I am not a petrol head, if that's what you mean. Something that is easy to drive...reliable.
Some good advice here. I was thinking about a nissan micra.........
Edited by heathercar on 02/09/2009 at 12:33
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Do you have a friendly local garage that you know / use? You might be as well asking advice from them.
£2000 and under is a bit of an awkward amount - you're relly getting into banger territority and it can be very hit and miss finding a decent car at that level. I guess a fair number of decent cars that have perhaps been in the same family for a few years will have been chopped in under the scrappage scheme recently.
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I agree with Bill Payer - ask your local garage, if you have one.
Are you buying trade or private ?
The sub-2000 market is difficult if you are buying from a dealer / trade - there's not really enough margin for the dealer, plus the market for small cars is competitive - there are plenty of buyers desperate to buy some rather poor cars.
Keep an open mind and look at some of the less popular cars - Daihatsu Charades for example. A new Fiat Panda or Hyundai i10 might make more sense in the long term, depending on how you view reliability and operating costs.
If your 2000 pound car fails its next MoT, it could prove a very expensive buy.
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These are good little jam jars ~ tinyurl.com/lm2zws
I remember the very 1st time I worked on one & had to roadtest the critter, I thought yuk! but I actually found it to be ok really & surprisingly roomy - even for a 6 footer like moi.
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How critical is the cars safety to you? Sub £2k small cars, in general, won't be that great in those stakes.
Maybe a Corsa would fit the bill? For £2k you can get 2001 1.2 16v 5 door cars with about 80,000 miles on them. It'll have power steering on it too.
Look for good history with it and a long MOT.
N.b. that would be a private sale, if you spend £2k at a dealers, you'll be buying a car that is only worth £1k or less privately. That's quite a margin for the small comfort of a 3mth warranty and some comeback on the dealer.
Edited by TheOilBurner on 02/09/2009 at 12:57
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I would like the car to be safe...I sat in a nissan micra and it felt like a tin can : )
Also I am 5 ft 6 and wondered if the nissan micra would be too small.
Thanks for all your advice. I am clueless, as you can tell. I can't go over 2000£ though.
I am v.wary of private sales.
How about a Daewoo Matiz...how do you rate 'em?
Edited by heathercar on 02/09/2009 at 13:06
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If you haven't done so already, worth checking the HJ Car-by-Car-Breakdown - click on 'Car-by-Car' in the banner at the top of the page. Newer Matizs (2005-) come under Chevrolet.
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Forgot to say - I had a 1.0 Micra, and didn't find its size a problem; I'm 5'11. Thought it went quite well too. That eBay one looks good to me; never been in a Matiz.
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>>>never been in a Matiz<<<
Neither have I, and I wouldn't want to either :)
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Buying private is the best way for cheaper end cars as most owners just want rid.
There are good motors out there, they just need finding.
Both mum and sister have sold Fiestas in the last three months.
Mum used local Free ads. 51 reg with just 24,000 miles on the clock. Needless to say she had loads of calls and it sold within 3 days. £2,100.
My sister sold her X reg Fiesta with 55,000 miles and a few minor bumps and bruises for £1,600. She sold this within an hour of putting an ad in the window.
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If you want the car to be safe, then you're looking in the wrong market (my opinion, of course). Nothing of that age can be considered better than merely average in small cars, mostly small cars are pretty poor for safety.
Do you really need it to be small? Bigger cars will be safer, give you plenty of room and they're cheap thanks to the fact that younger drivers can't afford to insure them.
I would recommend something like a 2001 Skoda Octavia 1.6 petrol. Should be about 70,000 miles for £2k privately. It's sensible to be wary, but if you keep your wits about you and get it checked by a professional (with a HPI check too), you should be fine.
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Heather, you should consider one thing very carefully in regards to safety.
You are going to be regularly transporting children in the back seat, on what are likely to be busy roads. Rear end shunts are reasonably common in heavy traffic. The smaller the car, the nearer your children are to the impact. Look at a car like a Daewoo/Chevrolet Matiz carefully - the rear headrests are almost tight up against the rear window. I would not want my children there. I recently got hit up the rear by a big van with my children in the back seat - they barely noticed the imapct as we were in an estate car (Vauxhall/Opel Astra, so not exactly huge). The van which hit me was a total mess. If we'd been in a Matiz, I dread to think.
I'd second TheOilBurner's advice and think bigger - Octavia ia a good recommendation, likewise a Focus or an Astra. If you're wanting a small car because of the perceived running costs, at your age a 1.4 Focus/Astra would cost fractionally more to run than a much smaller car, I would think.
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good advice about the matiz Alanovich. thanks.
To answer other questions, yes it does need to be small. (parking, driveway and all that.)
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Staying with the children theme, have you considered a Ford Fusion?
No bigger extrenally than a Fiesta, but a higher seating position affording the wains a better view out, and giving the driver a better view for parking. More interior room too, and the rear of the car is just that bit further from the back seats.
