Cheap Small Auto for Teenager

RBZ5416

Anyone recently been through the procurement of a cheap first car for a newly qualified driver? She's elected to go the auto route & I'm thinking that discounts early iterations of DSG or its equivilent as riskier than ye olde torque converter or even CVT. Budget probably around £3-4k so Japanese for reliability? My ex's old Jazz is still going after 15 years so that's one consideration. Not sure how older Corsas/Fiestas hold up for reliability these days?

Low insurance group a must also, so definitely won't be following the @The Dreamer & @Bl4ckGryph0n path!

Foster

I've know idea with regards to Auto as I drive a manual but I have a Suzuki swift that is cheap to run, Insurance group 8 or 9 for the 1.2 varient, easily do 400 miles on a tank.

IronGiant

My parents run an older Polo auto with no problems.

The Dreamer

Well the CRZ isn’t available as an Auto in Europe, so it counts it out anyway. The insurance though, is as cheap as any other starter car, as with a black box fitted it’s £1k a year, and should drop at the anniversary.

No idea on types of car to look at, as I’m really not familiar with what small autos are available - but you’re probably right that Japanese may well be reliable - certainly, during our previous Honda (Civics) ownership many years ago, we never had any issues at all - and so far the CRZ is proving equally reliable.

zeppelino

Yaris, Micra, Note, Colt, Clio

RBZ5416

One thing that's already pissing me off enormously is crap insurers web sites. Just put her details through Tesco Box as a provisional licence holder for a Honda Jazz. "Sorry we can't quote" but we also won't tell you why. Worse still, we won't let you go back & tinker with the quote to try to find out why. So I went again as a full lincence holder, "Sorry we can't quote."

They get extra marks for crapness by identifying the exact model by reg number & still ask what security it has & how many seats.

The Dreamer

Yep. I actually managed to get a quote from Tesco’s for £900 - but when it came time to actually get that deal, the web-site wouldn’t allow it (I can’t remember the reason), so I went with the next cheapest, which was Insure The Box - I’ve found them to be very good - they give me a weekly report on how my lad is driving, which is reassuring to see he’s not speeding, and generally driving well within their measured parameters.

He’s insured for 6000 miles, but earns up to an extra 1000 miles of cover for driving well. As he’s only really driving to school and back (12 mile round trip) and the odd 100  mile journey, he’s nowhere near breaking that limit.

HTH

RBZ5416

Thanks, it seems that mileage was the killer with Tesco. She's at a college 40 miles away so would break their apparent 10k limit. Of course it would be nice if they simply didn't allow you to select more than 10k if they're going to refuse to quote anyway.

But like most web forms, the design seems to have been entrusted to someone who has never used one!

A 10k policy with Tesco was just under £2.9k!

mikeysthoughts

Wife has a Suzuki Swift which she commutes in, currently on 65k miles and going strong. A perfect runaround for town, back roads and shorter motorway trips. She gets 48mpg average according to the on board CPU.

It's very reliable, compact and good fun without being too powerful for a beginner. In the SZ4 trim it's also quite well equipped for a smaller car.

djbsom

My XC90 is a nice relaxing runabout, not sure you'd like the 29mpg or the £375 a year road tax though.