Spec me a car around £2k, dare I say it; mondeo?

Soldato
Joined
28 Sep 2004
Posts
8,540
G'day there.

This thread is a bit premature because I'm not selling 'til summer but I'm just having a good old think about it now. Basically I was spoilt at 17 with an 03 fiesta zetec 1.4 that's only got about 34000 miles on the clock, good car, but now I need to sell up to 'save money'.

Here's where I'm not sure, I may get ~£3500-3800 for the fiesta but my insurance renewal would only be around £750 with 2 years NCB.

I'm thinking of Mondeo / A3 / C-Class merc / 3 series; all around £2000 or a little less, with the insurance of around £950. Seen an alright audi a3 1.8l sport 1999 with 112k on the clock for £1850 with insurance of £950.

If I had say £3600 from selling the fez, the plan is to have at least over £500 left after paying for the new car, tax and insurance to pay my parents back to lower my debt to them.

But economically would I actually be saving money? Obviously the fiesta has more to depreciate, but road tax and fuel costs wise what do you reckon? I'll only be doing around 5,000 miles a year now but would be keeping it for another 2-3 years.
 
A bigger car will cost more in petrol plus car tax is going up a lot next year for bigger cars (yours wont go up much at all)

Do you need a bigger/faster car? Do you even want one or do you want to change as everyone else seems to?
 
I don't *need* a bigger car no, and am fond of my fez, but I feel that money-wise it would be a sound investment to sell now while my money's tight (the same car as mine, trim and all, but with 20,000 more miles is selling for £4,400 on the forecourts.)

I'd save some money (depending on fuel economy) and come out with a good reasonable sized car for the next few years while I'm still a student and won't need a daily commuter until I see how things pan out; fuel and job wise without losing too much money due to having a lower value car. Hope my reasons sound concrete.

It's good having 2 years NCB now. :)
 
Doing 5k a year nothing costs much when running a car bar insurance - I'm doing 5k a year at the moment and I pay less than 70 quid a month for petrol and thats pretty much my only expense.
 
With that in mind my main argument is that it would be best to sell my fiesta now while I can demand a higher price, put my money saved away for 2 years however little.

Buy the £2k A3 (top one - decent?)/Mondeo etc, enjoy the car with little more expenditure, it'll depreciate less, and I can make my mind up again in 2-3 years time for a proper commuter.

Anyone with any experience of A3's? Anyone who can recommend any other car in the price region I may have neglected. :)
 
I thought they would be? Local garage has a few 51 plate mondeos for £2.4/5 so private..

Most sub £2k stuff, especially Audi A3's, BMW 3 series etc as per the OP's request is going to be X plate or older. 51 plate Mondeos are, V6 aside, not badly affected.
 
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