OMO: First car £1500 budget

Just a quick one I hope.
My brother has recently passed his test and is 21. He needs to get a first car and has £1500 to spend on a car. He's been looking at a 2004 panda dynamic 1.2 for £1495 as it is insurance group 1 apparently and that comes in at £1800 for the insurance. He can afford just about by paying the insurance monthly but I wondered if the Org had any advice of cheaper/older cars that would be good. or advice on insurance or something. It needs to be reliable though as he will drive from Chester to Glasgow every other month.

any thoughts welcome

hi
in my experience its not always the cars with the lowest insurance groups give best value when it comes to insurance and sometimes its just the case of looking around at different insurers with different cars to see which is best
good luck

[Fallout]

As above. If every new driver is getting a panda because it's group 1, then there will be lots of panda's crashed by reckless 17 y/os and therefore price will be higher than perhaps an even higher group car. Insurance is a joke!

I can't really advise any further, except to say perhaps look at proper old man cars. The cheapest insurance I've ever had is on my Passat Saloon, at £250. Old man car. Seems to help.

[jambo]

I passed my car test less than a year ago and bought a Skoda Fabia 1.9 SDI Diesel.

The good:
Arrives in that budget, the 1.2 petrol, is cheapest to insure, followed by the 1.9 SDI or 1.4 petrol.
Compact, easy to drive, fair amount of space inside.

The Bad:
Instrument backlight on the speedo had gone (didn't notice when I bought it as it was strong daylight) and it's currently sitting in the Skoda dealership having a little sulk as the imobiliser & key have stopped talking. That'll be a new part custom ordered from the factory then.

Jambo

Check out this review site, it will pick up on any common issues with any of the cars you can think of, my suggestion would be a newish shape Fiesta, maybe a Civic or perhaps a 306 Dturbo if you are wanting some fuel economy and cheap parts etc.

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/

Looks like the 1.2 dynamic has issues with a lot of things failing as well as a recall in 2009 for an ECU update.

[L3nny]

Why do you keep putting OMO in all your thread titles?

Another one for the diesel 306. I have had 3 of them, excellent cars and very cheap to insure.

People will tell you Peugeots are crap and you should buy a VW but that's just to make them feel better about paying over the odds for a very average car.

Originally Posted by L3nny

Why do you keep putting OMO in all your thread titles?

Yeah sorry about that, started off as an idea of how to designate a group question of (oh mighty org) away from the "look at this picture of a cat" or "here's another numpty falling off a bike" not sure its working so perhaps redundant.

[L3nny]

haha, ok, good idea, although I like pictures of cats.



See!

Anyway, tell him to get a 306, like this one.

He'll never pull any birds in a Fiat Panda

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2000-PEUGE...#ht_715wt_1270

Originally Posted by Brettus

Yeah sorry about that, started off as an idea of how to designate a group question of (oh mighty org) away from the "look at this picture of a cat" or "here's another numpty falling off a bike" not sure its working so perhaps redundant.

You need a thread explaining the threads, ha ha

Anyway, I passed by car licence test back in 2002, so, been driving for over 10 years.

My first car was a 1.4ltr Rover 414SLi, now, was worth about £400 and was £1000 a year to insure!

What I would say is get something "undesirable" if possible as the insurance in cheaper.

My last car was an Alfa Romeo 156 1.9JTD. Which was a Skoda Octavia with a different body-shell pretty much.

The Skoda was about £500 a year cheaper for me to insure by comparison to the Alfa because people are more likely to try to steal the Alfa apparently.

The other point comes down to how many miles your brother is going to do. If it is less than about 10k per year a petrol would be better for him fuel cost wise.

Also, the smaller the engine, generally, the better as the less power you have the cheaper the insurance.

Basically, get something old, cheap, under-powered and that no-one wants and he'll be fine.

Sucks being a new driver/rider...

[sniff]

I bought the wife a 1.4 Renault Clio for her first car after passing her test. Insurance is £1,800 but she's 38 and live in Dagenham. Car is really nice and only cost me £1,300 Few marks that will come out when I get to T-Cut it.

I checked the new place we are moving to later in the year(hopefully) and TPTF is hell of a lot cheaper. Even my bike insurance is up in Oct/Nov and FC is only £97!!! Can't wait to move now.