So our daughter is doing well with her driving lessons. We REALLY want her to pass so she can drive herself to school in her final year and get around to see all her friends and drive her brother around 😉 The joys of living in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve been looking at ‘best cars for first drivers’ and ‘the HOW BLOODY MUCH for Insurance’ but wanted to to check in with the hive mind of STW.  So far we’re thinking:

Petrol. 1.0-1.2 litre. Up to 10 years old. Up to 45000 miles. Hatchback. Stuff that comes up are Ka’s and Fiesta’s, CS3s, Fabias, Ibiza, Polos and a lot of Kia Picanta’s.

We’ve got a proper mechanic mate to check out anything we buy. Budget is 3k. Expect to be paying half of that again for Insurance. We might sell it if she goes to Uni and doesn’t want a car or keep it for her Brother to drive when he can be bothered to get off his butt to learn.

Anything we missed? Ta.

son has a Suzuki swift. both myself and wife on insurance, direct line. The car also has a tracker which is shite, as he works at airport he’s penalised for early starts late finishes despite DL saying it wouldn’t. will see when the renewal comes in if it goes up. Cost was about £1k with tracker £1400 without.

When we got first car for daughter, two years ago now, the C1 models from mid 2012 onwards came out cheapest to insure. The point in time (age of car) where the vehicle tax on that model was re-rated to zero correlated with cheaper car insurance for some reason, so it was worth buying a newer model for what was saved in insurance.

We did look at the tracker idea. That’s quite a discount. Makes me a bit uncomfortable giving all that data to the insurance companies to be harvested tho.

I would be doing random insurance quotes online through comparison sites based on different cars seen on auto trader. That will give you an indication.  It’s not all size/power cost etc

and also insure at least one other female driver on the vehicle

Citroen C1 / Pug 108 / Toyota Aygo?

I’ll add those Perchy to my search. I’m just using Autotrader with a distance of 40 miles from where we live.  Loads of choice so no point travelling further.

Interesting on insurance. I’ll do some random quotes when I’ve got more time this weekend. Never thought a newer car could be offset by lower insurance costs. As ever STW comes up with a different angle 🙂

If you’re looking at a C1 chuck Peugeot 107 into the mix. My daughter loves hers.

Son bought himself a clio. £900.

Cost to insure?

£2200 with a box.

Perfect.

If you’re looking at a C1 chuck Peugeot 107 into the mix. My daughter loves hers.

Same car with different badges – see also Toyota Aygo

Tiny citroens and pugs have been the traditional girls first car of choice for  decades round our way.

The second hand market must be flooded with lilac Saxos with eyelashes which are powered by fairydust.

According to my 14year old daughter, girls now want Fiat 500s instead

I’m not sure Jessie (daughter) cares much about what she gets. Although I’m so out of touch in terms of the wants and needs of 17 year old women I could be totally wrong 🙂

We have some local garages which stock some 2nd hand ones of most of the makes so she can go and have a sit and see if there’s a preference. I don’t want to be pejorative here but I feel colour might outweigh marque 🙂

@binners – Aspirational car choice there 🙂

VW Up / Seat Mii / Skoda Citigo are in that ballpark. Meant to be quite a bit cheaper to insure because they were one of the first small cars to get standard-fit ESP and auto city braking.

Good cars too, I’ve had a couple as cheap rentals and was impressed.

Skoda Citigos are just starting to get into the £3k-£4k bracket and were the cheapest to insure when we got one as my wife’s first car in the UK (quite a jump in size from the Cadillac DeVille she had back in the US at the age of 16!). Cheaper even than the C1 – they’re more of a granny car so premiums were lower. The Seat Mii is the same, and cheaper 2nd hand. I’d not discount the ones over 45,000 – maybe go up to 60 or 70k.

And they were a world above the C1 in terms of quality, a genuinely nice little car.

We bought a Vauxhall Astra 1.4 SRi.

It is the slowest and most boring car to drive I’ve driven for at least thirty years – it’s more fun than a Morris Marina 1.3L, but only just.

The insurance for me, my wife, and my teenage mutant son is £900 from Liverpool Victoria, no tracker.

