Kia Picanto No!
Daewoo Matiz No!!
Fiat Panda No
Ford Fiesta Possibly, very good petrol engines.
Hyundai Getz No!!!
Nissan Micra Ok for Lucy though not for Neil!!!!! ;-)
Toyota Yaris Possibly, chain cam an advantage however .....
..... my vote - Clio! Ours is great, much reliable than a friends Yaris despite being also much better equipped so more to go wrong.
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Don't get hung up on low mileage. A £3k car of this size should have done upwards of 50,000 miles, and I'd rather have a 70k miler than my MiL's Polo which does 3 miles a week, all in 1st/2nd gear in the town.
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Kia Picanto No! Hyundai Getz No!!! Nissan Micra Ok for Lucy though not for Neil!!!!! ;-)
Do you mind if i ask what you have against these 3 small cars Cheddar, i would have thought the getz in paticular with its 5 year warranty would have been a decent enough little car.
My sons experience of hyundai has only been good, he coudn't break either the accent or the coupe when he was younger, and that really is a credit to those cars.
Whats wrong with a micra for instance, it may look a bit odd, but was a nicer and easier car to drive ever made, or a more reliable one come to think of it (older shape i'm thinking of don't know diddly about the new model), for a not very confident driver the micra is a lovely drive with loads of visibility.
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New shape Micra is very easy to drive, excellent visibility and masses of room inside.
I would suggest you go round dealers and test drive - we started out with a list like yours and quickly crossed some off when we experienced driving them (I really disliked the `matiz', for instance).
It is important to ignore cars with only two doors once you have baby with you.
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Try the cars out. Take with you a car seat and even the pushchair.
1. Boot as big as possible - really needs to accomodate a pushchair/pram.
2. Access to the rear seats to fit child seat and baby/toddler/child into it. A 3-door where the front seats slide forward after tilting is quite acceptable.
I had a picanto as a courtesy car. I never found the boot - it was so small.
I would go for a current shape Fiesta. New enough, big enough boot, should easily be cheap enough to buy and insure and run, plenty of choice.
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Hi guys, thanks for the replies! Lots of information to digest.
With regards to some of them....
I (Neil) have no issues with getting what might be termed as a girly car. I'm almost never going to be driving the thing, so thats really not a problem.
The car seat is a valid point, but we're more likely going to be getting the car, then testing out different car seats in it, not getting a car seat and testing it out with different cars!
Regarding the Fabia comment, well that was our last car before we got our Bora (which is lovely). It was perfectly reliable up until the end, where we were advised t get rid instead of getting it fixed as there were some major issues with it. It hadn't been mistreated at all, so this came as quite a shock.
We wouldn't consider a 3dr. Lucy will be taking the baby on her own in this car most of the time, and I think it will make it so much easier to have direct access to the baby in the car seat than have to pull the front seat forward.
My brother has a Clio, and has had no problems yet. Although they are on the pricier side of our selection. This is the same issue with the new shape Fiesta. I'd love one, but its pushes our budget past the limit.
We're visiting my borther-in-law this weekend, and as he's a bit of a petrol-head, we'll be asking him for some advice. The only reason I was keen on the Yaris was because it had done well in reliability surveys, and the Panda was car of the year 2004.
Anyway, thanks for the comments, and we'd love to hear a few more if anybody has any.
Cheers
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Our Yaris has been faultless over 3 and a half years, it would be hard to imagine how a car could be easier to drive as well.
I'd suggest it's the pram you need to worry about. If you can't fit it into the boot you're scuppered.
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Can't suggest any cars other than already said, but how about a car where you can turn off the front airbag via a key switch? Then baby can travel upfront, so closer to mum etc...
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I'm probably leaning toward the Yaris to be honest at the moment.
The pram isn't such a big issue at the moment. Lucy plans on using a sling mostly, so the need for a pram would be minimal. Also, anytime we travel anywhere together, we'll take the Bora.
The car is purely for Lucy to drive when I'm at work during the day.
SB, do you know any cars that allow the front passenger airbag to be switched off?
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"Lucy plans on using a sling mostly, so the need for a pram would be minimal."
Slings don't last too long, babies get too heavy and too wriggly, and they like to see what's around them. Whichever car you get will be too small if you have another child.
I've got three - oldest is quite big though - she's at university.
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SB do you know any cars that allow the front passenger airbag to be switched off?
Many facelift Clio IIs
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