First car advice.

Kristoph

Kristoph

Kristoph

Soldato
Joined
11 May 2007
Posts
8,303
Hi,

I'm a little older than some who have just passed their test (24 to be exact) and I'm looking for something cheap'ish to run.

My budget is up to £1,500 for the car and up to £1,000 for insurance.

My quotes are in the £800-950 region for a 1.6 Focus Zetec.

Cars I've considered so far include;

Seat Ibizas 1.4/1.6's.
Peugeot 206's, although not I've not heard much praise apart from the 2.0HDI.
Ford Focus (01/02 plate) 1.6 Zetec/LX/Ghia.
I've been looking at MG ZR 1.4 105's but insurance is a little high and it'll probably break down within 6 months.

I'm not really interested in the smaller 106's, Saxos etc. I'm planning on sticking mountain bikes on the back and maybe one inside.

Mileage wise, I won't be doing a lot. 6 mile round trip per weekday, maybe 80-150 miles every other weekend.

Can anyone recommend anything? I feel like I'm being too fussy for the price range. It'll probably only get kept for a couple years anyway.
 
Mileage wise on a 11-12 year old car, are we talking 100-140k? I shouldn't really be too worried if I'm only going to be sticking 15k on top should I?
 
Admiral seems to be coming up cheapest for me, although I'm now wondering if the quote appearing in the comparison sites is this 10 month NCB accelerator..

I've just done a quote through Admirals website and it's a little more expensive. 10 months NCB accel. quote £859 on a 1.6 Zetec. Or 12 months for £986.

edit; this is with my mum as a named driver & a low risk postcode. I have the option of a garage, driveway or parking on the street. Garage ADDS £200 to the quote, driveway adds £15, street is cheapest.
 
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Nothing jumps out about it, they're reliable enough cars and you'll get your bikes in the back with the seats down. Do you want to buy from a dealer? That's probably on the limit of how cheaply you'll find any focus with some form of comeback on it but if you were buying privately you'd get a substantially newer car for £1k.

Not saying you should or shouldn't it's completely up to you, just a query really

*edit have had another look and i think even from trade you should be aiming for a car about 3 years newer for your grand*
 
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I'll happily go private, there just doesn't seem to be much in my price range in the area (60 mile radius). I'm going to keep on looking today.
 
I passed at 24 and also got a 1.6 focus, ended up paying £1,230 for the insurance through admiral, however this did drop to £725 once I hit my first year's no claims. I used their 10 month accelerator policy.

My car had 117k when I got it and 135k when I got rid, a few bits went wrong but parts are obscenely cheap and if you can operate a hammer you can pretty much fix a focus.

Great first car, lovely chassis, comfortable, decent equipment level for a 'first car' on the zetec I had...
 
I would recommend a focus too. I had the Focus Silver edition 2002. It came with heated leather seats too. Excellent car and was the first one I felt comfortable trying to fix when the odd thing went wrong with it.

I really enjoyed this car.
 
If you do settle on a Focus, ask on here what you should look out for when going to buy it.


-Generic suggestions..

When was the cambelt changed? and is it due a change?
Same goes for clutch
Check the tyres are all legal, matching pairs are good too
Rust spots of the specific car
 
Check out a Seat Toledo. When I was running insurance quotes for the missus, apart from a Citroen C1 it came out as the cheapest option.

Something like this, http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...ch/true/postcode/e149lq/radius/1501?logcode=p

More power and a better spec than any Mk1 1.6 Focus. It's based on the MK4 Golf platform which is meant to be less capable than the Mk1 Focus platform though. I imagine repair costs will be similar between the two.
 
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Malc said:
Check out a Seat Toledo. When I was running insurance quotes for the missus, apart from a Citroen C1 it came out as the cheapest option.

Something like this, http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...ch/true/postcode/e149lq/radius/1501?logcode=p

More power and a better spec than any Mk1 1.6 Focus. It's based on the MK4 Golf platform which is meant to be less capable than the Mk1 Focus platform though. I imagine repair costs will be similar between the two.
Click to expand...

The Toledo is another good example of a car to buy if the insurance makes sense, but you're a bit wide of the mark r.e power - whilst technically it is slightly more powerful than the 1.6 focus you'd never notice a difference. I do quite like the na 1.8 20v as an engine though, a fairly honest little thing.
 
I was looking at different cars too recently, also getting the cheapest quotes from admiral from around £830 for something small like polo 1.4 to £920 for golf cl 1.6, also done silly quote on my brothers mk3 golf gti 16v @ £1044. all tpft.
ended going with peaguot 306 meridian 1.6, cost me £400 for car and went with carol nash for insurance, cost me £876 fully comp.
 
Those are all pretty crazily priced for a boggo focus. You may need to just hold on a bit or look in other places. I wouldn't pay any more than 1k for any of those tbh
 
I had a Corsa for my first year then bought a Focus last year, the gap between the way the two drive is quite large, I would never have a Corsa again, I've only got a 1.6 petrol Focus but it's lovely.

The Focus I bought was 2001, had 110k miles on the clock, FSH and I got it for £1100. It had the little extras like alloys, aircon, heated windscreen, electric mirrors.

Yes, every other car you seem to see on British roads is a Focus but now I understand why.
 
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