Daughter is learning and the insurer of our 1.6 Golf will not offer her cover(!) so we’re considering getting another car sooner than anticipated.

We currently have two contenders:
09 Corsa 1.2 with 68k on da clock or
06 Polo 1.2 with 66k on da clock.

I’m not a vauxhall fan really and quite like the apparent solidity, interior quality and shear size of the polo. But the Corsa will be £120 less to tax each year but the Polo is a bit cheaper.
… no it won’t.
Any suggestions?

Edit: this car will be just daughter #1 to drive now and for #2 & 3 in two years time – it’s not replacing anything.

Both 5 star NCAP, so nothing between them that way.

I’d originally thought about you going for the Corsa. Newer, a bit livelier, etc. However, there were widespread reports of camshaft failure on the 1.2, so I’d say: Polo.

Go on autotrader, pick cars in price bracket and then put them through insurance quotes, some could be much cheaper than others. Don’t just look at smalll cars either

What’s the difference price wise with the insurance?

Sheer size of the Polo?!

I’ve had both (well, missus has). Either will be fine, though VW isn’t as ‘reliable’ as they like to promote.

I’d always go with the younger car.

We bought our son a suzuki swift, great spec for the money, looks sporty but isn’t, he loves it, insurance was much cheaper than expected £738ish with no black box.

I wouldn’t go for the Polo – Ibiza or Fabia is effectively the same car & you get a lot more for your money.

My sister’s 05 Polo that she has only recently got rid of came with a cassette player!

When I bought my last Ibiza, similar age Polo’s were about £1k more but were boggo spec models compared to almost the top of the range Ibiza I ended up with.

I always found Corsas horrible to drive; you get a vague impression the steering wheel is attached to the wheels at some point, but it’s all a bit woollen.
Perhaps they have improved since I last drove one….

I’d go for the fiesta obviously.

Wait, the fiesta isn’t on your list????

I’d go for a fiesta also.

Coincidence maybe but I’ve had 2 phone calls 1 from a friend and another from a cousin to see if i could do a homer engine swap on 1.2 Corsas. One with a failed tensioner the other with suspect **** rings on cylinders 2/3 (identifed with a compression test)

I wouldn’t touch a 1.2 Corsa based on that neither were high milage 80ish k for both

Find out what isn’t popular with ‘da yoot’ that will be the cheapest to insure. Both Corsa and Polo have a ‘scene’ and this bumps up the cost.

I agree with the checking insurance first and considering a one up in size car.
I also would suggest Ibiza or Fabia instead of the Polo. Cheaper to buy with better spec, and cheaper to insure for some reason too.
For some reason i have never got on with seats in Vauxhall’s – i drove an Astra a few weeks back for a couple of hours and was near crippled when i got out… Same as the Zafira my old work had.

Why not just buy a learner cover policy from a separate insurer?
Just covers the learner whilst they’re accompanied in your already insured vehicle.
Lapses immediately upon them passing their test.
This is what I did for both of my kids.
Buys you some time to find a more suitable car that they can insure in their own name once they pass, as that is the more important cost comparison that you’ll need.

Ibiza and Fabia are expensive to insure.

Best price I had was for a Hyundai i10.

This is based on at least 50 different quotes!

(ended up with a mini)

Ibiza all too expensive and no Fiestas showing <£3k (which is my absolute max budget).

Citroen C1/Pug 107 look [comparatively] good on insurance but is there an issue with small cars?

… oh wait, NCAP of just 3 stars 🙁

Why not just buy a learner cover policy from a separate insurer?

Brilliant…. never knew that existed!
Done.

I had a’99 VW Polo at the same time that my missus had an 05 Corsa (with much higher mileage). Whilst I thought the Polo was a nicer drive, the Corsa just seemed to be bomb proof. I had problems with coolant leaking and my clutch pedal broke off(!) with my Polo, but the Corsa just kept going. A couple of bits of plastic trim fell off, but we drove that car everywhere, over the Alps into Italy and over the Pyrenees into Spain, plus several trips from the UK to the Netherlands and back (missus BD is Dutch and never had any major issues at all.

I had a’99 VW Polo at the same time that my missus had an 05 Corsa (with much higher mileage). Whilst I thought the Polo was a nicer drive, the Corsa just seemed to be bomb proof. I had problems with coolant leaking and my clutch pedal broke off(!) with my Polo, but the Corsa just kept going. A couple of bits of plastic trim fell off, but we drove that car everywhere, over the Alps into Italy and over the Pyrenees into Spain, plus several trips from the UK to the Netherlands and back (missus BD is Dutch and never had any major issues at all.

