It's mainly because I get bored of them by this time - that's about 3 years worth of mileage for me.
So you're saying that a car with 80k plus a full set of servicing documentation should be fine?
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I have a 120,000 mile Mondeo. I love it. It's big, comfortable, great to drive, safe, cost under £3k @ 4 years old, and is fully loaded with everything you could wish for, aircon, leather, etc etc.
It was a £20k car 4 years before I bought it, so I'm more than happy to have a few more miles on the clock in order to get it for such a good price. The interior is in excellent condition, as is the exterior, and it feels as nice to drive as the Mondeo my parents had from 6 months old and 5k miles to 4 years old and 50k miles.
The only thing that reminds me of the mileage is the fact it didnt cost me £5k and the number on the clock.
It's also a grand less than the equivilent Focus.
100% recommended, no reliability issues.
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Brace yourselves, I'm going to agree with Mike here. I think you'd get a better Mondeo for 3 grand. If you never went for a GhiaX I'm pretty sure you'd get one with less than 80k on.
Around here, a shade over 3 grand would get you early Focuses with anything from 60k on upwards. For about the same (roughly) you'd get an X plate Mondeo from 60k upwards. If you streched ever so slightly more, you could even get a new shape Mondeo.
Note to Machika and others - Chris mentioned a Mondeo which is why I mentioned it. Had he mentioned a Citroen I wouldn't have. There's no need to say "Why Adam's suggested a Ford I'll never know" nor is there one to say "Why do people think Fords are best?". If I had 3 grand, and wanted a big safe car, I'd get a Mondeo. Simple as.
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Adam
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What about an old Volvo, maybe a 740 or 940. Tough old war horses. 250000 miles no problem if serviced.
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Toyota Corolla
1999 V Reg TOYOTA Corolla 1.3i 16V Park Green Car Sales 3 Doors, Manual 5 speed, Hatchback, Petrol, 44,000 miles, Nightshadow, MOT-01-2006. Grey patterned cloth interior , Power assisted steering , Tailgate spoiler , Central locking , Height adjustable . . . . (trade)
£2995
madf
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For 3k you're going to have to trade-off between what you really want. What are the most important of the criteria?
Safety
Age
Mileage
Reliability
Economy
Performance
Size
and so on and so forth.
Typically bigger = safer and newer = safer. So something like a nice new Mondeo as suggested above would fit the bill if it was the right size for your sister-in-law and didn't cost too much to run. Mondeo, Vectra etc etc also offer cheaper motoring than many cars as spares are typically plentiful and easy to come by.
Alternatively, you'll have a huge choice of mid-sized Japanese cars from the late 90s for that money. Corolla, Almera, Civic, and so on. The right choice would be low mileage and offer years of very reliable motoring.
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'98 on Clio has 4 stars in Euro NCAP rating, class leader by far at the time and still pretty goog for a car of it's size.
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This is only obliquely helpful perhaps, in the sense that it may ferret out a result.
I'm sure there used to be a motoring website where you answered a set of questions by inputting ratings for categories such as the ones mentioned above, and also had ticky boxes for things like "must have cruise" or "four doors".
It would come back and offer two or three models from different manufacturers in the price range you chose. Does that ring bells with anyone? I seem to recall looking at it about five years ago.
It's the kind of question that gets asked here a lot and a tool to help narrow the field would be a good thing; as long as you have access to a large and consistent database with the information in it should be too hard to implement it, so I'm sure someone must have such a thing running somewhere?
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Clio is the same class as a Polo and Fiesta, both of which were dismissed in the original thread.
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Thanks for all the suggestions. (Adam, thanks for making me chuckle at your disclaimer for the Mondeo recommendation!)
She's definetly into the idea of a bigger (as I am) - so Mondeo, Vectra, Avensis, Laguna etc are all in the right ballpark. Trick now is to find a decent one. Is one from a dealer more likely to be an ex-repmobile than a private sale?
Just for clarification from a previous question, safety is at the top of the list, with reliability second and economy third. Colour, badge, extras etc are not massively important, just so long as it goes and is in reasonable nick.
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I'd rather have an ex-repmobile - they've usually covered huge mileages on the Motorway, been serviced properly, and if you go for a high spec one were too expensive to be given to the junior reps so not really thrashed around.
Oh, and loads cheaper.
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There's quite a nice sounding Primera over in 'Classifieds' at the moment.
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I shouldn't have to Chris - you can count how many times I've suggested a Mondeo on one hand. Seriously!
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Adam
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But you know the ford hating gang'll be along soon to tell you the error of your ways!
But seriously, I'm suprised how much car you can buy for around £3-4k if you don't mind high mileage... has opened my eyes a bit.
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Me too. Especially considering that 2 years ago, I was looking for the smallest, cheapest first car I could. £1500 didn't get you much so you wouldn't expect 3 grand to get you much of a bigger car.
I had a quick look on Autotrader for you and I don't know whether to laugh or cry looking at the values of the Focuses on there!
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Adam
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Anyone know where I can get NCAP ratings for older cars?
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NCAP website:
www.euroncap.com/
Goes back to around 1996.
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For safety ratings of older cars, you could look at the Folksam data, obtained from analysis of real accidents:
www.folksam.se/engelsk/index.htm
(Download folder has at a glance list). You can see how the size of a car affects the safety.
Also look at the sites in HJ's Useful Websites (Find on page: Crash)
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Dipstick - it was Parkers, alas it has been gone for at least the last few months, since they re-vamped their site.
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The What Car website used a feature like this, AFAIR.
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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ...
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The AA website has a Car Chooser feature like that iirc...
madf
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