My OH bought his daughter her first car December time off ebay and we’ve got her a purple Ford KA 1 Litre. Although it was an early purchase (she doesn’t turn 16 until June 4th) it was the perfect car for her, an older lady owner, air con, windscreen defroster, low miles, only £700! We’ve done a few bits since, new tyres as the ones it came with had perished with age rather than worn out! New front pads and discs, serviced it, had a new section of exhaust welded in, all fairly cheap jobs. It’s the perfect learner car and apparently is one of the lowest insurance brackets, fairly sure her step dad is going to be getting her some learner driver insurance for her birthday so that she can pass on that insurance and be building up her no claims in the meantime.

Because my van has been in the garage all week being fixed I’ve been driving it round to help bed in the brakes and just use it a little and its brilliant! Reminds me of being a new driver and its just so easy to drive, small and easy to park up, perfect for her and her mates to get around in… I may be excited for her! I’ve got her some L plates, air freshener, keyring and an AUX cable for it so far, I need to control my accessories purchasing I think!

Everyone within a 30 mile radius of Kidderminster should be warned on 1st of June as you may hear her scream!

Daughters nr2’s learner policy was £320 fully comp (no box)(rural backwater) in a Skoda Citigo.

Goodluck with finding one with the citybrake option…  they are quite rare….

Daughter nr 1 did 50k miles in her 1st seat mii and was totally reliable with no squeaks or rattles, (likes it so much she got a second one with the citybrake, I tested it with a tarpaulin hung across the drive and it was unnerving but worked perfectly) fully comp in that London Town is £700

i prefer the citigo to the Mii and the up as it seems to have a softer suspension setup (interior is a bit functional though)

(she doesn’t turn 16 until June 4th)

Don’t you need to be seventeen to learn to drive?

GolfChick has nailed it. Whatever it has, make sure it’s got an AUX cord plug. My daughters mate got a Clio, she was absolutely horrified there was nowhere to plug the iPhone in. 🙂

and also insure at least one other female driver on the vehicle

They’re not allowed to base prices on sex anymore, but otherwise yes, keep adding people to the policy until the cost stops going down. I kept my parents on mine until I was 31 at which point apparently they become a liability again :p

Thanks all. Useful advice… especially the Aux cable!

Dont want to be too much of a downer  - but please avoid Ford KAs   , yes a great design and easy to drive , but they suffer from terminal rust problems , bodged ones are not too common luckily as unless it has a dodgy MOT  the tester will have  given it a special look over.

It may be worth looking at one size up cars Auris , Astra ,etc as they can have similar or cheaper insurance with the added safety and capacity of a larger car.

Sometimes going a bit left field can pay dividends insurance wise, popular cars statistically have more accidents (due to the quantity on the road) and therefore have higher insurance premiums, my 2 sons when they passed did this, son 1 has C2 Code which is a C2 VTS with limited edition trim, only 3500 registered in UK, insurance cheaper than 1l Vauxhall Corsa and an absolute blast to drive, same performance as VTS and 1500 quid cheaper to insure!! Son 2 went for Alfa Mito, low performance but cool looks, good spec and cheaper than similar age Fiestas, Corsa’s etc.

I was under the impression that ALL new drivers had to have black box insurance?

Yeah have to agree with finishthat in that they can suffer from some rust in places, especially around the fuel filer cap which we have a little bit of but we were super aware of it when we went to look at it to get one that, other than that bit, was completely rust free. We did the fun ‘MOT History Game’ and checked lots of KA’s for their previous advisories to find a perfect one. Oh and yes I did mean she turns 17 in June but sh’es sent off her provisional license which apparently you do quite a lot earlier than 17!

10yr old Fiesta, shirley… it’s a rite of passage!

Get her a Series 2 Landrover on classic insurance.

Every 17yr old girls dream…..

Love my kid as I do, she has – unfortunately – inherited her dad’s lack of spacial awareness. I feel a Landrover would not play to her strengths 🙂

She wants something just big enough to get four people in and not an inch bigger!

I’m also going to fit some kind of ‘Bat-Signal’ in it so when I need fetching from the pub, I can activate the taxi service. About time that worked the other way round 😉

Popular learner cars are not always cheap to insure, I guess as statistically they are often crashed?

I got a old 2.0 petrol 4 door saloon, aka old man car, it was cheap to insure, I guess not many 17 year olds crashed them.

