Thinking of buying a cheap (£500 or less) car and wanted to know what things to look out for. So far things I would keep on eye out for:

– How long is left on the MOT
– If tyres will need replaced soon
– Full service history

At that price, other than the obvious, you are pretty much taking a punt.

Buy a trusted brand with a reasonable reputation (ie Ford).

If maintenance cost isn’t an issue, buy big – you will get an old monster estate for same/less than a Fiesta but have many more toys (all of which will probably be broken though).

DON’T buy from a dealer though – unless you are buying a trade-in wreck sold as seen from a main dealer – avoid gravel parking-lot type dealers – they know all the tricks to hide problems with stuff they sell.

Your best bet is to pay more attention to the people selling it than the car itself.

Avoid dodgy geazers and seek out nice old biddies with nice houses.

yeah it is a punt but it only needs to survive a couple years so fingers crossed something that will trundle along for that long can be found. Hopefully.

I am sure there will be plenty of genuine cars out there but at the £500 bracket it really IS a punt. A seemingly perfect car with a perfect (and genuine history) would be just as likely to explode as any other. Or conversely a ‘bad’ car with history is just as likely to last two years…

Budget another £500 for repairs!

Whatever you buy, make sure it’s been used regularly in the last couple of years, so you know that things like bearings are likely to be OK, and brake lines etc aren’t likely to fail immediately.

High miles shouldn’t be an issue at all – something like a 1995 150k petrol Passat or Golf will set you back £500-750, will run for a long time, and should be in good enough condition. 10k miles per year, ever year….no issue for these cars. Something with 30k at the same age may need a fair amount of recommissioning.

As for FSH….nice, but realistically at this level you just need to know what’s happened in the last 20k or so. A lot of cars at this age start to be given attention only when they break. Clearly you don’t want to buy one of these!

hmmm so this could be a hiding to nothing 🙁

Check for specific known problems with specific motors. The Parker’s guide used to be good for this but I’ve not bought one in about fifteen years so don’t know if that’s still the case.

Don’t get too hung up on service history, its a bonus but at that price level its not going to make much difference if there is the odd service that has been missed. Try and find something with at least proof of recent servicing though, even if its just Halfords receipts for oil and filters etc. 6 months plus MOT will be a big bonus as its unlikely its being sold due to something that would cause it to fail

Buy something that looks as though its been well cared for, the owner has made an effort to give it a good clean, check there isn’t any major items due for replacement such as the cambelt. If the owners knows its a lemon I would expect them to make less effort to tidy it up.

hmmm so this could be a hiding to nothing

Well no – just be realistic of your expectations. No-one could guarantee any £500 car being good for 2 years problem-free motoring so expect some issues along the way and you won’t be disappointed.

i’m not looking for any guarantees, if it goes 2 years without problems i’ll be ecstatic! Just as long as doesn’t fall apart or die on me, that’d be nice

Check that when you turn it on, the right selection of warning lights (engine, oil, abs, battery etc.) come on, and they turn off correctly once you drive off. If they don’t come on when you start the engine, they will have been disabled, which probably means some expensive, hard to fix problem that they are trying to cover up .

Oh and my top tip is that if you’re even slightly worried about the person selling the car, just walk straight away even if it looks like a good deal.

That’s a good point actually. Don’t be scared to walk away; there’s a lot of cars out there. Someone wants too much money and aren’t shifting, don’t feel pressured into paying more than you’re prepared to.

I’ve specialised in buying big old things – cheap. I specialise in doctors and wives of retired company chairman. Doctors are to drunk to risk driving and the wives are often given cars that are too big and therefore get driven about at the speed of royal barges. Picked up several big citroens, mercs, and best of all a mazda xedos for peanuts.

Agree with person not car but can’t quite bring myself to buy a 04 Hyundi sonata V6 auto with 130k on the clock despite full service history, leather, sat nav and toys for £600. Owner works with my wife and is so small she has to sit on a cushion to see over the steering wheel. She is so small she can’t see the pedestrians laughing. Its so ugly. She’s replacing it with a Lexus which I might buy off her in 5 years time.

At that kind of budget bargains are something you get when you’re lucky. Whatever you spend on a car, don’t spend all you can afford on it, you’ve got to expect to fix and maintain it. At that price if a car runs reasonably prob free for a year or too then ace, but the point of buying that cheap is that you can afford to let go of it if a major problem arrises – as buying another one is cheaper than fixing it. But for that to work you need to be in the position to buy that second motor, pretty much from the get go. Also if you get something and it is good its sensible to be able to spend a little bit on it here and there to keep it good, as the car you know is a better bet than the next one which you don’t.

