Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • Buying an old banger for a roadtrip – advice please!
  • Kit
    Free Member

    So I'm thinking of taking just a couple of weeks off work over the summer (can't afford any longer) and want to get a load of riding in. The cost of renting a car/van for 2 weeks is likely to be prohibitive, so was thinking of getting a cheap car – £500 or thereabouts – to travel around in, then sell it afterwards and reclaim hopefully most of that back. My concerns are:

    -will I get insurance for just 2 weeks or a month (that isn't massively expensive)?
    -do I buy breakdown cover (likely to be a yearly one-off payment) as I know nothing about repairing cars?
    -am I going to be lumped with a useless lump of scrap (see above for not knowing any better)?

    What cars are known to be both cheap and reliable?

    This is simply an idea and by no means concrete, so no slagging off for not knowing what I'm letting myself in for 😉

    Cheers!

    midlifecrashes
    Full Member

    Just rent the car.

    JEngledow
    Free Member

    Watch the top gear thing where they tried similar, but in the US!! 😆

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    tracknicko
    Free Member

    DO IT. half of lifes adventures are budget holiday/road trip affairs. where's the fun in hiring a car that you have to spend 2 weeks trying not to get oil/food/dents on.

    buy something rediculous!

    mastiles_fanylion
    Free Member

    You can buy daily insurance now but I have no idea what it costs. I am sure Google will find the site(s) for you.

    dangriff
    Free Member

    I once bought a Masda 323 for £450, used it for 7 months (earning £1200/month or so in mileage allowance doing Cardiff-London 2-3 times a week). Then put a new MOT on it and sold it for £700.

    It was very reliable, 80's handling was a giggle and the only car I ever made a profit on.

    woody2000
    Full Member

    Something like this – Skoda

    And insurance – Budget Temporary Cover

    IA
    Full Member

    Phone local places for quotes on small van hire, probably cheaper and easier overall. Old banger will need insured, maybe MOT & taxed, and might break down on you etc. And buying and selling is a total PITA.

    I seem to think you're in edinburgh or nearby? Try phoning this lot http://www.acecarandvanhire.co.uk/

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    You could probably rent a van for 2 weeks and £500. But wont be an option if your under 21 at most places, and often needs a certain number of years driving experience.

    Insurance will be the killer. No one is going to touch you for 2 weeks if your a new driver.

    If you can get insurance and it looks like hireing is out of the question then an old volvo with a full service history is a reliable as you'll get. A friend used to buy them at auction and reckond if they had a fully stamped service histroy and new tyres they were as good as new. Out of about 6 or 7 the only one that gave problems was the one with the missing service history.

    If your under 21, give up and take the trains for a 2 weeks, if your over 21, hire a Van.

    tinsy
    Free Member

    You will have to insure for a year as far as I know, you can cancel it after and redeem most of the policy cost but check with the insurer.

    My bank account give me free breakdown, so check yours out.

    I have been running a banger Daewoo Matiz, £600 for a year 2000 for the last 6 months, its been faultless, I just had a full service done as it desrved it, new brake pads, oil and air filter, new fan belts all in for £130.. I was going to buy something a bit better but after looking around at 2k cars that are all but ferked have decided to just keep the Matiz.

    Its all about having a bit of luck though..

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    ohhh, and you have to have it insured to be parked on the road, so unless you have a driveway you'll need to sell it before the insurance runs out.

    Also 'scrap' is on the way up again as the £ drops, so by the time the summer comes arround you may be able to buy a car for £400, and sell it for £500 as metal to a dealer.

    hora
    Free Member

    Two ideas for you. Approach a small dealer- and ask him how much he'd buy the same car back for after a month.

    The other idea is to buy a Toyota Carina.

    RustyMac
    Full Member

    Sounds like a perfect excuse to buy a big old estate car, thus providing shelter and transport. Try and get something with a full service history and recent MOT. You could also use the car to learn a little about how they work for when you can afford a better one.

    Good luck

    Rusty

    squin
    Free Member

    Sounds fun. Buy something like a volvo 850 estate, get insurance which you pay monthly on, get RAC cover pay monthly, and then cancel both policies afterwards. You may get charged cancellation cahrges so worth checking out what they will be as opposed to short term insurance.

    You can get a years RAC for about £8 by using a cashback site like http://www.topcashback.co.uk.

    Just offer every seller a much lower price than they are asking and one will accept, you might even then be able to sell for more and cover the costs of insurance/RAC/some fuel.

    hora
    Free Member

    Volvo 740 or 940 as well.

    If you buy a E30 3 series Beemer you'd get your money back.

    Kit
    Free Member

    Turning 30 on Saturday with nearly 13 years of driving experience 😀 Only owned one car for 3 years in that time, and it was a costly venture…

    Thanks for the advice so far!

