what first cars are young people buying these days

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Tue 2 Jun 2015 23:00
what first cars are young people buying these days - matstro

Currently looking at used Corsa 1.2's for our daughter who has just passed her test at nearly 18.

With budget of around £1000 to £1200 there seems to be a glut of these cars and they dont seem to be selling. I'm missing something and dont know what it is!

Ideal starter cars, 10 yrs old, sub 100K miles, nothing really wrong with them when I look at them ( for a 10 yr old car) With all the youngsters passing their tests I thought these cars would sell quickly but they dont seem to.

So if the kids are not buying these what are they buying? newer cars? different cars to Corsas? Is a 10 yr old car too old for todays young drivers?!

Or maybe £1000 for a 54 plate Corsa 1.2 is too much money?

any thoughts?

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Tue 2 Jun 2015 23:16
what first cars are young people buying these days - RobJP

They're not buying anything these days - they're leasing.

Basically Vauxhall (and others) do them a cheap first-time lease. They know that when the lease is up, a customer is massively more likely to stay with the same manufacturer and take out a new lease. Customer for life.

VW are busy getting market share in the USA that way at present. Insanely cheap lease prices, in the hope of keeping customers long-term and as they upscale to more expensive cars

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Tue 2 Jun 2015 23:25
what first cars are young people buying these days - elekie&a/c doctor

If you are set on s/hand,there is nothing wrong with the corsa c model.Both my kids had them .They are easy to drive and cheap to fix.Plentyof s/hand spares for the inevitable knock and scrape.Just watch out for noisy timing chains and sludged up oil in the cambox cover.Avoid the 1.0 3 cylinder.Pricing looks about right,subject to condition.

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Tue 2 Jun 2015 23:30
what first cars are young people buying these days - matstro

yes that makes sense I did wonder. Are you talking about the VW Up for example as I see these advertised at around £60 a month....

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Wed 3 Jun 2015 11:54
what first cars are young people buying these days - daveyjp
A neighbour's son aged 20 has a very tidy looking 1.2 Corsa, purchased after his very tidy looking Punto was written off! Its a 51 reg and cost him £750.
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Wed 3 Jun 2015 13:03
what first cars are young people buying these days - slkfanboy

While interest rates are low leasing is a very attactive option and hides the huge amount of money you loosing too, so it does not feel so painful either.

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Wed 3 Jun 2015 13:07
what first cars are young people buying these days - Leif

What sort of yearly price are we talking for a city car lease? I reckon on £1,000 a year as the basic yearly purchase cost for a car, excluding servicing, tax etc.

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Wed 3 Jun 2015 13:58
what first cars are young people buying these days - RobJP

As an example, Fiat are doing the base 500 1.2 'pop' at £1000 deposit and £129 per month on a 3 year lease - though that is only for 6k miles a year, with 6p per mile overage. Not sure if servicing costs are included.

They also do a similar plan for young people whose insurance costs are insanely high. In that case it's £239 a month with £940 up front, insurance and servicing are included.

It's about upselling (hey, get a better equipped car for only £10 or £20 per month more), and also about keeping people in the brand once they come to the end of the lease. I've seen research somewhere which showed that people who lease from a particular brand are massively more likely to stick with the brand for the next lease than they would be if they owned the car.

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Wed 3 Jun 2015 21:46
what first cars are young people buying these days - daveyK_UK

Peugeots just add fuel is popular despite the extra cost on top of the advertised figures for younger drivers.

the dacia sandero is popular for 1st time cash buyers

used citroen C1 are a popular used choice for 1st time buyers, I have 2 friends who have purchased their children C1s.

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Wed 3 Jun 2015 22:07
what first cars are young people buying these days - Leif
Thanks. Looks like buying is cheaper in the long run, assuming cash purchase, but I can see the appeal, no huge payment, or interest to pay back, just a monthly cost.
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Wed 3 Jun 2015 23:49
what first cars are young people buying these days - drd63
Lets add to the leasing (or buying new) fact that you're not putting your inexperienced son or daughter into a car without the most up to date safety equipment. It never ceases to amaze me that parents buying cars for their kids would put them in something they probably wouldn't be happy to drive themselves!
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Thu 4 Jun 2015 10:29
what first cars are young people buying these days - Andrew-T
It never ceases to amaze me that parents buying cars for their kids would put them in something they probably wouldn't be happy to drive themselves!

The flipside of that argument is that (thinking) youngsters might drive an 'unsafe' car a bit more carefully than one they believe to be bombproof. Probably not, I agree, but maybe.

