Introduce me to cars!

fiveub

fiveub

fiveub

OcUK Staff
Joined
12 Apr 2008
Posts
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Good evening lads and ladies,

I am hoping that you can introduce me to the whole driving scene, as I have been a bit late passing my tests as I have passed my Theory Test first time, twice. And I now have my Practical Test booked for a couple of months time.

I am hoping that I will pass, however I have created this thread as I do not know much about cars at all and I am going to want to buy a nice car.

This is going to be my first car and my insurance is going to be high, I am 22 years of ages and I am wanting something cheap to run and insure, yet nice to look at and new looking. - I am hoping you can advise what I should be looking out for and also where I should be looking!

Throw out any tips or ideas, as everything is appreciated! :)
 
You need to post a budget.

Ideal first cars include:
ford fiesta 1.25
vw polo 1.2
ford focus 1.6

I could go on, but those are the cars which spring to mind.
 
I am unsure of what the budget will be to be honest, I do not know how much really I would need to put in. How much would be average and affordable? - I am willing to save up for the car, and I have some family support, I just need it to be cheap on insurance and to run really. The price of the car should not be much of an issue, as long it is not stupidly expensive.
 
Dont do what every new driver does and get hung up on engine size. You wont be able to go mad, but larger engine doesnt always mean big insurance.

Dont fall into the trap of buying a car that seems very cheap unless you know why. Cars like the Corsa are always cheaper than the equivalent fiesta, but there's a very good reason why. At 22 I'd want to bypass the "first car" stage of pottering around in a micro hatchback ad skip to a decent mid sized car
 
Cheap insurance isnt something you will find regardless of the car, you still looking at 800+ at your age for a 1.2l engine.

As for car your best bet is to get something cheap and cheerful like a Fiesta for a grand or so and put another grand towards insurance. If you can get the money for something nicer like a Focus 1.6 then that should easily last you a few years, atleast until your 25 when insurance drops significantly.
 
5UB said:
Helpful information would be nice, I appreciate the comments so far.
Click to expand...

Then maybe you should provide some? what amount of your income can you afford to spend on a car? its impossible to spec you something without a budget to work with.
 
You can do one of two things the way I see it.

Buy yourself something cheap £500-£1k, Something like a older fiesta,Saxo,106,Corsa as long as it has a smaller engine you should be ok for insurance

Or you could go out spend upto £2k maybe over for something nice and get something like a 306,Focus,Ibiza etc, Typically these cars will be nicer to drive and have a bigger engine but you are also likely to be paying a fair bit more insurance wise.

Id go with option 1 for your first year then upgrade once you have your first years NCB, Insurance will still be a pita for your first year even at 22.
 
Lets say I could spend at the most 1K-2K to buy the car, and then cheap as chips for insurance. - I like the idea of having a cheap car to start off with for the year to get the NCB and then maybe buy something a bit better after that.
 
Unconventional cars are always cheaper to insure, 99% of young drivers all drive the same cars, fiesta, corsa, saxo etc.

You will more often than not find that insuring something totally out of the norm like skoda felicia, nissan micra or seat arosa will cost you much less to insure.

Not that i would recommend either of those cars as I personally think they are fugly, but at 22 you can't picky about cars unless your loaded!
 
5ub what sort of distances are going to drive? I thoroughly recommend the "avoid the obvious young drivers cars" mix up your choices a bit. May be something like a citroen xsara vts?
 
No, 1k-2k is fine, Some may say even too much. You are likely to bump (parking etc) your first car even the best of us have at some point. So it makes sense not to go over board with price.
 
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