What's a decent first car for a 22 year old? [Updated]

MSTRBKR said:
Insurance is the big cost so avoid typical young person cars like corsas, clios, fiestas, golfs etc. They often cost more to insure as the statistics say they are involved in more incidents. Check out the insurance on a Volvo :p
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I've seen this type of thing posted a few times recently.
I used to work in insurance on projects, mainly finance IT, but i used to work alongside the claims/underwriters/actuaries and they never said there was a loading specifically for cars that young people preferred

Is there any substance to this, or is it purely the insurance group rating taking effect?
eg people seemingly just assume they are based on performance, but there is also weighting for repair costs when calculating the insurance group
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I've seen this type of thing posted a few times recently.
I used to work in insurance on projects, mainly finance IT, but i used to work alongside the claims/underwriters/actuaries and they never said there was a loading specifically for cars that young people preferred

Is there any substance to this, or is it purely the insurance group rating taking effect?
eg people seemingly just assume they are based on performance, but there is also weighting for repair costs when calculating the insurance group
Click to expand...

I don't think there is any special weighting for it, but cars are weighted according to real accident statistics, aren't they? And so cars that are driven by more risk prone drivers will tend to have higher costs? Without any data, who is to say?
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
You will always love and loath your first car

You love it because it changes your life, kind of like your first serious girlfirend ;)
You eventually loath it because you have the 1.1 and they make the same car in a GTi, or turbo or something. (Based on you saying you love cars)
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I loved and loved my first car. I wanted to buy it back but it disappeared off the radar, probably to the big scrapyard in the sky. :(

Was only a 54HP 2002 Polo but I miss it! Great fun to rag around everywhere making awesome 3 cylinder noises while still averaging 40MPG. First 100MPH (private road), first crash, first black ice scare, first crash, first J turn, etc. Good memories. :D
 
Mr Jack said:
I don't think there is any special weighting for it, but cars are weighted according to real accident statistics, aren't they? And so cars that are driven by more risk prone drivers will tend to have higher costs? Without any data, who is to say?
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Right.
So each insurer would have a different claims experience.

Luxury cars are more likely to be involved in claims than other marques as well. Although I suspect the incidents don't reflect the same stats, Ie you almost certainly going to claim on an expensive car, where as on a £500 runner you would just suck up a minor incident and get it fixed.

So there is no substitute for running lots of quotes. You ideally need to find an insurer that likes the look of you as a risk (based on age postcode etc), then you can find the cars that they look on sympathetically.
 
MrRockliffe said:
Circa £1400 here in Loughborough on a 1.2 engine (aiming for 60BHP ish)
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Thx. Not terribad

1st and 2nd years no claims makes a lot of diff, Assuming you can avoid the want for "more powaaaahhh"

At 20 I bought a Celica. Not fast by todays standards but back in its days it was relatively. It cost me £1132 to insure, I still remember it today. I think my salary pre tax was about £6k!
By the time I paid for the car, insurance, petrol, tax, servicing etc I was almost working for nothing. Within about 3 years it was about a 3rd of that price. (that price was with 2 years no claims as well)
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Right.
So each insurer would have a different claims experience.

Luxury cars are more likely to be involved in claims than other marques as well. Although I suspect the incidents don't reflect the same stats, Ie you almost certainly going to claim on an expensive car, where as on a £500 runner you would just suck up a minor incident and get it fixed.

So there is no substitute for running lots of quotes. You ideally need to find an insurer that likes the look of you as a risk (based on age postcode etc), then you can find the cars that they look on sympathetically.
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I think it's more "new driver's cars" damaging other cars and property that pumps the premiums up on them. As well as more being written off.

BMWs tend to have higher premiums as well since they seem to be involved in much more claims than the average.
 
I have managed to find a few nice cars for around 3K, which would give me enough money for insurance. I've compared quite a few cars now, and the car doesn't have much of an impact. Pretty much everything that's a 1.4 or less is around 1400
 
Nasher said:
I think it's more "new driver's cars" damaging other cars and property that pumps the premiums up on them. As well as more being written off.

BMWs tend to have higher premiums as well since they seem to be involved in much more claims than the average.
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I know you dont like BMWs but...
"Popular brands including Mercedes and BMW do not make the list because their claims data falls somewhere in the middle"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...y-cars-cause-more-accidents-insurers-say.html
 
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