The Car Thread

[Jamie]

My girlfriends insurance is ?150 a year, she's driving an 05 Mini Cooper 1.6. I think it's because we've just moved to a new estate that has a new post code, which hasn't had any claims in it.

[EvilBoris]

My insurance in 2008 for a 1.5 diesel MitsubIshi was ?1200! You guys don't know how lucky you are!

[Colin]

My insurance in 2008 for a 1.5 diesel MitsubIshi was ?1200! You guys don't know how lucky you are!

What????

My 911 Carrera 4s cost less than that to insure parked in the street, in London!

[Fader209]

WTF are you insuring for ?170??????

A tank?

:P Only a 1.7 Puma I'm afraid. Have a decent amount of no-claims and we live in a nice area so it's fairly good for the year


Boris - How long had you been driving when you got the Mitsubishi? I remember when I started out in the Micra the insurance was well over ?1K.

[QualityChimp]

I saw this and thought of you.

Bonus points for the Autobot hood ornament!

[Neon Ignition]

I've started looking at getting a new car after 12 months without one and wondered if any peeps had any experience which the likeliest selection I've seen.

No matter what car I try quoting for the insurance always comes in at around ?890 so the rest of the criteria seems to be the deciding factor. Basically, I've done the whole spending a fair bit on a car thing before and it's never worth it. A new car breaks down or faults just as much as an old car plus it depreciates faster so this time I'm going in low with an aim to get something suitable and decent enough that I can ride it till it's dead and not worry about if it gets scratched, knocked etc.

Given that the car must also be kids friendly (gotta plan for the future!) the best I've seen on paper is (all around 2002)

-Ford Focus, 1.6
-BMW 316i, 1.8
-BMW 318i, 1.6
-Volvo S40, 2.0

Thoughts?

[Colin]

If you're making the purchase based on budgeting, the ford has to have the lowest running costs of the four, as well as the cheapest parts and labour should anything go wrong. The focus is generally considered a pretty decent car, though I had one once and found it a bit meh, but as a wagon you couldn't care about it's perfect. Why pay for a more 'prestige' badge if your not worried about scuffs and scrapes.

[Neon Ignition]

All the ones I've seen within budget have been the 1.6 model which I'd wondered might be too small an engine size for the weight of the car. I've done that before with a 307 and it was painful at times getting it to move as quickly as needed (plus my last car was a 1.9).

I feel the need, the need for old banger speed

[charlesr]

My Impreza (MY2000) worth around ?3k never goes wrong and costs me ?700 fully comp.... 130k miles now. Still feels as strong as when I got it. It'll need new cambelts at 135k though which will set me back ?700 or so, so it's no good if you are doing loads of miles.

I used to have a focus 1.6 around that time (well, lucy had a company car) and it was really boring. Perfectly acceptable though. I'd definitely get the focus out of that lot.

[Neon Ignition]

Cool, will keep and eye out. There seems to be the odd car that's 90,000 miles or under too, hopefully less wear and tear.

[k0pp0]

1.6 Focus here (and a 2.0 S-max). The focus is a boring car, but by god it NEVER has any problems.. I'd completely forgotten to get it serviced for 3 years and it had a completely clean bill of health. I had the old shaped Focus for about 10 years before that and it was rock solid as well. I drive a combination of dodgy windy back roads and motorways.

The S-Max is good as well - boring again but absolutely massive inside. Bit heavy on the tires though.

[Neon Ignition]

I think looking more into the Focus seems the main priority then, if I can find a within budget, decent nick 1.8 that seems like it would be ideal. It's mostly going to be short runs, maybe the odd 10 mile run down the bypass.

[charlesr]

How much are you going to spend?

[Neon Ignition]

Aiming to limit myself to ?2k, there's a sea of bad ones but the odd decent one pops up

[randombs]

Anyone a member of a car club? I'm thinking of joining one. I was going to before but there weren't any cars near my parents' house. Checking Zipcar's site has shown at least six on the street next to mine. ?60/year, ?5-6/hour.

Zipcar's had a few bad reviews but I'm still thinking it could be a good idea, especially for picking up furniture and the like.