Black box quotes were coming in between £50 to £150 cheaper annually. Perhaps in some extreme cases £200. On a 1.5k quote this was. We decided against it after I read a lot of the terms on them. They are deliberately completely open to the insurance companies to abuse.
Spec my 17 yo son his first car.
- Thread starter Barry Smalley
- Start date
My parents refused to let me get one never mind how much money it saved, they said they'd cover the difference if needed for exactly those reasons.
This looks like a decent example of a Smart Fortwo in your price range, its a 2009 MKII turbo 84bhp version from a dealer with 65,300 miles full 12 months MOT, Alloy wheels, panoramic sunroof. Price £2995.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-de...transmission=Automatic&year-from=2007&fromsra
Very similar to the one I owned but mine was a 2007.
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-de...transmission=Automatic&year-from=2007&fromsra
Very similar to the one I owned but mine was a 2007.
Deleted User 298457
Deleted User 298457
E90 M3
Several people I work with have quickly changed from their ~1.0L smaller first car when for instance one was giving his parents a lift and it dropped below 30MPH going up a hill with his foot to the floor.
Dunno what a Pulsar would be like at 3K and insurance situation as a first car is very hit and miss. Decent range of features on the Tekna trim and less use of cheap scratchy hard plastics than the Qashqai which it basically is minus the suspension lift. Seats are comfortable. But engines are a bit weird - not really what you'd expect for fuel economy or performance compared to similar litreage on other similar cars and while the 1.5 gets good economy it is *diesel* :s
Last edited:
Never had that problem with my 2007 Smart Fortwo 84bhp. Used to go up a hill every time I drove it and it didn’t struggle. I was the only person in the car mind you.
Soldato
- Joined
- 16 Aug 2009
- Posts
- 8,306
My first was a cheap as chips metro covered in rust but it ran. Larger cars yeah got my hands on my mothers cortina 2.0 didn't take long to write that off the trip in the back of an ambulance was interesting. Too much power...One think i'd suggest is not fixating on popular small cars, you might get some pleasant results looking at slightly larger cars. Insurers are expecting first time drivers to be in fiestas, clios, swifts, etc and the prices will reflect this.
Throw him into a mondeo estate
Maybe I'm a boring person but I've never had a problem with "too much power", many parents panic about it. (Only exception to that was getting to have a go on some variant of Dodge soon after passing my test where I lacked the experience to feather the power in at the time and had to resort to using higher gears to prevent the back coming out LOL).
Last edited:
I should emphasise I mean larger as in size, not necessarily engine power. My civic 1.4 has a bigger footprint but the acceleration is lol.
Last edited:
Your opinion is wrong tho lol
That's your opinion lol
I really don't know what level of self flagellation or complete lack of ambition one enjoys to even consider owning one of those, let alone actually paying real money for one.
The auto manual abomination is so utterly woeful, not to mention being dangerous if one needs to pull out from a junction in less than 30 seconds.
Every single one on the road needs to be turned back into tin cans and the plastic products from whence they first came.
Also, they have terrible undertrays.
Trust me here, I've driven and worked on more of them than you can wet dream about.
They kind of make sense if you live on a small to medium sized island where the road network is optimised around that kind of thing, etc. I certainly wouldn't want to be spending much time in one on UK roads. I certainly wouldn't want to be driving the ones with a real world 0-60 in excess of 25 seconds... though some are sub 10.
The 84 bhp version is 0-60 in 10.6 seconds. The 71 bhp is 12.9 seconds and the diesel 19.2 seconds. I suggested the turbo 84 bhp version. It’s a city car much like any other, it’s not a hot hatch. There is a market for them.
Soldato
- Joined
- 25 May 2008
- Posts
- 4,246
- Location
- North Wales
They really are hateful things, they're no good outside of cities as they're just too small and if you're in a city well then you should probably be using public transport and a bike and not a car..
It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so badly built with a terrible transmission. And it's not just a few people on here, they're well renowned for being terrible.
For clarity i love small cars, my favourite car i've owned was a MK1 Toyota Yaris and i've got a Suzki swift sport currently, i just dislike bad small cars.
Last edited:
I can see the appeal for somewhere like Bermuda but personally I hate small cars, if it wasn't for the environment side I'd drive everywhere in my pickup.
The transmission is ok. It’s manually automated so it feels like the gears are being changed manually. No different from if you were manually changing gears but it does it for you. You can manually change gears if you want anyway just have to push the gear stick up or down.
You can hate them if you want but there’s a lot of people who own them and like them. I looked past the transmission and for me it was a decent car.
as well buying me a pretty terrible chevette when i passed my test my dad (RIP) insured me on his bmw 732i when i was 17, as you can imagine great fun was had in it. used to put £20 fuel in it and it would last all night driving around "racing" lol.
Yeah but can you get a decent one in his £3000 budget?