Be Excellent To Each Other

Owing to emerging circumstances it appears that I may soon need a car. Funnily enough, despite having a licence and having driven since I was 17, I've never bought a car for myself.

Where is a good place to buy a car from? I'm not in the market for anything new, nor do I want a shit banger that'll die on me after 10 minutes. Budget-wise I could go to about £2000. What should I be looking for? Pitfalls? etc?

All knowledge gratefully imbibed

911.

You can't go wrong with them.

Serious mode, pick up a VW golf. Or a Honda summat.

Hmm, I've bought a few cars from people I know, and bought my most recent one from a dealer.
If you buy from a dealer, then you're going to pay more, but (theoretically), you'll get something that works and you've got some comeback if it all goes to shit a few months down the line. If you buy private, it's going to be cheaper, but if anything goes wrong, you're fucked, but you might get lucky (I realise I'm probably not telling you anything you don't know here).

Like anything else you want to buy, there are a few websites that collect together cars for sale (both private and dealer), so I guess your best bet would be to look for one of those and see what you can get for your money. Ideally, you should probably take someone with you that knows a bit about cars (I think the AA (and presumably the RAC, whatever) will do this for you), so you can see whether it's shit or not, but I don't usually bother (although I know nothing about cars other than how to drive them).

I highly recommend you don't buy from a friend, as it can really strain your friendship when you try to get it MOT'd a few months later only to be told you'd be better off scrapping it.

Oh God, can we not mention Corsas in this thread?

Something like this is probably what you want.

Key things to pay attention to in the current climate are a low engine size (less than 1.6 really). If you're not really sure what you're doing I'd buy from a dealer so that you have some protection if you buy a lemon. Do a search on autotrader.co.uk and post links here, I'm sure there are people here clued up enough to help. I'm not really one of 'em, my track record with buying cars stinks to high heaven.

Yo.

Thanks gaz.

Please note, I do not want a land rover

You want one of these:



For two grand you're probably better off buying private - the mark-up on dealers' cars means you're getting little for your money at that level. And a 3 month warranty isn't really worth the step-down in terms of the quality of car you can buy at that price tag from a dealer.

I'd echo some of the comments above - less than 1.6 engine size as you're going to get extra-bilked soon on the road tax, and get a hatchback (incredibly practical as with the back seats down some of them have almost as much capacity as some of the swanky estate cars). Buy Japanese or German. Do not buy Ford or French.

That generation of Fiesta was very nice though, the one Gaz linked. It was also sold at the time as the Mazda 121 which may allow you to find a bargain.

Mr Chris brings up a good point about Japanese, how about...

http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/ww ... x_mileage=

I got a Corsa for free. 1.2 4-cylinder. It works OK most of the time.

Buy my Seat Ibiza 1.4s for £1999.99.

Sorted.

id go Honda Civic or Vauxhall Astra

avoid Fraud (Ford)

Looks nice, but £84k miles is a *lot*. I'll have a look around auto-trader then

84k miles is absolutely nothing to a Civic.

Given you'll be looking at 10 year old cars, you can't really expect much less on average since even then that's only 2/3rds the average.

There were another 3000 Civics within 200 miles of me, I suspect you'll be ok

It isn't.

Other than that, if that's all the space you need, that's very nice looking.

Not for a Honda engine it isn't. Honda engines (and in fact, most Jap engines) will go forever as long as you look after them right.

Well I won't be using it to move house anytime soon, and I've bought all the large stuff I need for DIY. As long as it's decent and reliable, it'd do me.

Racist

I'd also like to mention just how utterly awesome Mrs A's new Golf is. It;s the Bluemotion engine, and on a trip to Cheltenham and back (A34, A40, town) it managed an average of 63mpg, which is winsauce. And, if you boot it, it can shift some.

Might wish to consider a golf TDI, or the slight quicker Golf TDredI (the I is red). Well built, bags of room.

Just a warning that the autotrader links contain your postcodes, so you might want to edit them. Unless you used someone else's postcode.

if anyone on this forum was really hell bent on getting my address, they could do so easily

I'm still looking chaps, thanks for suggestions so far.

whois pts.com!

Thanks myp, that's helpful

Bluemotion isn't just the engine; it's a bit more aerodynamically slippery and the tyres just look odd, so presumably they're a carefully engineered low friction tread pattern and possibly a less sticky compound too. I imagine there's quite a lot of weight-saving gone on, too - drums on the rear instead of discs will save a few pounds, f'rinstance.