It's the same argument as the idea of replacing the steering-wheel airbag with a spike. :-)

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Thu 4 Jun 2015 01:24
what first cars are young people buying these days - Avant

James Ruppert has a piece on this in this week's Autocar ('Deals'). He goes for the Clio and Panda as well as the Fiesta and Corsa, with the SEAT Ibiza as a final wildcard.

I suppose the first two might be a good idea on the basis that the unreliable parts will already have given trouble and have been repaired by the time the cars are bangers.

The Citroen Saxo used to be popular with young drivers: I don't think the same can be said if its successor the C2 - the one that looks as if the designer of the front half met the designer of the back half at rather too late a stage in the process.

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Thu 4 Jun 2015 12:29
what first cars are young people buying these days - catsdad
The trouble with new cars is they show the knocks that a new young driver is likely to incur. This will be costly when you return the car and damage repair is charged. I take the point about safety but there are plenty of safe cars at well under new price. Our son bought an 18 month old 40,000 mile Corsa for £5.5k three years ago and it's been reliable and cheap to run. I realise that this is still a lot to find for a car but before that he had a Skoda Felicia bought from within the family for £750. I wasn't unduly concerned about the safety of that old car as it was sound and slow with good tyres, brakes etc. Sure it was not going to be five star rated but at his age I was driving a Morris 1100 with daylight through the floor and pop-riveted sills. Looking back it was not at all safe but in its day it was not unusual. In a few years time people will be aghast that we actually let human beings drive at all!
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Thu 4 Jun 2015 17:18
what first cars are young people buying these days - matstro

looking up crash test results can be interesting! for example the Chevrolet Kalos looks a neat little car and is cheap to buy used but woeful score in crash testing so thats definately something I wouldnt letting my daughter drive....

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Fri 5 Jun 2015 18:20
what first cars are young people buying these days - DirtyDieselDogg

Daughter bought hersel a diesel Yaris, new, got (relatively) silly-high miles on it already, very well pleased.

Will keep it for 10 or 12 or 15 years.

Son just bought an i20, 1.2 petrol, new , for v limited city driving, also well pleased, also intends to keep for multiuple years.(ok he had been driving a £500.00 Arosa for near 3 years prior to this purchase)

horses for courses.

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Fri 5 Jun 2015 22:31
what first cars are young people buying these days - bazza

The problem with the monthly PCP schemes is that most people go back after 3 years and do the same again. So they're always paying off the depreciation of a brand new car without getting their money's worth through whole life.

e.g. say £200 a month for a mainstream supermini type car? That's £24000 every 10 years, yes 24 thousand quid! No wonder the dealers are laughing!

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Sat 6 Jun 2015 21:17
what first cars are young people buying these days - matstro

just viewed the 10th car today from start of looking 2 wks ago. What a b***** nightmare this is. Corsas have issues with water ingress through bulkhead to footwells and most I've looked at have this occuring. £1K seems to buy nothing these days!!

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Sat 6 Jun 2015 22:46
what first cars are young people buying these days - RobJP

To be fair, £1k is right at the budget end of motoring. For that sort of money, you've almost got to expect that a car is rather worn out - and if it's not got the water ingress issues that you speak of, then it's probably mechanically on it's last legs.

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Sun 7 Jun 2015 00:02
what first cars are young people buying these days - Avant

Maybe the leaking is the answer to your original question 'why arent't they selling?'.

Have a look at some Fiestas, Clios or Pandas instead - or even better a Yaris if you can find one. Bear in mind that at this end of the market condition matters much more than make or model.

Edited by Avant on 07/06/2015 at 00:03

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Sun 7 Jun 2015 10:57
what first cars are young people buying these days - diddy1234

My friend wrote off her Tigra on Friday night.

Went out and brought a Vauxhall Astra 2.0L DTI for £699.

Apart from Aircon not working and cosmetic damage to the rear bumper, absolutley nothing wrong with it.

brakes straight. ABS works and no smoke on engine start.

Obviously we can't tell if it's been mis-fuelled in the past so time will tell.

all in all a great buy.

My friend just has to get used to driving a diesel now.

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Sun 7 Jun 2015 22:49
what first cars are young people buying these days - matstro

@ Avant

yes it could be I guess. the internet is full of horror stories of leaking Corsas - footwells, boots, wet getting behind roof lining etc....

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Wed 24 Jun 2015 21:38
what first cars are young people buying these days - matstro

well I bought her a Corsa in the end but had to travel nearly 100 miles for it. 06 plate, 74K, 2 owner, last owner 6 yrs, stamped service book, dark metallic silver (the right colour for her!) drives like new and nothing near as bad as any of the other ten I looked at and no leaks either. A few cosmetic scuffs and badly scratched alloys (replaced for £30). Price paid £1300. Very happy with it so moral of the story is wait long enough and the right one WILL come along!

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