Another left field one worth considering is perhaps a Suzuki Ignis - again a higher position for driver and passengers and again more of a zone between the rear passengers and any rear end collision. And also not bigger than your bog standard supermini, e.g. Corsa, Fiesta etc.
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To answer other questions, yes it does need to be small. (parking, driveway and all that.) >>
Fiat UNO under 5 years old should fit your budget.
As for safety, think before you get swayed by irrational thoughts.
How many people do you know on your school run or shopping trip that have been involved in accidents on those roads?
How many have been hurt?
How many miles do they do?
Is the safety threat real or perceived?
Is it more dangerous to let the children walk and cross the road than take your children in a small car such as the Matiz?
Is the chance of you being involved in an accident greater than being hit by lightning?
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jbif, perhaps you mean Punto?
As to safety, perhaps Heather should get the safest thing she can afford, within the size constraints outlined. I don't think that's irrational.
Heather has stated that a Micra feels like a tin can, heavens only knows what she would think of a Matiz. I've seen stronger looking kitchen foil. I don't think she should waste her time investigating things which are smaller than a Micra.
Edit: meant to add that I've never met anyone who's been hit by lightning (I was missed by about 12 feet once, but that's another story), however I know dozens who have been in road accidents.
Edited by Alanovich on 02/09/2009 at 14:25
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jbif, perhaps you mean Punto? >>
Thanks. You are right, I did mean the Punto.
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As for safety think before you get swayed by irrational thoughts.
I knew it was only a matter of time before the "nobody ever has accidents" brigade piped up! ;)
>>Is the chance of you being involved in an accident greater than being hit by lightning?
Please!!
Being hit by lighting = 1 in 700,000
Having a crash that causes death or serious injury = 1 in 2,000
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How's about something like ~ tinyurl.com/lybyst
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How's about something like ~ tinyurl.com/lybyst
Power steering?
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>>> Power steering? <<<
Hasn't it got PAS? I didn't realise that comrade - good cars (in their day!)
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Hasn't it got PAS? I didn't realise that comrade - good cars (in their day!)
Might have - just not mentioned in advert, so best to make sure first. IIRC my parents' Micra was an S reg and didn't have PS; I'm pretty fit but found it hard work to get round corners.
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knew it was only a matter of time before the "nobody ever has accidents" brigade piped up! ;) >>
You have no idea how wrong you are to bracket me in that category.
Being hit by lighting = 1 in 700,000
Having a crash that causes death or serious injury = 1 in 2,000 >>
Clearly you have a different concept of risk analysis to mine, and I will give you a small clue to where I differ from you: it is called exposure to risk.
Do you have the figures for deaths and serious and injuries on the shopping run and school run?
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I bet they'd take 2k for this:
tinyurl.com/n2l5og
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Do you have the figures for deaths and serious and injuries on the shopping run and school run?
Sadly not, but as Alan pointed out, most rear end shunts occur in urban environments, i.e. shopping / school run territory. Volvo claim that you need a minimum of 12 inches from the rear of the car to the rearmost passengers for the car to be reasonably safe in a rear collision. I'd believe them.
This type of crash is very common in this type of driving, and there's not that much you can do to prevent it either.
Most superminis simply don't achieve this 12" or anything close. Many MPVs and 4x4s don't have enough space at the rear too.
Edited by TheOilBurner on 02/09/2009 at 16:10
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Sadly not, but as Alan pointed out ... >>
Real risk and perception are very different.
You quoted the lightning risk as 1 in 700,000. Well, as I said, it depends on your exposure to the risk:
" .... In a given year the chance of being struck by lightning is about one in 700,000 and the chance of being killed by lightning is less than one in 6 million in the United States. But the chance is far less where thunderstorms are infrequent, such as in San Francisco and far greater where thunderstorms are frequent, such as in central Florida. The chances are far greater for avid golfers who refuse to leave the golf course when a thunderstorm is approaching. .... "
As Florida is mentioned, take the road deaths figure for Florida (UK road safety is better, allegedly):
122 crashes per 100 million miles travelled.
1.5 deaths per 100 million miles travelled.
www.livescience.com/environment/050106_odds_of_dyi...l
"Michael Paine, of the Planetary Society Australian Volunteers, monitors and calculates risks of low-frequency events like asteroid impacts and tsunamis. He estimates the odds of a tsunami being the average coastal dweller's cause of death, globally speaking, are around 1-in-50,000. For the average citizen in the United States, given that many don't live near the coast, the chances are 1-in-500,000 or even perhaps less likely. Paine stressed this is a very rough estimate.
The real odds drop to zero, of course, if you live in the mountains and never visit the shore.
In fact, that sort of risk management -- intentional or not -- goes for many things. Frequent flyers are more likely to die in a plane crash than someone who never flies. A Californian is at greater risk from earthquakes than someone in Minnesota."
Edited by jbif on 02/09/2009 at 16:41
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Real risk and perception are very different.
So from what you say isn't the risk to someone doing 2 school runs a day significant?
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So from what you say isn't the risk to someone doing 2 school runs a day significant? >>
All IMO:
Insignificant risk of death or serious injury, assuming the school run of less than 20 miles a day = 1000 miles a term = 3000 miles a year. People I know who do school runs do mostly 8 miles or less per day!
