First car - narrowed it down to 2

I haven't passed yet. I'm looking at just how practical (or not) moving over to a car would be financially as it's something I may have to face. It's not really enticing moving from a high performance sport bike to a fairly medicore car and having to pay double the insurance.

Pass your test, wait a year, then get a car. That way you'll have the 1 years driving experience which does make some what of a difference to insurance. Put your parents on the policy.

Stick to the bike for now.
 
what is the small print in the peugeot £175 a month deal...this could possibly handy for you to get a new car and insurance for cheap!
 
WTF are you worrying about performance for when you've not even passed your test yet ??

At the risk of sounding like your dad, buy yourself a <1k Fiesta 1.25, something a bit like this:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/2586389.htm

Get the insurance cheap, and build up some experience driving on your own, and crucially some NCB. Then instead of crippling yourself at 4k a year for a bottom of the range BMW, in 2 or 3 years time you'll be able to afford to insure something decent.

If you find it depressing, why not just keep a bike as a weekend thing. Boring econo drone box for the daily commute, bike for fun for the weekend. Buy a cheaper car and run both ? a bike doesn't exactly use a lot of fuel does it ...

You do realise that car you linked gives me quotes of £3300 (cheapest) to insure (mainly because it's old and they assume easy to steal)? I think you guys fail to realise just how high insurance premiums have become for first time drivers - hence why it's been all over the news/tabloids recently. I'm not worried about performance in the sense that i want to go razzing around, throwing spoilers on it and street-racing. However like i said, it's a long-term car and I want something decent. Surely it would be far more foolish of me to spend 300 quid extra on that fiesta to drive that for 3 years than to buy the corsa and insure it for cheaper and it last me a good 7 odd years.
 
Last edited:
Enjoy the Corsa, it probably drives better than the other **** box you were thinking of.
 
You do realise that car you linked gives me quotes of £3300 to insure (mainly because it's old and they assume easy to steal)? I think you guys fail to realise just how high insurance premiums have become for first time drivers - hence why it's been all over the news/tabloids recently. I'm not worried about performance in the sense that i want to go razzing around, throwing spoilers on it and street-racing. However like i said, it's a long-term car and I want something decent. Surely it would be far more foolish of me to spend 300 quid extra on that fiesta to drive that for 3 years than to buy the corsa and insure it for cheaper and it last me a good 7 odd years.

How old are you and where do you live (first half of post code)?

I was driving a 1.8 turbo car within a year of passing my test with insurance just a bit over £1100 for the first year (And this wasn't years and years ago).

£3800 on a bottom of the range BMW is absolutely insane and not solely down to you being a new driver.

Unless you're still very young and living in a ghetto, you should be able to get much much cheaper insurance than that.
 
Look for something out of the ordinary and boring.

Old Mazda 3? Mk1 Focus?

£3k a year for insurance is crazy, I don't care how old you are, it would be cheaper to get a taxi everywhere for a year.
 
I don't live in a city, I live in a small town. I live on a nice estate (full of old people and no bad areas). The town has very few bad estates, all of which are on the other side of town. it's not a crime hotspot - even they aren't that bad. I don't live on a main road. The car would be kept in a locked garage despite all of this (as i entered on the form) and I'm in my 20s. There's really no reason why they quote my insurance as being so high other than they want moneys, but just do a quick google search and you'll find reels of news articles about the situation. I recall one where a young lad was quoted something like 500 quid more than his twin sister on the same car, obviously the same age, lived in the same house etc. only difference being he was male.
 
I'm afraid I'm going to disagree with everyone that's posted so far. Yes, to us it may seem crazy paying that kind of money for insurance, but if you're trying to get insured with no driving experience, and don't want to trick the companies, you'll get those kind of quotes on practically any car, especially fiestas and corsas that are crashed every day by young drivers.
My advice would be to limit the damage by avoiding the cars you posted, and look at "uncool" small cars that young people don't tend to drive - I'm thinking nissan micra, toyota yaris, skoda felicia/fabia. I know they won't be as nice as a BMW 316, but to be honest the 316 is hardly brilliant, you're only going from crap to slightly crapper. After the first year or two your insurance premium should have pretty much halved, and then you can look at getting a better car.
If you don't mind something a bit different and are prepared to put up with potential reliablity issues, my 17 year old cousin just got insured on a MK1 ford cortina for £900, but it's definitely not for everyone.
 
You can definitely get a better quote than that. I've not paid more than £850 on insurance and I'm 19 (now driving an MX5)
 
I don't live in a city, I live in a small town. I live on a nice estate (full of old people and no bad areas). The town has very few bad estates, all of which are on the other side of town. it's not a crime hotspot - even they aren't that bad. I don't live on a main road. The car would be kept in a locked garage despite all of this (as i entered on the form) and I'm in my 20s.