I keep thinking I should change car. I'm being tempted by the Vauxhall VXR8, which in no sane sense can I afford, although it'd "save" me 7p/litre by being runnable on standard unleaded. Why did I have to pick such a stupid obsession?

Rear has disc brakes. Tyres are standard it appears.

Hm. The one that parks at work has drums and a very peculiar tyre pattern. Weird.

"2.5 turbo diesel"
/me runs very far away.

I'll have a look when I get home. I'm curious now as well.

Wait! You said Golf Bluemotion! Whoops, it's a Polo Bluemotion at work.

I think you should buy a Porsche.

You'd probably drive it like a hoon though (I would), which means any savings would soon be rendered null and void by the engine drinking fuel like a Scotsman at a lock-in.

It seems like I'm going to have to top up the oil level in my Celica every 1,000 miles or so - it's gone from MAX to just below MIN in 956 miles. I'm assured this is normal for the Celica - my model's year did have an oil consumption problem but it's apparently much worse than 1 litre every 1,000 miles.

It's the Canary Wharf motor expo this week. I've already picked out my new car - now I just need £60k.

The new 911?

*Spit*

The 2008 Corvette C6 Convertible.

There's no such thing as a "low friction" tyre. There is Low Rolling Resistance. These days it means more silica used in the tread and a more flexible side wall.
They tend to have good braking performance but wear out faster. Almost all new cars are supplied with LRR tyres as standard, as it's a bit part of the CO2 figure.

Drums instead of discs on the rear of the bluemotion? That wouldn't surprise me, the Honda insight also has drums (alloy ones!), another benefit being that the brake shoes back off properly (with discs it's difficult to stop the pads dragging all the time).

Noice. Although I'd go for the Z06 personally, same (manufacturer quoted) MPG figures, more POWERRRR.

I'd say Civic too - certainly I love my triangular-exhaust-ftw Civic Type-S. 1.8L engine and yet I'm certain it's no less economical than the 1.2 Ford Fiesta curtesy car I'm currently driving.

Which brings me to the down point - the FOUR fucking recalls the bastard thing has had. This week, it's the windscreen mouldings being replaced and the roof is being resprayed as the grease monkeys at the dealership found rust forming on it. It's not hard to tell that whilst the car was desigined in Japan, it was built in Swindon.

Are they actually recalls, or warranty repairs?

Recalls. First it was the fuel filler cap, which opens using a lever under the dash. Apparentely it wasn't opening on some cars (I never had a problem but was told it needed to be replaced anyway). Then the handbrake needed to be replaced (this one actually got reported on BBC News as people were finding their Civcs rolling away as the handbrake released itself). Then the driver's side door locking mechanism, which has particularly pissed me off as there was nothing wrong with mine before the recall and now there is. It's got to go in again now to get checked out.

At the moment, as I mentioned before, it's the windscreen mouldings. Apparentely the top moulding isn't fitted right, and has started to cause corrosion on the roof, requiring a respray. At least I suppose Honda are taking responsibilty for their fuckups - I haven't actually had to pay a penny for any of this, it's just the inconvenience that is a pain.

Yeah I've had 2 recalls for the Corsa but both were dealt with very well and they give you a certificate with a dealer stamp on to say it's been done.

Here's another relevant question: When you say 'Right, I'll buy this car then'. What paperwork is involved?

Just filling in your details on the V5 so they can register change of ownership with the DVLA, I believe. You'll also need insurance to drive it away.

You and the seller fill in the relevant bits on the "logbook" (V5 form) and post it off.

Also, use this service: http://www.onesoon.co.uk/textcheck/
It's very detailed, and is a small cost to pay when thinking about a £2k car.

How do I get insurance to drive a car I don't own yet? Isn't insurance largely based on the model?

It's largely based on the actual car.
You phone them and tell them the model and everything when you've decided you're buying it. You don't need the certificate to drive, so it normally just takes 20 minutes on the phone.

Generally you would decide on the car, find a good insurance quote, then buy the car, then phone the insurance company back and say "I bought it!".

Yep. I did my cars this way although I've always worked through a broker before now. Cost more money but friendly efficient and local service.

Sadly my broker has sold his car insurance business to a company 50 miles away so fuck that for a game of soldiers. I'm not paying a premium for someone who isn't a few doors away. So I've had to dip my toe into the world of online quotes.

Gocompare.com is interesting. It lists one company as being 100 quid cheaper than everyone else with a full set of features. Seems too good to be true. Hmmmm.