Slightly higher risk of a prang [due to travel in a busy peak period] but high chance of it being nothing more than minor prang [due to average speed at peak times being of the order of 10mph], consequently with no or only minor injuries.
Unless of course you can prove me wrong!
BTW, data for car accidents Florida is from 2008
www.flhsmv.gov/hsmvdocs/CS2008.pdf
There were 2983 deaths and 199,658 injuries, which works out at 1.5 deaths and 100 injuries per 100 million vehicle miles travelled.
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Real risk and perception are very different.
It all depends which way you look at it. From the logic re: exposure to risk as above, you can equally argue that the figures will be worse for smaller cars, or where rear passengers are carried more often. Here exposure to risk from rear shunts is greater.
In the UK, 1 in 2000 people this year will be killed or seriously injured on the roads. Some of them will be in much safer cars than the average £2k supermini. Makes you wonder what the figures would be like if we all had such small cars with little or no rear crumple zone?
OK - it is all fairly unlikely in the real world, but it's a risk that's easily avoided by choosing your car carefully, with no compromise on lifestyle. I cycle because I enjoy it and live with the risk, the only way I could make it safer is by not cycling at all. Thankfully with the car I don't need to make the compromise, and neither does anyone else, unless they choose to...
I don't think those US figures help much, as their style of road and driving is very different to here. IIRC, UK insurers expect the average driver to have a significant bump (worth claiming on the insurance for) once every 100k miles.
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In the UK 1 in 2000 people this year will be killed or seriously injured on the roads.
Actual deaths seem to average just under 3000 per year, so 1 in 20,000 is killed, and
serious injuries must total 27000, so 1 in 2220 suffers serious injury.
As pointed out, the actual exposure to risk and subsequent probability of experiencing these life threatening incidents varies widely, e.g. motorcyclists proportionately fare much worse than car drivers.
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heathercar spend £1695 find a mint fiesta mk5 with 60,000 miles no rust few owners with either the unburstable ohv engine (ignore hj and his hate of them they are a proper old school 100% reliable cars) or a zetec engine of 1200 cc
or buy an old x reg corsa club 1.2 16v same price same mileage
both these cars are proper bread and butter cars that will not bite at service or mot time
spend the £400 saved on a full hpi and a full and proper service (wheels off the whole caboodle) at that nice little garage down the road thats been there since the wheel was invented
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In the UK, 1 in 2000 people this year will be killed or seriously injured on the roads >> IIRC, UK insurers expect the average driver to have a significant bump (worth claiming on the insurance for) once every 100k miles >>
Sources please! And for the UK, give a breakdown for the roads and mileages involved.
As I said before, the chances of serious injury or death on the urban school run are miniscule.
Makes you wonder what the figures would be like if we all had such small cars with little or no rear crumple zone? >>
Again, fear based on perception.
risk vs perception; and stats and averages and exposure to risk:
www.reason.com/news/show/36765.html
"What about your chances of dying in an airplane crash? A one-year risk of one in 400,000 and one in 5,000 lifetime risk. What about walking across the street? A one-year risk of one in 48,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 625. Drowning? A one-year risk of one in 88,000 and a one in 1100 lifetime risk. In a fire? About the same risk as drowning. Murder? A one-year risk of one in 16,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 210. What about falling? Essentially the same as being murdered."
Before anyone else says so, perhaps you should start another thread on road safety if you want rather than hijacking this one about buying a small car.
Edited by jbif on 02/09/2009 at 17:37
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Buy a Fiesta privately.
tinyurl.com/nans43
Loads for sale around the country, you'll get plenty of change from 2k.
Find a buyer you trust and you'll be fine.
[Edit: Hadn't seen BB's identical message for all the tripe about accidents!]
Edited by Lou_O on 02/09/2009 at 17:41
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risk vs perception; and stats and averages and exposure to risk: www.reason.com/news/show/36765.html "What about your chances of dying in an airplane crash? A one-year risk of one in 400 000 and one in 5 000 lifetime risk."
This is scary. I haven't been in an aeroplane for 15 years, but I still stand a 1-5,000 risk of being killed in a plane crash. This presumably because one could fall out of the sky and squash me while I am asleep in my bed.
However, if I flew in planes more often, then I'd used up more of my risks in a few short flights, and that sounds quite attractive. I think it'd be much better to have a few one-hour doses of being scared witless in an aircraft seat so that I could be safer in my bed at night for the rest of the year. ;-)
[/deliberate-misunderstanding-of-statistics]
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Makes you wonder what the figures would be like if we all had such small cars with little or no rear crumple zone?
Probably very little changed. The 1 in 2000 figure or 30,000 deaths & serious injuries relates to all road users i.e includes pedestrians cyclists, motor cyclists and public transport not just car occupants. The number of deaths/injuries to rear seated passenger in cars is, I suspect, a comparatively small proportion of the whole. You also have to consider that a number of those accidents would be unsurviveable whatever the car involved.
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