Currently live in London, have been using Streetcar for a while but have pretty much decided to now buy our own vehicle. Streetcar is excellent for short journeys but not so great for weekends away etc, or if you just want to lob a bike in the back of the car and take off for a days riding on a whim.

Couple of options… could take out finance for 4-5k and buy a newer car, or maybe even a campervan (more like 6-7k for this option?) Or, option 2, could spend just £500-£1000 cash and pick up an old banger perhaps?

If we went the banger route, what is the number 1 best choice here in the UK? Back home in Oz it would be an old Toyota Corolla or Datsun. Not so sure over here?

Also, how does MOT, tax & insurance work? It's all a bit confusing to a simple Aussie!

Any car over 3 years old requires an annual MOT.

You ( and anyone who drives the car ) must have at least 3rd party insurance.

Road fund is payable every 6 or 12 months.

I have a 1998 SAAB 900 – built like a tank and never fails.

If you can put up with 30mpg they're stunning!

There are some great bangers around, plenty with the big end about to go also.

No idea how to tell between the 2.

playing bangernomics id always buy a ford – strong enough they dont fall apart – but not so strong they retain their value excellently.

My first 2 cars were both 600 quid both fords both from 1995 – 1 derv fiesta – 1 petrol escort

both were great and cheap to fix if they did go wrong – deviated from that for my last car and had nothing but trouble with expensive bits that very few folk make – hyundai

Is it every weekend, most weekends or some weekends you'll be using it? If you've already got a solution for day to day transport then option three is to just hire the car / van / whatever you want.

A £500 car will still cost another £1000 or so a year, at least to tax/insure/MOT/service. Look at the weekend hire rates for cars locally, divide £1500 by that number and see how many weekends away that would fund (perhaps 20) in a newer car than your £5k option, that will always be exactly the right size and shape of car for the job. If you are going to do regular business with a hire co an account will be even cheaper, my account would get me a hire a car almost every weekend of the year for £1500

Old Volvo's and SAAB's seem like good options for a banger?

With MOT's, I guess these are the same as 'Roadworthy Certificates' back in Oz? Back home whenever I had to get a RWC I always found myself getting charged to the tune of a couple of grand to fix bits and bobs, is that common here with MOT as well?

With 3rd party, what's the cheapest way to sort this? I assume it needs to be done before you even take a private car for a test drive?

http://www.bangernomics.com/Bangernomics.html

The key thing about bangernomics is that you are not buying a car, but transport – and from that point everything is about cash. You need to know when to walk away, when to spend and the value (basically how long is the MOT).

If you do only a few miles, mpg is pretty irrelevent, consequently big old cars are a good buy – built well and looked after for most of their life.

Third party insurance, and no more – as you are never going to claim, unless as a third party.

Tax costs.

I've run a few bangers, but TBH happier spending a bit more nearer £2k instead of £500.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230442033084&ih=013&category=9837

This kind of thing for me, esp. as the bits for these are quite cheap now.

Is it every weekend, most weekends or some weekends you'll be using it?

Probably some weekends… but I have days off during the week (when I'm working a weekend) and I'd like to be able to just jump in my transport and drive somewhere for a ride… convenience and all that 😆

So if I can find am el-cheapo car with 12 months MOT, so I don't need to worry about that for a year, that'd be a good start? How about something like this: Volvo 940 SE Turbo Estate. 12 Months MOT & Taxed £495 Bargain

for insurance, use confused.com or comparethemarket.com to compare costs from (literally) hundreds of insurers. trouble is, 3rd party insurance applies to you in a particular car, not you in any car. might be more expensive too as you're aussi so can't drive properly 😉

yep, MOT = roadworthy cert.

not all cars are bad. I ran on bangernomics for years, and didn't ever have any problems beyond normal consumables – brake pads, discs, glow plugs, oil, filters, tyres etc….

plenty of good old cheap cars around. look for one or two owners, and generally one that looks like it's been well looked after. anything japanese is good – corolla, civic etc…, though fords and vauxhalls are cheap to fix if you can't do it yourself (mainly as there are lots of non-OEM parts around). they will go wrong though.

