trying to pick my 1st car, advice needed

dr_volki

dr_volki

dr_volki

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Joined
19 Jan 2010
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2,177
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Chipping Norton
Hi Guys,

so i'm currently still learning, but should pass the test in april or latest early may :).

I know it's a bit early but i'm trying to find the type of car that would suit me best.
The car would be used mainly for to work and back, which would come to about 400 miles a week.

So my first thought was, i shall get a diesel, but then when i read various threads on here people are saying to avoid cheap diesel cars?
Also my driving instructor said he thinks diesel cars are easier to drive? (not sure what he means by that)

secondly me being a new driver the insurance will be quite high and now i'm also a bit confused with certain comments made on here. I did a search for the insurance car groups which gave me some options. But then other people said engine size doesn't matter and get something like an old mans car :p

also note that i have no clue about cars how they work technically/mechanical :(


facts to sum up:
- ~400 miles a week (mainly on M4 & A34)
- cheap insrance (i'll be 25 by the time i pass my test if that helps)
- shall i do the pass plus test as well?
- budget: probably around 3-5k

cars i came up with so far were
- skoda fabia
- seat ibiza
- peugeot 307 (but those weren't in bottom groups of the insurance)
- don't really fancy a corsa

thanks in advance guys :)
 
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as others have said insurance doesn't always go on engine size.

when i passed a 1.1 saxo was £1200 to insure with no no claims, a 1.9 berlingo (yes i know its a van) was only £650 with an accident.

what sort of miles are you doing? Motorway, A/B roads? town driving?
 
try getting a few insurance quotes on comparison sites with and without pass plus, see how much it saves you before deciding whether or not to do the course. Didn't save me anything but then I'm a few years older, so might be worth it for you.
 
Jano said:
try getting a few insurance quotes on comparison sites with and without pass plus, see how much it saves you before deciding whether or not to do the course. Didn't save me anything but then I'm a few years older, so might be worth it for you.
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Same. I done it anyway because it involved motorway driving but in the long run it hasn't saved me a penny on insurance.
 
wmjudd said:
as others have said insurance doesn't always go on engine size.

when i passed a 1.1 saxo was £1200 to insure with no no claims, a 1.9 berlingo (yes i know its a van) was only £650 with an accident.

what sort of miles are you doing? Motorway, A/B roads? town driving?
Click to expand...

oh sorry forgot to put that

around 400miles a week mainly on the M4, A34
 
Pass Plus in my experience didnt drop the insurance by much.
However its always worth doing for the experience.
 
Jano said:
try getting a few insurance quotes on comparison sites with and without pass plus, see how much it saves you before deciding whether or not to do the course. Didn't save me anything but then I'm a few years older, so might be worth it for you.
Click to expand...

at the moment i've only run some quotes on certain cars without pass plus

and the cheapest quotes i can get are around ~£1400 but with an excess of 3k :(
 
Forget everything about diesel vs petrol for now - the best thing to do initially is run loads of different types of cars through comparison sites (things like the berlingo are a good suggestion) and get a list of the cheapest cars to insure that you can find. Once you've done this start checking out what seems to be the most suitable for your journeys and look at perceived reliability etc before making your decision.

If it turns out that a larger petrol car is cheapest to insure you should be able to get 40mpg with motorway work - my 2.2 civic diesel gives me low 50's at best in the same kind of conditions so not a massive saving compared to what the difference in insurance could be
 
I passed at 24 and one of the cheapest cars to insure was a MK1 (mine was a 2001 - you could afford a much newer one with £3k) ford focus 1.6 petrol. It's different for every single person though!

Good luck with passing too :D
 
Yeah, do the pass plus.

It's a good primer for motorway driving if nothing else (what lane to be in, looking far enough ahead down the road etc.)

He probably means that Diesels are easier to drive because they are hard to stall. I wouldn't worry about that tbh. It really doesn't take long to get used to a petrol.
 