There must be. None of us have ever paid that and most are in our 20's.

At 22 I paid £1200 to insure a 5 year old BMW 530i with zero NCB and a fault claim!
 
I don't live in a city, I live in a small town. I live on a nice estate (full of old people and no bad areas). The town has very few bad estates, all of which are on the other side of town. it's not a crime hotspot - even they aren't that bad. I don't live on a main road. The car would be kept in a locked garage despite all of this (as i entered on the form) and I'm in my 20s.

You've just demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding how insurance works.

Insuring it for parking on the road is usually CHEAPER than in a locked garage. In a locked garage its going to be driven near to a wall every day, lots of people run out of talent and will scrape the car on the garage. Furthermore, if somebody breaks into your garage they can break into the car in complete cover and not have to worry about somebody seeing them.

Parked on the roads, there are no doors to come down on your car, no walls to be scraped, streetlights to light up your car and a whole streetfull of people that could be watching.

Also, it matters not a jot where you live, only what your postcode is.

Whats the first half of your postcode ?
 
You can definitely get a better quote than that. I've not paid more than £850 on insurance and I'm 19 (now driving an MX5)

Just how. How on earth are you driving an MX5 for that much? Do you have 2 years NCB? What were you driving when you started and how much were you paying? I really can't believe my area is considered that much of a risk (if that is what's pushing it up) - it's a fairly quiet market town.
 
If you'd give the people the information they're asking for, they can help you lower those quotes.

You can get lower than those prices, forget the media, forget what you think of your area etc. etc.

If you're in your twenties and your postcode is good (if you really don't want to post the first part of it, then go to http://www.motorcarinsuranceuk.co.uk/post-code-ratings.php and tell us what rating your postcode is.

Then run a quote with admiral or elephant or bell, add two older drivers as named drivers (parents are usually good for this), say you park it on the street (garage is more expensive), set your mileage estimate as low as is reasonable, be creative with your job title as some can be cheaper than others (but keep it truthful).

Try all of that and i'll be stunned if you can't get at least sub £2000, if not sub £1500. Assuming of course your postcode isn't crap.

I was 23 in a Southampton (average rated) postcode when I got this Golf and the equivalent value (I had a polo for a couple of months then changed) for a years insurance with 0NCB was under £1200.
 
Last edited:
You've just demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding how insurance works.

Insuring it for parking on the road is usually CHEAPER than in a locked garage. In a locked garage its going to be driven near to a wall every day, lots of people run out of talent and will scrape the car on the garage. Furthermore, if somebody breaks into your garage they can break into the car in complete cover and not have to worry about somebody seeing them.

Parked on the roads, there are no doors to come down on your car, no walls to be scraped, streetlights to light up your car and a whole streetfull of people that could be watching.

Also, it matters not a jot where you live, only what your postcode is.

Whats the first half of your postcode ?

Fundamental lack of understanding? You mean the assumption that a locked garage is less of a risk than a road side where it can get scraped by other cars and vandalised?

How does where you live not matter? You're postcode is where you live. It tells them if you live in a bad area/crime area etc. - which as I said, it's a quiet estate in a quiet town.
 
Just how. How on earth are you driving an MX5 for that much? Do you have 2 years NCB? What were you driving when you started and how much were you paying? I really can't believe my area is considered that much of a risk (if that is what's pushing it up) - it's a fairly quiet market town.

At 17 I drove a classic mini cooper on a classic policy with a 6k a year limit. It cost me £650. There's no NCB on a classic policy. It was TPFT with Footman James

I crashed that just after turning 18. I got another Mini, mildly modified sprite so it was about as quick as the cooper (probably a bit faster actually). I insured it on a normal policy, accident declared for £650 fully comp. This was with Bell.

On both of these policies I had my parents added, as well as a grandparent.

I renewed with a quote of £620 fully comp for the mini, but soon changed to an MX5 and paid the extra. If I had started a new policy I would've been charged £850 fully comp, 1NCB, 1 fault accident. I paid the extra they asked me to swap the policy accross which worked out as a bit more overall, but I kept my NCB.

My only "trick" was using classic insurance in the first year. Bell just quote me happy all the time :p
 
Just how. How on earth are you driving an MX5 for that much? Do you have 2 years NCB? What were you driving when you started and how much were you paying? I really can't believe my area is considered that much of a risk (if that is what's pushing it up) - it's a fairly quiet market town.

I think the risk is that the cars in the area are nicer. Therefore if there was any claim the value of the car would be higher, and thus pay out would be more.

So, imagine if in the area, in the last year there was a couple of accidents involving a 7 Series and a Bentley....the insurance company would have had that on their database for that post code.

It also sucks if you live in Bradford :p

You can't win really sometimes lol
 
He lives in a ropey post code so its either pay the money or the bus, thats the end of this debate aint it.
 
Back
Top Bottom