    5lab
    Full Member

    ebay is a good place for cheap cars. I've taken a £75 volvo across the sahara, a £80 volvo 3,800 miles around europe, and a £200 volvo (damn inflation) to cyprus, via the eastern block and turkey. Depending on where you're going, insurance can be a bit dodgy (a lot of the further afield countries you buy insurance on entry, so no point paying extra for cover there). The better trips I've had involve a one-way trip – so you can leave the car there (or flog it, as we did in cypurs) and fly home. Don't bother with breakdown, just take some basic knowledge with you. It's surprisingly easy to limp a car a couple of thousand miles

    tracknicko
    Free Member

    mate bought an 850 T5R estate a while back whilst over here for getting to hungary and back.

    do that!

    ziggy
    Free Member

    Don't pay your insurance monthly then cancel after a month, it's a credit agreement, insurance companies now issue defaults as you are liable for the whole years premium. Hardly worth screwing up your credit record for.

    As above 850 estate, seen some around the £500 mark.

    Burls72
    Free Member

    Cheap cars can be hard to find at the moment due to the scrapage scheme seeing off so many. I found the best place to find them was visit all your local garages and ask if they have any cheap part exchanges and just hope you get lucky. The longer the mot the easier it will be to sell on but as someone else said a lot of it is down to luck.

    Did a similar thing around the trail centres in scotland a couple of summers ago. I had my own car and wild camped near the trail centres and showered at the centres or if they didn't have one stayed at a camp site for the odd night or stripped washed in the disabled toilets at supermarkets etc. Can be a laugh trying to do it on a budget.

    rickmeister
    Full Member

    Lets go leftfield here…..

    There are two hearses on e-bay right now for £210 – 400…. Its got to be a dead good deal. They get driven dead slow, the owners are dead carefull and I reckon a road trip in one would be dead cool. Other road users take you dead seriously.. Loads of room to lie down in the back, space for bikes etc etc, maybe need some curtains for eveings as the rear windows are quite large….. Stowage space for a little trolley for shopping…

    Downside is available in Black only…but thats nowt a couple of Halfords spray cans couldnt sort…….

    So, Who Ya Gonna Call…?

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    If be headed for America…buy an old truck and do Nevada/Cali/Moab etc. Screw insurance etc…

    Putting mature hat back on, rent a small van.

    The hearses look like a great idea

    rusty-trowel
    Free Member

    Did this with a mate in Australia a few years back. Bought an old flat 6 Holden Kingswood estate and bunged an old foam mattress in the back. Hand made curtains (old material and staples hanging off string), rigged up some ropes to hang surfboards off the ceilng at night so they didn't get nicked.

    We kipped in it for about 3 months, so no campsite fees (carparks, roadside), washed in public toilets and the sea :-), Lauderette every couple of weeks. Spent about £5 a day on food and drink, jobs a good'un.

    But- it broke down loads so go for aa cover or something (i think we called out their equivelent about 5 times).

    Sold it on for a small loss afterwards, but more than made that back in saved accomodation.

    bassspine
    Free Member
    geoffj
    Full Member

    Old Merc Estate and do it in style 🙂

    plenty around the £500 mark (might even buy one myself!)

    eBay Linky

    jimmy
    Full Member

    Hearse +1 🙂

    Kit
    Free Member

    The hearse would be awesome 😀 Hmmmmm…

    mk1fan
    Free Member

    Volvo Estate

    toys19
    Free Member

    old reliable cars are normally japanese

    bassspine
    Free Member

    either of those Roller hearses (off ebAy) would do me nicely. 🙂

    ebygomm
    Free Member

    Road trips in old cars are fun

    The extra excitement it adds is not always welcome though!

    thomthumb
    Free Member

    day insurance cost us £80 for 4 days (that was 4 of us) but it was £77+pound each for 3 additional drivers.

    that was a newish transit van..

    timber
    Full Member

    something with a long MoT will resell easier and give you some peace of mind
    in the sub £200 category, no-one gives a damn about what your car is, just road legalness, as a guide, used to pay about a tenner for every months MoT and another tenner for every month of tax on a car – had a VW Scirroco (too small), Nissan Bluebird (terminal structure fail) and a Vauxhall Cavalier (felt flush and replaced it) over 4 years for £300

    hels
    Free Member

    Did this when I was 16 in New Zealand with a group of girls. There were 6 of us so a Ford Falcon was the only option. Bought it for $850, drove it around for 6 weeks, ran into some poor guys Holden Commodore, I think the girl who was driving is still paying that of at 50 cents a week !

    It broke down a fair bit but weirdly when 6 16 year old girls stand at the side of the road looking helpless, in summer, with the hood up we always got help.

    One of the best holidays I ever had. Replaced the front panel from the wreckers and sold it for $950 when we got back.

    Sorry not very helpful but you have sent me down memory lane !

    petrieboy
    Full Member

    Re insurance, take out an annual policy and when your finished with it, amend your policy to cover your new ferarri 612 scaglietti adding your 17 year old brother who holds a provisional licence and works in the motor trade. If they can't offfer cover, balance of policy will be refunded.

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