Small car, tight budget

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
Joined
17 Feb 2006
Posts
29,265
Location
Cornwall
Trying to get myself a car in the next few days.

Budget is £2k, at a push £2.5k but only for something special :p

Focusing on low running costs, reliability and good MPG. Everything else a bonus. Have been told to look at 02- Fiestas and Yaris cars, possibly Fabias too.

Also was told to avoid anything above 50k miles, which I'm not so sure about. Most cars in my price range have done more like 100k.

Am probably going to have to compromise on that budget, but ultimately want something that isn't going to cost me a fortune in repair bills to keep it on the road.

Cars are really not my speciality; all advise gratefully received. Ta!
 
How many miles do you do a year?
Ignore the 50,000 miles limit. You won't find a lot worth having at your price range.
 
For that budget have a look at corsa, fiesta, 206, polo. For your price range you can pick one up with under 60k miles
 
I sold my mate a Honda Jazz year 2006 1.4 i think he loves it it does 50mpg plus and has loads of space. Ok not a lot of street cred but meh
 
It's hard to see how you could go wrong with a long wheelbase Mercedes S600 - go for the 2003 facelift model because the revised engine adds twin turbo to the existing V12.
 
Regy53 said:
I sold my mate a Honda Jazz year 2006 1.4 i think he loves it it does 50mpg plus and has loads of space. Ok not a lot of street cred but meh
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Epic fail. He will get laughed at in a j1zz. I hav never seen anyone under 70 driving one :p
 
Have driven 206s at work, hate them :p Their Partner vans are nice tho!

As for petrol/diesel I don't think there's any real advantage for me in buying a diesel. Probably won't do enough miles to see any benefit. The tax of £30 a year is appealing tho :p But from what I read when they go wrong they're a lot more expensive to fix? Not even sure if that's worth considering or if I'm over-thinking this :p

Anyway, Fiesta 1.25 petrol sounds good. Anything to avoid?

As for Corsas I hear the 2006- model is awesome, but that's £3000+ and out of my price range. I read that anything VW tends to be overpriced and that they aren't cheap to fix/service compared to other cars?

I'll take a look at the Jazz, it wasn't on my radar yet.
 
[TW]Fox;27030170 said:
It's hard to see how you could go wrong with a long wheelbase Mercedes S600 - go for the 2003 facelift model because the revised engine adds twin turbo to the existing V12.
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I am not a bad enough dude for this car :p
 
Definitely look at those Fiestas linked above, i ran a £500 one as a beater for a year while my job situation was uncertain, brilliant little car for the money, quite nippy, handled great for it's power.
 
Nothing wrong with the corsa or the 206. I'm on my second corsa now and I have nothing but good things to say about them (touch wood). I had the old shape (51 plate) and and now have the newer shape (57 plate). We had a 206 and a 306 in the family and both did not let us down.

Any used car can turn out to be a shed, have to look carefully to find a good example. Choose wisely and ignore the stereotypical nonsense.
 
Check out the Clio III 1.5 dCi. Peanuts to run and the engine is reliable. If you get the 86bhp version tax should be £30. In my 106bhp version I get 55mpg without trying. Mine's hit 90.000 miles today at 9 years old. I've owned it for half of that and the only trouble I've had has been one faulty calliper and replaced the indicator stalk. Otherwise usual consumables. I'd advise against the 16 inch Canasta alloys, unusual tyre size = relatively expensive tyres (70 for Kumhos and 100+ for premiums).

At this price point a good service history is the most important thing.
 
I wouldn't recommend a 206, I have the GTI so the trim is better than most other 206 models and even then it isn't anything to write home about. The fake elephant stuff is just dire as well, the seats aren't too bad, not particularly supportive when cornering though. One thing I would say and which pretty much everybody knows is the driving position if you have reasonably sized feet is awful, the pedals are close together and I'd imagine anyone with bigger feet than mine (9) would struggle.

It constantly throws electrical wobblies too. I get the low oil warning message on a weekly basis, sometimes it tells me there's a problem with the ABS, sometimes the remote locking unlocks all doors apart from the driver side and other times it works fine, I've replaced 5 bulbs in the past 3 months... This is on the multiplexed version, the older ones are unbelievably even less reliable apparently. Wouldn't recommend a 206 to anybody. :p

I'd go with the Jazz or Fiesta myself. Probably leaning more toward the Jazz because I'm boring.
 
It'd be Polo all the way for me if I could find one for the budget.

Miles better than a Fiesta or a Clio. We've got one that's done 120,000 in about 6 years. Needed nothing but a new clutch / consumables and servicing. That's with her driving it at 30mph over speed bumps too.
 
Nothing wrong with a 206? obviously never owned one then, stupidly unreliable, lots of niggly faults to drive you up the wall.

My bet would be Yaris Or Fiesta. I would go the next size up and look at Focus,Leon,Corolla, etc etc beter value for money.
 
ADT said:
Nothing wrong with the corsa or the 206.
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There's everything wrong with the 206. It's probably one of the worst small hatchbacks to be released since the late 90s. It's a truly horrible car to drive with a pretty awful reliability reputation. There's absolutely no reason to buy one over any of its competition.

The Corsa is a bit crap compared to its competition but not offensively so.


Fiesta is the best shout IMO.
 
have to say i have had a a few 206's in my time. 1.1 , 1.6 and a 2.0 gti didnt have issues with any of them, they are actually quite reliable cars.
 
I'd say a Fiesta 1.25 or 1.4 or a Toyota Yaris. I picked up my 2002 yaris for £2100 a couple of years ago and it's cost me a set of tyres (£200ish), front brakes (£30) and a few oil changes over the last almost 40,000 miles, almost as cheap as walking.

Please avoid the 206 or a corsa, the 206 because it's just a truly terrible car and the corsa isn't a bad car per se by it's really not a good one either and when genuinely good cars are available for the same money you'd surely be mad to buy either of those.
 
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