I’d largely agree with this’ my other half had an 05 Corsa which I hated but it was actually a good little car; she’d owned it from new and it cost buttons to run and in the eight years that she it had it, it never broke down once. Her sister bought it as a second car and much the same although she has sold it on now. In the time she had it it continued to keep on going and not going pop.

corsa engines changed in 06 to 1.2 Ecotecs when the corsa D came in – these are the ones that like to shit them selves prior to that they were z12somethingorothers that were in Corsa C and pretty robust although liked a headgasket or 2 in their life if driven out of town at the uppers of their rev range for a long time.

Corsa Cs biggest issue was rust and lack of care…. they were like bic razors you could change car cheaper than filling the tank !

Hyundai or Kia? Probably get one with some warranty still remaining, certainly not cool youth cars.

We bought a ’51 Corsa SXi as a stop gap car, lost no money selling it on after 6 months pure use as it is such a popular first car. £40 up after new spark plug.

Had a 1.2 Corsa recently as a loan car, speeding ticket really won’t be a possibility.

When I was checking quotes recently with a 21yr old new driver at work it was cheaper for a 2L petrol Focus than a 1L Corsa,
It seems they just pick numbers out of a hat so just check everything..

Get a ford. VW’s are pricey to fix and I’ve had 2 vauxhall’s which were turds. The 4 ford’s I’ve had were always reliable and cheap to fix when they break. Mechanics tend to like them as parts are always readily available.
Ford is the way, not a KA though. Fiesta for first car.

No love for the Yaris?

The old (2004) Fiat Panda comes out really well for reliability on HonestJohn website. Not trendy. Insurance is very cheap. The car is really cheap to buy. Loads on autotrader. The one I’ve just bought for my daughter looks almost unused inside and out and drives brilliantly.
Cambelt will need replacing every 7 years I think.
I had a 2002 polo, it was not good. All the faults Honest John mentioned seemed to manifest themselves.
Original Yaris was a great car. Fun, ecoconmical, cheap.
Aygo etc are ok, but ours never stopped leaking (which is common) despite numerous attempts to fix the leak (9 years). Had lots of niggling design issues which found really annoying.

Toyota Aygo our youngest got for under a grand was (relatively) cheap to insure for their age at just under £700 no blackbox & with me on it. Been reliable and very economical. You’ll get a good one well within your budget. Mrs has a Polo, to insure that for them would have been double, and it’s had a fair few problems over the years but she’s attached to it for some reason.

I had an ex-contract-hire Polo 1.4L on an R plate as my first car and it was ace; went everywhere from Greenock to Portsmouth and points in between in it.

Mind you, it had next to nothing to go wrong; only toys were electric mirrors, and most importantly, unlike the Golfs the wife and I had subsequently, no air con to have compressor failure just out of warranty.

Edit – just remembered – back half of the exhaust fell off, which also happened to a colleague’s Polo, but I knew a bloke who ran a VW specialist in Bootle who welded a new back half on rather than replacing the whole thing

I always found Corsas horrible to drive; you get a vague impression the steering wheel is attached to the wheels at some point, but it’s all a bit woollen.
Perhaps they have improved since I last drove one….

When was that, exactly?
The only experience of current Corsas is driving the SRi model, which may not help, but I’ve driven ten of them totalling around a thousand miles, and I was very impressed with them to drive, comfort levels were high, they come well equipped, DAB radio, heated screen, etc.
Over the same period I think I’ve only driven two Polos, a couple of Fabias, and whatever the Seat version is, Ibeza?
Not much to chose, TBH, I’d probably go for the Seat or Skoda, they do always seem to come with higher spec, and they are a bundle of fun to drive, but then, so are the smaller cars, the Up!, Citigo and whatever the Seat is called.
They actually come with satnav!

Big ford Mondeo. When they buy their own car they can choose.

sorry but how on earth has this post got away with not posting the obligatory picture of the corsa you had in mind?

very surprising no love for the yaris

as comment from above, autotrader your budget and get the insurance quote as it cost too much to insure since this year mine went up like 30-40% (so as others i’ve asked)

look for kia cars 7yrs warranty if you can bagged one.

look for kia cars 7yrs warranty if you can bagged one.

Aren’t the last two years bodywork only?