I need to buy a car for my father in law who is visiting the UK for 3 months. Budget is £1K, needs to be easy to sell on with no hassle (i will be selling), reliability essential.
I am thinking Nissan Almera approx 1998 or Citroen Xsara.
Any thoughts/suggestions welcome.
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Of those two, Almera.
Concensus in the backroom (and elsewhere) is that they're very reliable once you find one that's been looked after properly and had regular oil changes to prevent wear to the timing chain.
Whether its true or not, French cars don't enjoy a reputation for reliability so I expect the Xsara would be harder for you to sell on.
- Gromit
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I would second the Almera SWMBO has one and it's great.
Cheap and easy to sell on afterwards.
I'm sure Aprilia would agree as well ;)
Alternitively you could try looking for a decent Rover 200.
H
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A tidy looking R reg one in the village with a for sale sign in at £1,200 - plenty of car for the money.
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2m S of Wallingford, Oxfordshire
Car is here tinyurl.com/h7ge6 (link to Multimap)
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I have often wondered if buying is cheaper than renting. I have always rented when visiting the UK for a month or so but when it is 3 months I can see the attraction in buying provided it can be easily resold before leaving. What are you going to do about insurance? Surely the insurance companies won't be very impressed with a foreigner who has no driving record in the UK and no UK licence.
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>Surely the insurance companies won't be very impressed with a foreigner who has no driving record in the UK and no UK licence.
No mention in the OP of him being a foreigner/no UK licence - perhaps he's retired/emigrated to Oz/NZ/South Africa or similar?
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buy a mk4 fiesta 1300 with sensible miles, power steering if possible and you will find a bum for the seat when the time comes to sell .....easily
--
\"a little man in a big world/\"
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My father is British with a valid driving licence. 1 years insurance on an Almera 1.4 is £270 with 0 No claims discount. Cancelling the policy after 3 months will give a partial refund.
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Dodgy getting a good car for this price. If the father in law
needs a reliable car for his visit why give yourself the headache of buying then selling or risking a hefty repair bill or two? For 1k you could hire a car for the duration. Unless of course you think you could do a clever deal and actually make a profit on the resale. mmmmmmmmmmmm
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Car rental in the U.K. is INMHO pricy!
Having done the sums we have, again, elected to drive from the Costa del Sol to Dunkirk/Dover (Norfolk Line, 68 Euros return!) for our extended visit in May & June this year.
By the time you factor in the cost of two flights at an expensive time of year, and around 6 weeeks car rental, it is still cheaper to drive. We use the toll roads for speed and crash out in the likes of Formula 1 flophouses, take a lot of our own food and plan on only two nights hotel stays.
If car hire were cheaper we would probably fly & tent, 'cos at our ages (68&70)it's tiring!
Roger. (Costa del Sol, España)
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Hi Roger,
Having been priced out of the UK housing market I am considering looking in Spain, so interested in your travel experiences. Have you tried the P&O ferry from Bilbao to Portsmouth?
Any advice you could offer me on relocating would be much appreciated.
Regards, Ian
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The Portsmouth/Bilbao route is very, very, very expensive!
It's a long sea crossing so you must buy cabin accomodation.
I have never been able to get an on-line quote for much less than 700/800 GBP return! Quite out of the question when Norfolk Line can do a short crossing to Dover for 68 Euros. (less than 50 quid!)
As far as moving to Spain is concerned, this is a motoring forum, so I guess the moderators would be upset if I posted at length on that subject!
You can Email me on my "spam" special address & I'll try to help! I can point you to a couple of local forums which have some pretty good knowledge of Andalucia in general & my locality specifically
the.expats@gmail.com
I am quite happy for this Email address to be published as I only use it for public forum postings!
Roger. (Costa del Sol, España)
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IB33 - Ian , might be worth you posting on www.moneysavingexpert.com the Travel Forum, there.
Only fair we should send some Broomers, their way - point plenty of Moneysavers, over to our site!!
VB
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Only fair we should send some Broomers, their way - point plenty of Moneysavers, over to our site!!
Can we leave the mondeo's here though? i like the MSE site as it's pretty much mondeo free!
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Dodgy getting a good car for this price. If the father in law needs a reliable car for his visit why give yourself the headache of buying then selling or risking a hefty repair bill or two?
IMHO the probability of getting a big repair bill in only 3 months use is very small, if he buys sensibly. I know people who've bought sub-£1000 cars and had years of use out of them. If he buys one with 12 months MoT it will still have 9 months on it when he sells it.
;o)
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When my BIL and family, resident in Australia, were visiting for a couple of months I looked into getting a car for him via my brother who is in the trade and offered a decent trade in for the time in question. Although he is british he ash lieved in Aus for nearly 30 years so whilst he had a UK driving licence it was hand written on vellum andclearly out of date. We found getting insurance to be extremely expensive and in the end I added him to my policy for all of £16 and I ended up driving the trade in. I have a number of policies and was therefore covered as I was driving a car not owned by me. The trade in was a Mondeo estate for which my brother paid £800 and I sold it to a chap I know for £1200 when I had finished with it so everybody ended up happy.
MGs
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I think a good question to ask here could be "What do I need to spend to keep FiL mobile for 3 months?"
I'm thinking older Nissan Sunny etc at £500 or less, especially if you approach a friendly garage, then insure it TPFT only to keep the cost down. Getting your money back at the end won't be such an issue.
Afriend of mine has a replica classic, but also buys cheap bangers at £200 or so each, then takes a view of their MOT condition when the time comes and either bungs or retest accordingly.
His latest aquisition for £200 is a Mazda 323 F reg, one owner from new 10 months MOT 70K odd. It's in reasonable condition for its age.
He just got shot of a K reg Astra. I don't know how but I would have suggested E bay. Even for spares it may have been worth a few quid.
H
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Look for a nice mk ii polo. £200 will buy you at least one... off eBay.
Seriously old-fashioned poverty-spec vehicle that will just go on and on. Major weakness is a blocked oil breather... open the air filter and if it is full of oil then find another one.
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re polo ----they all have oil in the filter box dont they?
the biggest archiles with these old things is the brakes were abysmal when new with no feel to them and a thinking stopping distance of one good mile, i used to get accused of selling dangerous cars 15 years ago when daddy bought daughter for one and he had a drive and tried stopping the things. (best leave these to memory i believe, sorry mapmaker)
--
\"a little man in a big world/\"
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