A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible?

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
View Threaded
Sun 21 Sep 2025 09:56
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - OceanMan

I drive trucks for a living and most of them have pretty good adaptive CC and I really miss this when driving my 15 year old fiesta. I've read lots of threads on bangernomics here and people say "don't swap an old car you know for an old car you don't" which makes perfect sense. However I think I'm willing to take a risk just for the comfort of cruise control.

Also I'm getting a bit bored of driving a generic car. Again it might be an added risk factor but I like the idea of driving something a bit rather with more character. These two jumped out at me

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202508235705081?s...1

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202509206497836?s...1

I live near Bradford (BD22 postcode ) and saw 50 sub £1k cars with cruise control on auto trader.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 10:01
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - paul 1963

Two words....Massive gamble.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 10:09
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Terry W

ANY car bought for ~£1000 is a massive gamble. OTOH choose well or be lucky and you may get 2-3 years of cheap and pleasant motoring.

The difference is that any trivial failure on something upmarket is likely to be uneconomic or impossible to repair. On more mundane motors, even if bits are unavailable, there will be greater availability of s/h parts.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 10:07
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - gordonbennet

There's a whole world of difference between truck driving at very similar speeds with few cars in the inside lane and the much more varied speeds found in the other lanes.

Personally i never used adaptive cruise in any truck, i'm in charge of the vehicle not the numpty in front or the electronics stuffed inside the vehicle i'm driving, i will use cruise of course but one still has to interfere with it multiple times a day as the eco programming allows the vehicle to slow by up to 5kph as one gets to the summit of inclines, allowing the thing to do what it likes on our busy roads contributes massively to the elephant racing issues...not all trucks allow you to override eco cruise effects.

Only use cruise now and again in my own vehicles, and that tends to be on quiet roads.

Will a £1000 car find you anything other than basic cruise control?

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 10:38
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - badbusdriver

Not sure I understand what the OP means by "decent cruise control"?

A £1k car is not going to have adaptive cruise control. This only leaves the question of does it have cruise control or not?. If the answer to that is yes, then the obvious follow up to that is, does it work?. And the only way you can answer that question for sure is by trying it yourself on a test drive.

Also not sure why the OP thinks that (ahem) "lovely" MG has cruise control?. It certainly doesn't appear to looking at interior pics, there is no mention of it in the description, and my own memories of these when new is that they didn't have it?.

Edited by badbusdriver on 21/09/2025 at 10:40

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 10:52
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Xileno

If you look at the MOT histories, the Honda has advisories for both front and rear subframe corrosion. The latest MOT has a comment about underseal heavily applied. Presumably someone has done a quick visual tidy-up. Both those cars are near end-of-life, best avoided in my opinion.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 10:44
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Falkirk Bairn

£1,000?

I would be looking at a Private Seller and keeping things as simple as possible

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 11:19
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Adampr

If the only reason to change is cruise control, I'd suggest looking into fitting aftermarket cruise control to your Fiesta. Of the two you've posted, I would assume the Honda is good to the next MOT and will then be sc***. The MG at £1,000 trade sale is already sc***.

..

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 16:41
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - catsdad

Having had various designs of cruise control for many years for me “decent” means simple on/off non-ACC types. It does the basic job but keeps you engaged and hopefully alert .

My current car has ACC and I don’t like it much. It’s a bit fiddly to use if, like me, you don’t use it much so have to remind yourself how to set it. It’s not that difficult but it’s another distraction compared to the basic system you could use with your eyes shut (as it were).

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 22 Sep 2025 09:08
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Archie35

Each to their own, I guess, but for me ACC is so much superior to old-fashioned CC that I'd never go back if I had the choice. On my car at least (a VW Tiguan) it's just one press to activate, and a simple left or right toggle if you want to increase the set speed. There are so many circumstances when I use it - slow moving urban traffic, country-roads with too much traffic to overtake, motorways. Clearly I stay engaged with the car, but the fact that it slows down or accelerates smoothly to keep pace with the car in front makes it orders of magnitude more relaxing to drive.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 22 Sep 2025 09:47
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - paul 1963

As said each to there own, personally I never use it, last few cars I've had have had it.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 21 Sep 2025 20:07
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Big John

Having just helped a friend buy a car near the lower end of the market I can confirm that buying a car that's not a total shed the figure starts at about £3k. Even then it's difficult. Rust is still a thing!

You might find something reasonable for a little bit less with a private sale where the owner doesn't know what they have got.

As for adaptive cruise - good luck with that. I love my adaptive cruise but I doubt you'd find many working versions on bangers. You might find a car with the the simpler set speed cruise. though.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 22 Sep 2025 13:04
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Gibbo_Wirral

If you want to broaden your search a bit - just about any Peugeot or Citroen can have cruise control added for peanuts. Get a second hand stalk from Ebay and then find someone local to activate it in the settings with DIAGBOX or PEUGEOT PLANET.

It all depends on your opinion of these marques. Personally I think a Peugeot 206 (especially diesel) is an ideal "bangernomic" vehicle - cheap to run, little to go wrong, cheap to fix.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 22 Sep 2025 17:37
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - SLO76
Not suggesting this is a wise move in any way shape or form, it’s madness to offload a reliable old car to buy another one that’s at the end of its life just to get cruise control. But just for fun I did look, and I did spot a Vauxhall Astra with the old Isuzu 1.7 diesel and sensible miles for £1400, which does have cruise control. But as with any old DPF equipped diesel there’s lots to go wrong, but these are much better than most. A petrol 1.6 of the same spec will have cruise too, but both will no doubt be overdue a timing belt change, which would hoover up £400 or so if you actually want it to have a chance of lasting.

Focus/Astra sized cars are a good bet for finding cruise control on a low budget. A petrol Focus or Astra or Mazda 3 are all generally good things - though not sure what models had cruise, as it’s not something I ever use or want.

I’ve not looked up the Mot history and cannot actually recommend any car at this money, but it might be worthy of a look. Cheap road tax and 60mpg on a run will keep day to day costs low, but there’s loads can go wrong with a cheap diesel.

Vauxhall, ASTRA, Hatchback, 2013, Manual, 1686 (cc), 5 doors
Price:£1,400
www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-motorbikes/vauxhall-as...l

Edited by SLO76 on 22/09/2025 at 17:40

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 22 Sep 2025 18:56
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Big John

MOT runs out in a few days.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 22 Sep 2025 19:33
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - SLO76

MOT runs out in a few days.

So it does, and last two years of Mot history aren’t too jolly either. It’s been run on a shoestring by the latest owner by the looks. Could potentially be made into something if cheap enough, and enough money was spent on it. The Isuzu diesel is a good engine, and the Astra J is a useful little family hatch. Would I recommend someone with a bag of sand to spend went out and bought an old diesel? Nope, it’s just for fun.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 22 Sep 2025 21:02
A £1k car with decent cruise control. Possible? - Big John

Good old Focus 1.6 petrol?

I've also generally been a fan of an engine run out model of the mkIi Octavia the 1.6mpi 8v se 2011, Not the most modern engine but drives well, simple and reliable. Not for £1k though

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202509116250662?s...1

Edited by Big John on 22/09/2025 at 21:29

Reply | Report as offensive | Link