First car for 18yo - £5K Budget

[Slackworth]

The market for cheap cars for new drivers has become significantly harder with the prices of used cars in general increasing - unfortunately cars which are previously worth £1.5-2K are currently much closer to £3K now so what you get for your money definitely isn't as good and you've got no "higher value" trade in either to offset the extra which is frustrating.

We looked at a few options when we got Sam's in March:

Ford Fiesta
Vauxhall Corsa
Suzuki Swift
Mini One/Cooper (not a lot between them cost and insurance wise)
Citroen DS3

Insurance wise very dependant on address but we didn't find a huge amount of difference between any of these - around £150-200 from cheapest to worst. Only snag was it was very company dependant on who could insure each car - Direct Line are who we insure Sam's Mini with but yet on the DS3 which was his 2nd option, they were around £700 more than another company to insure

With a slightly higher budget, you might just be able to push something like a VW Up! which is supposedly one of the cheapest cars to insure.

 

[Robzere31]

Not sure what they are like to insure as an 18 year old, but the wife has had a 1.2tsi Fabia for 7 years now & has been utterly reliable.
Think we paid 6k for it when it was 3 years old.

I don't drive it much these days but when I do its surprisingly good fun,

 

[radderfire]

Honda Jazz

 

[Cyber-Mav]

aygo, c1 or 107

 

[Dr House]

Fabia or fiesta.

i have had both and been pleased with them both

 

[grudas]

Suzuki swift. They’ve seem to have mostly missed the high insurance bull.

 

[MissChief]

Thought about going for a classic car? Classic policies are usually very cheap.

 

[Mason-]

Aviod like the plague anything French or Italian.
Toyota, Hyundai,Nissan, Kia, Honda & Mazda are a good shout.
As has been said, insurance will be a killer, so don't risk reliability costs.

My first car was a 59 plate Alfa Mito, bought in 2015 on 34k miles.

I still drive it today at 120k miles. Nothing major has gone wrong, just consumables.

 

[Housey]

My first car was a 59 plate Alfa Mito, bought in 2015 on 34k miles.

I still drive it today at 120k miles. Nothing major has gone wrong, just consumables.

But I heard the consumables were 5 engines, 4 gearboxes and 9 doors?

 

[Mason-]

But I heard the consumables were 5 engines, 4 gearboxes and 9 doors?

Nope still on the original clutch too lol. 2 Cambelt changes under my watch, 2 wheel bearings, pads, discs, usual service items. And that's it.