only problem is, car HAS to be an auto (no comments thanks!). Anyone fancy a challenge? :p
 
grande punto seems about the best bet. theyre cheap, relatively good cars and the insurance isnt too bad. not sure how the autoboxes are though.

what i would suggest, though, is to take a look at Young Marmalade. they have very good deals on new or nearly new cars on finance, and include the first years insurance for £1000, which is a lot better than it would otherwise be. Im not entirely sure they provide automatic cars, but its worth giving them a call to see if they could sort something out. over the space of 5 years, it was £130 quid a month for the punto, which isnt bad at all, all things considered.
 
I've mainly been looking at Micra 1.2's, Grande Punto's and Citroen C3's, all of which don't seem too bad to insure. I've been told Yaris' are also quite good, but rather expensive.

They're still resonable to insure at 17 with a fault claim? I'm amazed.

The yaris is easily the best out of those as an auto though.
 
Have you actually driven a larger car? Give it a go.

Also I'm guessing you're quite young, don't buy a car on finance. So many people who post on here have ended up stuck with a car because it's on finance, or even worse they're not able to go and do something they really want to because they're having to shell out several hundred quid a month in repayments.
 
They're still resonable to insure at 17 with a fault claim? I'm amazed.

The yaris is easily the best out of those as an auto though.

No - out of all of these, the yaris is easily the worst as an auto.

I used to work for a car hire firm and have had the joy of driving most of the small automatic cars. Whilst I can't really comment on reliability, I can assure you that the autobox on the Yaris is shocking and the cars were a running joke in the office.

Micra automatic is much better, as is the note, corsa 07 on auto is ok, as is 2007 fiesta.

Although the interiors are ghastly, the best automatic box in a small car was the Chevrolet Kalos/aveo.
 
Why not continue to make the repayments on the loan and buy a car from the payout money, at least the finance won't be fixed to the car and you won't have to take on massive debt. If you've written one car off already why do you want to spend 7k on a car? Why not spend less and when your capable of driving 6 months without totalling a car then buy something nice. There's millions of cars out there that will drive better than a corsa.
 
In the curent climate you should buy cars for cash as there is some brilliant deals to be had out there if you are brave enough with the chipping.
 
I've driven a yaris auto and it seemed much better to drive than a corsa, though I've only had experience of manual corsas. Still not very good but what can you expect for an underpowered auto? C3's are just crap and isn't it the case the micra uses a renault gearbox which aren't famed for their longevity?
 
So therefore I've decided the best option for me is to get a newish/used car on finance from a dealership.

Re-think this. I wouldn't advise on getting a car on finance so young.

Also, if you're spending 6/7k - why are you so worried about high MPG, Low insurance and Low tax?
 
Not a troll, and not a complete **** either, thanks.

Cheers for the suggestions guys. Am 21. Been looking also at Pug 107's - cheapest insurance bracket, cheapest tax bracket and 61mpg on the auto box!

And you'd be happy to pay £200 a month for 3 years for a car like that!? Just get yourself a <1k car and put up with slightly higher insurance rather than spending 7k to save a tenner a week on fuel and a couple of hundred extra on insurance
 
Hey all,

Managed to write off my corsa. Ice, and a crap DRIVING don't go together. Tough bend makes it even worse. Either way, I'm going to be looking for a new car pretty soon.

The cars fault huh, nothing to do with crap driving then??? Drive slower in icy conditions otherwise your next car will end the same way!
 
hold on, you think the best idea is to buy another car on finance?
you've wrecked one car with an expensive pay out, dont risk doing it again so soon.
 
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