I am buying a Corsa

5UB said:
Great advice already. :)

I shall be test driving and looking at more cars on Sunday within my budget, I don't think I want to make the decision on the same day though, may go back the following Weekend and then actually buy. Or is a day going to be enough time to pick the car? :p
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You can never, ever take too long to choose a car. But you can easily do it too quickly.
 
alexhull24 said:
This is true, but they're often plauged by electronics issues, unsurprisingly. Oh, and leaky sunroofs! Not sure if they're more or less to insure though, probably similar.

I think the best advice is buy something the least boy racerish and then the insurance should be low (plus you usually get a better car). You should look into how much insurance for you is on a Focus or similar.
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Buy one without a sunroof - that solves one problem. No idea about the electronics. Personally I'd take it with a pinch of salt simply because people like to knock the French cars, in general.

:)
 
5UB said:
Great advice already. :)

I shall be test driving and looking at more cars on Sunday within my budget, I don't think I want to make the decision on the same day though, may go back the following Weekend and then actually buy. Or is a day going to be enough time to pick the car? :p
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I wouldn't buy any car over a single day. For starters I'd want to drive as many of that type of car as possible to get a feel for what a "normal" model feels like so you can feel if the one you're looking at is broken. Push all the buttons, try the AC in this weather if fitted, make sure everything does what its supposed to. Revisiting can help you spot a lot of defects that you missed first time in the excitement (Everyone misses things first time)

Maybe get someone who knows more about cars mechanically to come with you, they may know what to look for better than someone who's buying their first car :)

There will be plenty of fish in the sea for this type of car, so if you miss one its hardly the end of the world.

5UB said:
I am 23 years old.
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This may help the quotes a lot with any luck :)
 
NathanE said:
Buy one without a sunroof - that solves one problem. No idea about the electronics. Personally I'd take it with a pinch of salt simply because people like to knock the French cars, in general.

:)
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Good advice, if you can avoid the sunroof. Had to get new ECU (and programmed which is expensive!), wiring re-soldered, a fair bit of diagnosis, new battery and more in the last year (03 Clio). For that reason I'm hard pressed to say it's a good option, but it's easy to drive and ride is smooth. Quick browse of internet forums show the issues I've had are very common, but you're right on that too, it is a common stereotype. Unfortunately it's one that's quite well deserved in my experience, certainly on the cheap cars.
 
alexhull24 said:
Good advice, if you can avoid the sunroof. Had to get new ECU (and programmed which is expensive!), wiring re-soldered, a fair bit of diagnosis, new battery and more in the last year (03 Clio). For that reason I'm hard pressed to say it's a good option, but it's easy to drive and ride is smooth. Quick browse of internet forums show the issues I've had are very common, but you're right on that too, it is a common stereotype. Unfortunately it's one that's quite well deserved in my experience, certainly on the cheap cars.
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I think all my friends must have crashed their Clio's before coming across these problems :p :D
 
[TW]Fox;18193692 said:
You can never, ever take too long to choose a car. But you can easily do it too quickly.
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Amen to that. I've done it three times now :o

However, the third time it was my Z3, which is awsome <3
 
My Astra 1.6 is a pretty hateful car, but it was and still is much cheaper to insure than any Corsa/Fiesta/Clio. Also has been totally reliable for the last 2 years of being abused to within an inch of its life.
 
If your after a corsa, for 2k you would be looking at the corsa "c" have a look at the "corsa c uk" forums, lots on nice examples for sale on there most well maintained by corsa fanboys :p got mine off there 8 months ago now mate.
 
5UB said:
I have test driven a couple of cars, Fiesta, Corsa, and old Polo, and a Yaris, out of the ones I drove I prefered the Corsa, I thought it would have been easier for me to pick the model and then go from there. This is my first time buying so I must admit I will be a complete noob when it comes to this. :)

I may be making the wrong choices, which is why I posted here, so I expect to be shot down due to the amount of knowledgable of people on this forum.
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This forum is good but it is also full of Vauxhall hate.
Take everything with a pinch of salt :)
 
5UB said:
Wouldn't the Focus be more expensive for me as a first time driver though (insurance)?
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Never assume, run some trial quotes!

Jump on a comparison site, fill out your details and then just keep changing the car - you can get a huge variety of quotes over a massive range of cars in a relatively short time period.

At 23, you needn't restrict yourself to tiny little lawnmower engines, you'll probably be surprised how reasonable some half decent engines are.
 
Both the fiesta and focus are almost identical insurance wise from my experience, try some quotes. I have just bought a Yaris myself but a decent one is more like 2.5k rather than 2k.

I owned a 1.6 focus for 2 years and it was excellent and I have to say that the Yaris feels almost identical handling wise. Insurance on the Yaris is 20% cheaper than on the Focus and it gets around 10mpg more on average but costs more for a decent one.

I was in the same boat as you and for me a Focus or Yaris were the only contenders.
 
re: insurance, some insurers will take your premium down if you add both your parents as named drivers, even if they never have any intention of driving.

Its fine to add somebody as a named driver "just in case they might want to"

Admiral and Elephant both do this.

Try comparison sites, also try going direct to the insurers as well. Sometimes the best deals arent on comparison sites, so try both.
 
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