I'm looking for advice. I need a smallish car, manual, not too powerful (up to 1.4 or something) with no silly gadgets - just power steering, central locking and a/c.
I've been thinking about a golf but it would be quite old for that money - do I look by age or mileage? Alternatively a newer peugeot 206 perhaps?
Please advise as I'm very ignorant!
Abbyzeeble
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Are you looking for no-frills, no-thrills, economical motoring?
I'd avoid the Golf - will be old as you say, and probably the 206 as well, on the grounds of reliability.
Try....
Toyota Corolla - good, well-engineered car
Nissan Almera - so forgettable that I just had to google to find the name, but a real bargain
Mazda 3, but possibly not in your budget
£3-£4k is actually a bit of a tricky budget, which is why I recommend the makes known for long term reliability, but which are still available for reasonable prices at reasonable ages. If buying from a dealer, a huge percentage of the price is profit, but you are getting peace of mind (hopefully).
Might be worth spending £2.5-£3k privately, buying wisely, perhaps even paying for an independant inspection if you don't have a car-wise friend or relative. Then you have the remainder of your budget left over for any unwelcome 'surprises' at the first service (which I personally would get done very soon after buying unless a rock-solid FSH indicates this is pointless).
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I suggest you look by age and don't worry about mileage.
At that kind of money, you could get a car 3 or 4 years old. You might even get one still in warranty.
One approach you could try is to go to the Autotrader website (go to the top of this page, click on 'used cars', and you will find a link on the left hand side of the 'used cars' page). Use the search facility to see what you can find that in your area at your price range that is less than 3 years old. You can also enter words like "locking" or "air" for searching for cars with central locking and air conditioning.
If reliability is important to you, the most reliable makes tend to be Toyota, Honda, and Mazda, but because of their good reputation, they tend to command higher prices, so you would need to buy something older.
By the way, which gadgets do you consider silly?
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A point sometimes made in threads of this sort is that at that budget the immediate thought tends to be to go for a supermini eg Clio, Yaris etc whereas a slightly larger car can be better value. The suggestions above for Corolla, Almera would support that and perhaps I'd add Ford Focus and there is strong support on this forum for Skoda eg Fabia.
If overall cost of motoring is key then pay close attention to service intervals and ins grp (apologies if this stating the blindingly obvious) as well as depreciation which might lead you to a slightly older model which has taken as much of the early hit as possible.
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I've just had a look on autotrader. Most of the cars that come up in your budget with central locking and aircon that are still in warranty are Chevrolet Matizs
Road test here: www.honestjohn.co.uk/road_tests/index.htm?id=179
There are one or two Fiat Pandas, which would be a better bet.
In fact, if I were you, I'd go for a Fiat Panda.
Road test here: www.honestjohn.co.uk/road_tests/index.htm?id=120&
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Can get 03 plate (or even younger) Xsara petrols for that money very very easily. Not bad to drive either, with all your modern goodies.
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