Buying First New Car - Automatic or manual?

Darklord2150

Darklord2150

Darklord2150

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Within the next few days, I should be buying my first new car. After doing a lot of research for my needs, I eventually settled on the Suzuki Swift. My budget of £12,000 originally would have let me buy the manual petrol SZ3. It turns out that the Swift is getting a facelift so the dealers I went to are trying to clear out all the old models by the end of the month. The result of this is that I now have received quotes for two of the cars remaining in stock; one a manual diesel and the other a petrol automatic. I really can't decide which one to get between the two so I would really appreciate any advice. Here's the summary of the two:


  • 1.3 Diesel SZ3 Manual - This is basically the baseline model plus manual air con, alloy wheels, bluetooth connectivity and rear electric windows. The best quote I've received for this is around £10,000.


  • 1.2 Petrol SZ4 Automatic - Feature-wise, this is the same as above with the addition of climate control/automatic air con, cruise control, traction control, keyless entry and rear tinted windows. The best quote for this is around £11,000.

Typically, the car would be used for town driving, with very infrequent motorway driving; no more than 5-6 times a year. I also tend not to use a lot of miles on the car (my previous car did around 4000 miles in the last year, and that was with me sharing the car with someone else who used it a lot more than me).

What's conflicting me over the choice is the pros/cons of each choice. The diesel has higher fuel efficiency, slightly mitigated by the fact I would do relatively few miles on it and the higher cost of diesel. The diesel also loses a lot of features due to being the midrange model. On the other hand, my total driving experience thus far has been with manual cars, with most of that being in a diesel car.

The automatic is the top of the range model, giving the most features, I've had some recommendations that getting an automatic was the best decision they made as they got to concentrate more on the road, making it easier and safer to drive. The downsides are I have no experience driving an automatic, I've been told driving an automatic is "boring" or "slow", while I've heard both the diesel and petrol manual cars are both very responsive and fun to drive, I've heard nothing on the automatic. I also have concerns that other automatic owners have mentioned, I've been told using a manual after using automatics for a while tends to be harder to do.

I intend on keeping the car for at least the next 5-7 years so any help in choosing which car to go for would be greatly appreciated.
 
I personally hate Automatics, sure they're probably Ideal if you munch thousands of miles up the motorway each year and want to avoid changing gear all the time in stop start traffic, but you aren't.

If you're used to a Manual, you enjoyed it and had no problems then stick to one IMO. I'd go for a Petrol engined car with your mileage, can't you find another car elsewhere?
 
TaKeN said:
I personally hate Automatics, sure they're probably Ideal if you munch thousands of miles up the motorway each year and want to avoid changing gear all the time in stop start traffic, but you aren't.

If you're used to a Manual, you enjoyed it and had no problems then stick to one IMO. I'd go for a Petrol engined car with your mileage, can't you find another car elsewhere?
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Well, I ideally wanted to go for the SZ4 manual petrol, but the only choices I have for those are to pay a lot more (around £11,500 for SZ3 £12,300 for SZ4) for the 2014 shape or get a 3-door older shape for around £10,500. The diesel seems to be the only viable choice left considering this.
 
Personally if it were me it would be a petrol manual or nothing. I would consider an automated dual clutch manual such as VAG's DSG (there are others too) but not a true automatic... or a diesel.
 
I would take the petrol but unless its a dual-clutch automated manual like the VAG DSG its going to be very sluggish with such a small engine on an autobox.
 
Darklord2150 said:
Well, I ideally wanted to go for the SZ4 manual petrol, but the only choices I have for those are to pay a lot more (around £11,500 for SZ3 £12,300 for SZ4) for the 2014 shape
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Doesn't seem like it is massively more i.e. an extra £1300 for the SZ4 trim bearing in mind it the facelift model, gives you the manual gearbox you want and presumably choice of colour?

In fact as they are trying to offload old stock if you shop around other dealers further afield maybe you could find a better deal on an old shape as it seems they are only knocking about 10% off the price to sell you a pre-facelift version?
 