Spunkey said:
You'll be doing ~20k miles a year? That's a lot for a new driver. Have you tried running some quotes on that mileage?
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i have and luckily i'm 25 by then. think the last one i can remember that i did was for a little corsa which was £1400. only downside was i never heard of the company and the excess was £3000 :eek:


edit: i know its a lot of miles, but i'm just fed up using public transport which extends my working day by 3-4 hours :( and google maps is saying by car it should take just ~1hour for 1 way
 
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little update :)

i've run loads of quotes and insurance doesn't seem to change that much depending on the car. apart from the bigger the car the bigger the insurance for me. I've also ran some unusual cars for a young driver but that didn't make much difference. Also my postcode is in Group B according to some sites on the internet which is good.

So i decided to forget about how much the insurance (within reason) will be and rather get a nice & reliable car since i'll probably will be keeping it for a good few years.

link is to the route i will have to dry every day (M4 & A34)
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?saddr=Fleetham+Gardens&daddr=Unknown+road&hl=en&ll=51.561705,-0.987396&spn=0.386314,1.056747&sll=51.656145,-1.227765&sspn=0.012047,0.033023&geocode=FWC7EAMdGu7x_w%3BFVgxFAMdnj3t_w&mra=mift&mrsp=1&sz=16&t=m&z=11

so any ideas what kinda car i should consider?
here some cars i looked at:

Volvo S40 - this would've been my first choice but insurance seems very high for what it was
Volvo C30 - out of my budget
VW Golf - not sure about a golf because of the premium you pay for it being a VW
Fabia - the other half says it's looks cheap :rolleyes:
Seat Leon - don't know much about them.
Peugeot 307 - these don't seem very reliable, french car i guess :p
Focus
Corsa - cheapest to insure for me but i don't really fancy a vauxhall

any ideas what other cars i could look at?
Budget will be up to 5k

thanks in advance guys :)

also on a side note, i saw this golf this morning on autotrader. looked to good to be true. :eek: it's gone now so only have the pic from my iphone
photoku.png
 
Yeah the golf is missing a leading 1 I suspect. In terms of car at least on the VW platform you have picked both the A3/Golf/Octavia/Leon platform and the Polo/Ibiza/Fabia to fill in the blanks. The Focus is more akin to the first block obviously, the corsa the latter. I wouldn't bother with a volvo, you'd get less S40 than focus for the money for example. Your instructors comments about dervs probably depend on how old your instructor is but by and large both types of engine would be fine here. While it's very simplistic, when I look at new cars I work out how much it's going to cost me to run per year in fuel/tyres/tax and then take a guestimate on maintenance required per model to give me some kind of reality in terms of cost. Diesels may cost more in terms of maint as time goes on due to more a more complex design but it will honestly depend on the model as to what extent.

As for PP, I honestly doubt it's worth it. I live fairly close to you and have done that stretch a lot, you'll be fine on the motorway after the first week or so (I presume you know about reading traffic already though), there are much rougher stretches of the M4 than yours if it makes you feel better. I'd expect the biggest factor in your insurance currently is the lack of experience rather than anything else currently.
 
OP: With regards to diesel cars being easier to drive, your instructor will be talking about the powerband of the engine. Turbodiesel cars have all their power low down between 2000-3000 revs, meaning it's quite easily accessible in every day driving - you pull away and you're straight into the powerband of the engine.

To get a nice comfortable amount of "go" from a petrol engine, you're looking at 3000-5000rpm, and requires a little more planning and time to get going - especially with a smaller engine.

When learning your manoeuvres, diesel cars are useful because they'll quite happily move at manoeuvring speed with no gas (just nibbling at the clutch pedal). Small engined petrol cars will need the gas balancing, and it takes a little more practice.

For your mileage (400 a week is pretty high), I'd look at a diesel, especially if you're keeping it for a few years. Over that time, the slightly higher purchase price of a diesel will more than save itself in your fuel savings. Any Golf, Fabia, Leon etc will do the job fine.

On a side note, the Pass Plus scheme will be valuable experience, but insurers don't really bother taking it into account now. As you're 25, I doubt it'd make any difference at all - but if you're going into it with a view to learning to drive more safely rather than for financial reasons, go for it :)
 
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