Volvo 940 SE Turbo Estate. 12 Months MOT & Taxed £495 Bargain

it's got a turbo. too complicated for bangormatics. go simple.

someone was selling a golf vr6 on here the other day for 2k. that'd be ace 🙂

convenience and all that

the hire co won't mind what day of the week it is, if there is one local to you (and plenty will deliver to your door) then hire cars are convenient for occasional use. Unless you mean convenient to nip out to the shops.

One issue with cheap bangers is the risk of getting saddled with them, if you're not living somethere where you can get the car off the road then failing MOTS/tax expiring means the car is suddenly sitting on the road illegally and you've got the hassle of trying to offload it. Bangers can very suddenly become inconvenient.

For test drives etc, you can get instant insurance online, about £30 a day or so. You just print out the cover note and take it with you. Can't use it to tax a car though, need proper insurance for that.

someone was selling a golf vr6 on here the other day for 2k. that'd be ace

Was very tempted by that… but dilly dallied too long and it went 🙁

This looks like fun, but again probably too complicated for Bangernomics right? If a car has passed it's MOT, should this mean that everything in it is tickety boo and will last till the next one? Does an MOT give you that sort of piece of mind?

Bangernomics is great.One thought though: Major downside with confused.com or comparethemarket.com is that you have to be prepared to get metric shedloads of junkmail for the next six months.

Volvo V70 for £900? Might go check this one out, what do you guys reckon?

Buying bangers is basically a lottery, but if you get lucky, it's mint. I paid £1000 for an ugly Astra 5 years ago and I've probably lost £500 in depreciation and spend £400 on MOTs and repairs. It does the job fine, and basically it's cost me virtually nowt to own and run compared to the several thousand quid each of my mates forks out every time they buy/sell/maintain their newer/flashier/less reliable motors. It helps that I work from home and hardly drive anywhere. And I like the freedom of paying cash and avoiding finance.

I'd probably look for a petrol Escort/Focus, or older petrol Mondeo. Avoid things like aircon, and turbos that will cost if they need to be fixed.
Insurance will cost you a fair whack- I'm guessing you've got no ncd from here, depending on your age, and the insurance group the car falls into it could run close to a grand.

An MOT only covers safety (brakes, tyres, windscreen kinda stuff) and emissions. It wont tell you that the engine is about to die of the gearbox is knackered or the battery is dead or the radiator is leaking etc etc.

Go simple. Bigger engined cars seem to last longer and as theyre 'unfashionable' are relatively cheap. Also cars that have had one owner or owned in the same family seem better looked after. Maybe a Vectra / Mondeo / Primera?

Having 12 months MOT *only* means that on the day of the test those items that were tested were OK.

Nothing more.

that v70 sounds well looked after, though be careful with the autobox. insurance will be quite high though i think.

eeek, that legacy is tempting!!

MOT is only a safety test – it's be no means anything approaching a guarantee that all is well under the bonnet. It just means the tyres are ok, the brakes work (though who knows for how much longer) etc…

bangormatics works much better if you're mechanically minded and have access to tools 🙂

should this mean that everything in it is tickety boo and will last till the next one?

no its a safety test, not a reliability test, and it only proves the roadworthyness on the day it was tested, do it could be terminally sick and unreliable, and still safe to drive on the day of the test

Cool… but would a mechanic make mention of problems on a MOT? They do back home on a RWC (generally).

**** me… just been playing around with insurance quotes, £1100 3rd party only for a £500 car??? How's that work FFS?

On these comparison sites, they ask how long I've had a licence for, I've just swapped my aussie one to a UK Full, so have only had a UK licence for a month or so, but have been driving for 16 years with no claims or infringements, does this count at all?

firstly get a diesel, volvo if you want bags of room and they NEVER die or a peugeot HDI diesel, make sure they both had regular oil/filter changes. I've got both, the peugeot (406)has just gone past 100,000 and still regularly gets 50 -60mpg on a run and you regularly see them still going with 2 -300,000 on the clock, thats why so many are now taxis. for the volvo get the D5 version, even in diesel form its a rocket ship!

I was told to count mine from the year I got the licence, not the year I swapped it.
Did you have any ncd from home- if it was recent they might count it, but you'll need to speak to the insurance company, not take out the policy online, which'll lose you the 10% discount you normally get of buying online…

Have a look at the insurance groupings- for the first year it'll make things a lot cheaper if you buy a car in groups 1-6ish- an Escort, Fiesta, Astra, Corsa, that sort of thing.

buy something simple, non-turbo'd & with at least 6 months MOT.