Bargains wise – look in the papers and free ads, not everyone’s web savvy, especially at that end of the market, and the tradition of the classifieds is to haggle down, as opposed to eBay where everyone bids up. Then – when the car is spent – write a really long and honest discription of all its faults and put it on eBay. Someone will buy it, possibly for as much as you bought it for.

My last two vans I bought for £350 and £600, the first came taxed and mot’d and I sold it a year later untaxed and unmoted and with no steering to speak of for £340, in between all I spent on it was fuel. Second one I kept for two years, and while I did put tyres and an exhaust on it and spent a bit on servicing I sold it for £595 with the back doors barely attached. Both were bought in the papers, sold on eBay.

I went to look at small cheap cars and saw this lurking on a forecourt:

Sat on the passenger seat was an A4 folder with the original purchase receipt made out in one name – and then 12 years and 113,000miles of history, service, MOT’s etc all made out in same name, all in date order.
Cost us £550, we ran it for a year, not a single thing did not work on it, serviced it once and sold it for £600… 🙂
As said above, look for a well looked after car, I was happy to be a bit ‘leftfield’ and granny like if it was a reliable and well looked after car. I should not have sold it.

Don’t buy a french car

Do buy big French cars. V cheap and not as bad as people would have you belive. Be hard on the negotiations, walk away if they don’t bend over. leave them a number so they can call you when nobody else does. Then throw it away when it needs servicing. Had three Citroen CXs and two XMs on this basis. Total cost less than £2k ( CXs totalled £480) and then had about 60k miles out of them.

Lift up the oil filler cap, run your finger round the inside- if it has a lot of white gunk theres oil getting into the cylinders somewhere- prob head gasket.
Check that the engine is cold before you start it- a warmed up engine runs better usually- look for very blue or black smoke on startup (unless its a diesel).
Check for even tyre wear on all corners, bounce up and down once on each of the corners, any more than 2 or 3 bounces after yours and the shocks could be ropey.
Look for uneven/faded panels indicating prev crash damage, check the sills for rust/bodged repairs.
Lift up the boot carpet and the carpets just inside the doors to check for rust/welds/repairs.
Dont buy off a boy racer as its prob been ragged.
If you thinks theres something not right with it, walk away, it might look nice but trust your gut instinct- tehres plenty more cars out there to chioose from.
Most of the above apply from the days when I was mostly buying and running old minis but think they prob still apply nowadays!

Lift up the oil filler cap, run your finger round the inside- if it has a lot of white gunk theres oil getting into the cylinders somewhere- prob head gasket.

White gunk is water getting into the oil, normally the same source though, head gasket. But, if a car is used for short journeys then you can get the same symptoms simply because the oil doesn’t get hot enough for the moisture within it to burn off. Our Punto used to get this every now and then…just one of its little tricks. I wouldn’t buy one with these symptoms though just to be on the safe side. Also beware a nice clean filler cap…could have been wiped clean an hour before you arrived!

Buy a Pug with a diesel engine. My 406 is the pre-HDi type (TD), does 600 miles a week, requires only diesel, regular servicing and screen wash. I’ve driven some 45k miles in the last year alone, can’t recommend it enough.
Regarding WAG’s, lovely tight turning circle but…. if/when front suspension needs working on it’s expensive. Pugs are less complicated so cheaper to fix (although you will need more space to reverse).

Buy a Pug with a diesel engine. My 406 is the pre-HDi type (TD), does 600 miles a week, requires only diesel, regular servicing and screen wash. I’ve driven some 45k miles in the last year alone, can’t recommend it enough.
Regarding VAG’s, lovely tight turning circle but…. if/when front suspension needs working on it’s expensive. Pugs are less complicated so cheaper to fix (although you will need more space to reverse).

cheers some good advice there guys

If the owners knows its a lemon I would expect them to make less effort to tidy it up.

Although when I got rid of my Renault – Blowing oil through the turbo, big end bearings on their way out (from when the cam belt failed and I lunched the engine – spent a christmas in my dad’s garage repairing it (he’s a mechanic)) I cleaned it to the point where it actually looked good!

All this can be avoided by not buying a renault in the £500 category though. I’ve never known anyone to own one and not have problems with it.

My bro had a huge renault estate that cost £500 less than £500 (someone threw it away). He did 150k in it, taking it up to 300k. He then gave it away, still working. In the 6-7 years he had it he broke a throttle cable which he fixed with a zip tie.

Presumably if you are looking at spending £500 on a car you are looking for something that is reasonably economical as well?

