Hi, this is my first post.
I have been asked to recommend a suitable car for the 21 year old son of a friend of mine, no more than £3K - £4K. Something small probably, nothing too fancy and where the insurance won't cripple him.
Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations on suitable small, economical, low insurance cars that might fall into this price bracket. What sort of age, mileage, condition etc would we be looking at? Roughly what would the insurance be assuming a clean license?
Thanks.
Fluke
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The insurance will be the biggest single running cost unless he's doing huge mileage, so you really need to find a list of group 1-3 cars and go from there. Some will be perceived as girly/granny cars (eg Micra) and it might be sensible to avoid Fiat and Rover for example. That will leave you with Ford, Citroen, Peugeot, VW/Seat/Skoda, Vauxhall and not much more.
Expect a first year quote of >£1k unless he has transferable NCD from his parents' ins co.
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A nice mk4 1.3 Fiesta would do nicely.
Drivers airbag, seatbelt pretensioners, side impact bars & a decent chassis would be ideal for a first car & a Fiesta ticks all these boxes.
Also being a Ford with an engine thats donkeys years old any garage can fix them & parts are cheap if needed.
Avoid the Saxo, most young lads want one but they aint that good really.
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i first got insurance in my own name aged 21 was surprised that i got a quote of £1,100 on a 1.8 citroen xantia so doesnt necessarily have to be a small car pos something like a 5 year old astra etc
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Temporarily not a student, where did the time go???
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No need to buy such utterly rubbish cars at 21. Honestly I'd have gone insane and been put off driving for life had I had to chose from the selection of dull, hateful metal that infests Group 1-4 insurance ratings.
A 19, I insured a 2.0 16v Mondeo Ghia X (Modifications Declared) for £1000. Sounds a lot, but thats par for the course for anything for young drivers these days. Don't suffer a rubbish car - just think outside the box.
In this case, I would recommend a 2.0 Focus Zetec. Should get a nice one for £4000.
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But did you have existing NCD for that price?
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No, I had zero NCD when I insured the Mondeo.
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Go for something with a bit of power, my first car at 17 was a honda engined rover 400 folowed by a 2.0 standard spec mondeo at 18, A 3.0 td isuzu trooper at 18-23 and now my 2.5 turbo chiped navara (Im 24) I also have a new shape transit for work
Compartivly you are only looking at maybee £500 more for a vehicle that will be far safer than a low spec pug 206 or fiesta .
My insurance is around £1000 per vehicle although I do not have any no claims discount after two no fault acidents and one 3 point penalty I also do around 30,000 miles a year.
My twin brother bought the mondeo and his insurance is around £800!
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A recent post suggested that, despite higher insurance groups, some unexpected cars are affordable insurance-wise simply because they aren't usually owned/driven by youngsters - probably the case with the Xantia referred to later in this thread. The example used in the previous post I referred to was a Volvo 440.
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Don't you mean my Volvo S60? I do think you should "think out the box" when buying a car when young - as Mike H said just because some cars are in a high insurance group doesn't mean they are that expensive to insure - my car cost me just over £650 to insure - not bad for a 21 year old male driving a 180bhp 2 litre turbo! However its just not practical for a lot of people own cars like these. A 3 door (looks better than the 5 door) Focus is a good bet for a first car - good fun and easy to drive, looks good, cheap to run and reliable.
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