A 90s Honda, Nissan or Toyota could be a good buy.

I'd be tempted by a 2.5/3.0 Manual Vauxhall Omega (very similar to a Holden Commodore) that seem to be sold for peanuts these days, although might be a bit thirsty.

We usually buy a car nearly new and then keep it for years, on our third one now since 1987

Point being we sold the last one a Honda Civic with 9 months MOT, 3 months tax, half a tank of petrol and 68k on the clock for 200 quid
Fair enough it would have needed some welding for its next test, but 9 months motoring for that sort of money is a result

Chap bought it xmas eve and reckoned it was cheaper than train fares to go up north for the festive period
Must have been alright, got a letter with picture of the car demanding a fine for being in a Sheffield bus lane on New Years Eve.

Some cheap decent motors out there and most people like us sell privately for beer money just to save all the hassle of having an additional car that's not needed hanging about

Insurance is probably your biggest cost. Living in London, parking on the street and having no insurance history here will mean a big bill, even third-party only.

As said, MOT is a safety test – if the car's older it probably won't need emissions checks so could be running in any old state and it'll pass as long as it makes it to the centre and through the test. They'll issue advisories for anything they pick up that isn't worthy of a fail, but that's only for things they check. Things like rust will only fail a car if it's around structural areas like suspension points. Brakes are tested for effectiveness but they won't be taking wheels off and checking how much pad life is left, when the fluid was last changed, that sort of thing.

Tax – assuming you're buying pre-2001 it's £205 per year if over 1549cc (£125 under). Later than that it will go from free to £400ish depending on how many CO2s it puts out.

The insurance kills it for a lot of people. Most antipodeans I know are on streetcar as it works out cheaper for their use, and if it's going to be a longer trip then there are loads of conventional hire places in London where you can get a standard hatch for about £30/day, usually on short notice too.

**** me… just been playing around with insurance quotes, £1100 3rd party only for a £500 car??? How's that work FFS?

Its got very little to do with the value/cost of your car, more the cost of you running someone over and/or benting their Bentley.

Bangers can very suddenly become inconvenient.

I think the point of bangernomics is you buy the transport, as soon as the car becomes financially unviable you either flog it at whatever cost someone will pay for it, or scrap it (and many will pay for it too). Otherwise it's not really bangernomics, it's just "buying a cheap car".

My personal choice would be a low-power peugoet (something like a 306) with long tax and MOT. If they break they're cheap as chips to fix, they don't rust, they'er so simple they rarely break, and decent ones can be had for <500 with ease. My first car was a cheap peugeot 205 1.1, it lasted well over 5 years until someone wrote it off, and it would have lasted another 5 with ease.

you're 16 years may help – but you'll have to call the insurers direct. quite a few do reciprocal 'no-claims' for places like NZ, Oz, US, Canada… you'll still need to provide proof of no claims though.

as mentioned – it's the damage you do to someone else's car they're scared off. with 3rd party, if it's you fault, value of your own car is irrelevant as damage to it is not covered.

3rd party quote of £758 for an £1100 1998 Vauxhall Astra 1.7 Diesel Estate… is that reasonable??

engine is bomb proof isuzu

im 23 and have zero no claims on my van and pay 450 quid a year …

i do have NCB on my car but wasnt allowed to use it !

should be able to get less on that astra !

never really had comprehensive insurance back in Australia, we have 'Compulsory Third Party' that's paid as part of your registration (or tax as you guys call it?), never had a claim on it (have never had an accident in 16 years). Don't know if I could get proof of no claims (can't even remember who I was insured through for CTP)…

Third party insurance, and no more – as you are never going to claim, unless as a third party.

What if you cause an accident which disables you?

This Volvo V70 estate seems really good for the money (£900) and it's only 5 minutes up the road from me, but insurance is coming in at £1100 Third Party only… it's Group 12, what does that mean?

ctp won't count for ncd here- that's only for injuries to a person, not damage to a vehicle.

This is useful reading: Moneysavingexpert

have you phoned insurance companys and explained situation though ? just tell them you have been driving in a foreign country for 16 years. JUust the act of driving for 16 years should make a difference even if you cant proove your no claims