I’d suggest an Audi 80 1.9tdi estate so you can get your bike in the back or if you like something smaller a SEAT Ibiza 1.9tdi, I have one! It’s amazing car does about 60mpg on a good run and about 45mpg round town. £50 to fill up and gets me about 500 miles. I’ve had three so far: –

1 – Complete wreck and needed loads of work done – always check the suspension on these and look for leaks.

2 – Great car but had a little accident in it – dog, car, large curb dont go well together!

3 – Current one has done 177k miles but flew through MOT and rides like new. I travel about 600 miles a week and it hasn’t let me down once.

^^^See? They break all the time!^^^ 😀
From yesterday’s experience – buy a 406 estate and leave a rear door window slightly opened, you won’t be bothered when the missus complains.

False economy IMO.

Looked at bangers the last few weeks, almost all needed a big service (cambelt etc). A SOHC sierra you could DIY by sticking it in 5th, finding TDC, mark on the cam pulley belt off, belt on, job done. These days every 10yr old car has some kind of VVC/VTEC sytem or even just a inlet variator, these all cost megabucks (well, £200+ the usual service and are usualy a case of taking the cams out completley).

In the end I got a £5000 focus c-max with FSH, from a local garage I trust, who knows the previous owners, 12 months tax, MOT, serviced, new tyres.

And unless I’m unlucky I should easily get 100k/10 years from it. So is only actualy costing me £500/year.

thisisnotaspoon

On what basis to you assume you won’t have a single penny to spend on maintenance on your car in 10 years? You are living in a dreamland.

And you’re assuming a £500 car that needs its cambelt doing is going to last a year, we’re clearly in the same place.

No I am not assuming anything (see my posts). But to think a £5k car will last 10 years without a single penny spent on it (no brakes, tyres, servicing etc even) is just not reasonable.

Insurance – £500
Services – £250 (averaged over a few years)
Tyres – £150 (averageing say 20,000 on a set)
Tax – £190
MOT – £60
Fuel – £1500

After much deliberation it just seemed daft trying to do a 2nd car on the cheep when it costs £2.5k just to run the thing and that £2.5k is pretty fixed whether the car is 1yr or 10yr old.

Doesn’t anyone know how to use a spanner these days? If you pay someone else to work on a £500 car it’ll be an expensive car.

Do it yourself and servicing costs next to nothing you can fix anything for a couple of hundred quid.

But thisisnotaspoon – you haven’t allowed for repairs in there. As I have tried to say, you WON’T have 10 years without a major repair or other natural wear and tear (the clutch, for example won’t last another 100k on top of what mileage it already has).

thisisnotaspoon – Member
Insurance – £500 £187
Services – £250 – £200 for parts and a little labour for the tougher jobs
Tyres – £150 (every 3 years maybe!)
Tax – £190 £135
MOT – £60 £40ish
Fuel – £1500 £700 based on 7k per year

So by my calcs the second year (as if you buy savy, the car will have Tax, tyres, MOT and been serviced when you get it) will cost about £500 + whatever fuel you use.

I bought a 2001 Pug 306 HDI for just under a grand with 1 owner, FSH, 4 new tyres and brakes, 6 months TAX, 9 months MOT and it does 60+mpg.

I’ve got a 15(?) year old jeep with 130k on the clock. Never failed an MOT, never had anything major. Can’t think of anything other than service consumables. I did upgrade the suspension but that was a voluntary upgrade, not a fix.

thisisnotaspoon.

Is your Focus C Max a TDCi diesel?

If so, we sold our Mondeo (mainly due to parking issues and underuse) but also due to the constant worry our £5k car could land us with a £1k bill for injectors and/or a £1k bill for the infamous dual mass flywheel.

It wasn’t the sort of car you could fix in the street…just replacing a small coolant pipe above the oil cooler cost over £100 in labour at an independent garage due to having to remove half the front of the car.

Replaced it with a petrol Fusion which has much less potential for megabuck repairs, plus I can actually get my arm into the engine bay which makes working on it more realistic.

thisisnotaspoon….

Just checked and the average REPAIR price is just south of £300 and they seem particularly prone to electrical faults.

http://www.reliabilityindex.com/reliability/search/54

Spooky,
Duratech petrol (for exactlly those reasons)

M_F,

Yup, and don’t whatever you do buy Japanese cars, they’re horendous!

http://www.reliabilityindex.com/reliability/search/189

93% of them didn’t break down in a year, and those that did cost £300 to repair. So I’ll put £300*0.07, best put £21 to one side just in case.