For your needs, a petrol manual is certainly the way to go. Have you considered waiting for the 2014 model? I don't see the point in shelling out £1000's for a car which will be out of date in a couple of months and is identical to a 3 year older model save for the reg plate. That said, Swift facelifts/updates have never been that dramatic!

Price/choice wise, if you look on autotrader there are plenty of 13/63-reg manual petrol SZ3s between £8890-9500 with less than 100miles on the clock and a few 13 reg 3/5dr SZ4s with less than 3000 miles for <£10k. It's worth travelling to save yourself a few ££ as the car will be covered by manufacturers warranty so you'll be able to make warranty claims and get it serviced at any Suzuki garage.
 
For town driving, auto all the way, a god-sent in traffic. You might find it totally dismal with a tiny little engine though, test drive it, only you can decide that.
 
pepsilol said:
As a first car it must be manual.

First learn to drive properly in a manual then you can switch to auto.
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I did figure this should be the case. I'm also now tempted to just get the 2014 model since I have found prices for a manual petrol SZ4 for around £12,200 including metallic paint and extras. However, this would bring me to another question. I can find a deal on the Sprint Sport for £200 less than the SZ4 due to the metallic paint coming as standard.

The Sport has almost identical features to the SZ4, but has a 1.6 engine, 17" alloy wheels (16" on the SZ4) and minor cosmetic changes. Reviews seem to say it handles a lot better than the standard Swift with a more comfortable ride, but the downside would be the higher running costs; roughly £200 more this year for insurance over the SZ4, £140 per year road tax compared to £30 for the standard Swift.
 
I love autos. I would not touch one on a small engine. Get the manual.

Alternatively get something else, surely you can do better for 12k?
 
Well for 12k, I ideally wanted to get a new or at least as close to new as possible and the Swift seemed to give the best compromise of performance and price for the budget. I had other cars considered in a similar size such as the Hyundai i20 and the Fiesta Zetec. The i20 felt sluggish to drive for the same price as the Swift and the Fiesta was offering a lot less features and would still come to around £13k.

I'd really prefer to keep under 12k for my budget. Obviously if there are any recommendations for a new or almost new car for that price I would be open to it. The only main requirement is that it has to be 5-door. Anything else is fair game.
 
As said keep it to a manual till you've got some experience. The other option could be a smaller VAG car with a dsg. A fabia/Ibiza/polo both come in a 1.2 or 1.4 even with the tsi engines depending on insurance.

If it was me id have a look at the Ibiza 1.4 toca. Comes with a lot of kit standard and Is cheap to insure. Currently Seat are doing an offer for the above at £9,995.

http://www.seat.co.uk/content/uk/brand/en/models/special-offers/new-cars/ibiza-sc.html

I think Skoda are also doing a similar deal on the Fabia somewhere.
 
The new astra is a better car than the ford for me, how the interior of a new car can be worse than the one it replaces is beyond me, but that's what they've managed with it - along with ruining the steering.

Not sure how the 2014 car will affect prices ( though that's probably old enough that it won't matter)

Plus it sounds like the op wants something a little bit smaller

I think the swift is fine if it has to be new or near as - though the revised fiesta is very impressive with the right engine
 
Pretty horrible inside but if you really can get one for 8.5k then it'd be hard to look by that as there is fundamentally little "wrong" with them as a little runabout. I certainly can't see that the ford or Suzuki are worth 3-4k+ more
 
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Take a look at HonestJohn.co.uk you'll find lots of good reviews of the cars you are looking for. The Swift is a good car and there are many smaller engined, petrol, manual versions of it for sale.

Only buy new if you are going to keep it for a long time, It will depreciate hugely as soon as you hold the key. I for one can't keep a car for much more than a year, then I get bored. Nearly new would be good especially pre registered cars that have done under 1000 miles (such as ex demo cars).

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif.../1/advert-type/standard-listing?logcode=ucnnp

Andi.
 
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