I spent hours on confused.com running random cars to see what was cheap to insure, same now, some less popular fast cars are much cheaper to insure than popular fast cars.

Is it just me or is anyone else wary of putting their kids I  such a tin motor as a c1. Can’t see them fairing well in a head on with a Chelsea tractor etc.

I got a old 2.0 petrol 4 door saloon, aka old man car, it was cheap to insure, I guess not many 17 year olds crashed them

this. A Mazda 323 or Avensis was *much* cheaper to insure for young driver than Fiesta/Micra/C1\Ibiza.

Love my kid as I do, she has – unfortunately – inherited her dad’s lack of spacial awareness. I feel a Landrover would not play to her strengths

Would it matter in a Landy? With those bumpers?

Re: wrightyson’s comment, you do realise that a Citroen C1 is built to a more robust level than a 2CV, EU crash standards demand it!

I would second the VAG city cars, the Mii, Citigo and Up!, I’ve driven all of them, and they’re great fun to drive, and while I accept this isn’t terribly reassuring, remarkably quick, too; according to my TomTom satnav I had 105mph out of a Citigo on the M5 while overtaking a Discovery…

The C1, 107 and Aigo are fun, IIRC they have a semi-auto box with paddle shift, which is a bit better than relying on the rather slow auto shift, and the Hyundai i10 is really worth looking at, a nice drive, fairly well equipped for a small car, and not unattractive styling-wise.

It has to be said, compared to when I started driving, when cars came with rust built in, no airbags, crumple-zones, mostly drum brakes, and few other mod-cons, even those little cars mentioned come with aircon, excellent brakes and safety equipment, and are a lot quicker and more fuel efficient.

C1/107, god no. By far the worst car I have ever had the displeasure of having anything to do with, former girlfriend had an Aygo, full explanation on the worst cars thread.

Bigger olds man’s car is a good shout, my Proton Persona 1.6 cost me £600 to insure, with 3pts on my license from driving my dad’s Landy. Was flicking through eBay the other week as you do, a mint 2004 one with 74k miles went for £180!

Diesel (non-turbo, 1.9) 306s also very cheap to insure, decent size, fun to drive but not hugely reliable.

Go as big as you can. My friend passed her test the same time as me, she got a mk3 Fiesta, I had my dad’s 110. She said ‘I’ve got a small car in case I hit something’ I said ‘I’ve got a BIG car in case I hit something!’ I think she was worried about parking prangs but given new driver’s propensity for hitting stuff I’d prefer a Landy to a Fiesta (actually, Defenders are cheap to insure, but expensive is almost every other way)

Hmmmmmm Rubishes 107/c1 (which are quite fun actually and one of my favorite hire cars) then suggests a proton and goes on to say a 1.9 non turno diesel Peugeot is fun to drive …… Nothing with a 1.9 xud9/dw8 engine as stock is fun to drive(I’ve had three of them). The most fun thing to do with one of them is stick it in a Jimmy as a conversion for low speed trials thanks to its torque.

I also would not stick a new driver in an aging landy these days either. Mechanical sympathy is not taught in the driving test. When I redid mine last year it seemed to be all about abusing the car.

Get her a Series 2 Landrover on classic insurance.

Thinking of going the Defender route for my nephew for his lessons. Both of our everyday cars are autos and I need a new tow car for the sheep (need a bigger trailer) so was looking at RR V8’s (cheap and great tow cars) but was thinking if I got a Defender I could teach him to drive in it and if he can change gear and park a defender then he will be fine in some little hatchback.

My son had a 1.0 Corsa C £900 insurance was £1200 with a box which actually gave cash back for good driving it actually cost £800 after refunds, fitted a full leather heated sports interior, 16” alloys, all singing satnav dvd stereo and a Irmscher sports exhaust. Was a great little run about

Slightly different tack here. I was talking to a body shop guy about my wife’s Suzuki swift that was hit head on then from behind in a car accident. Car was written off but my wife and son both got out intact. He said they are amazingly engineered cars with a super strong internal structure and if he had to have a small car it would be one of those.

Land Rover Defender 110 as a first car .No speeding fines .Safe as houses .

Bang on Lotto, it was ace (no speeding fines but three points for failure to observe a red stop signal…) Teaches proper overtaking and hill starts.

Can also get itself out of the ditch when the inevitable happens (not at high speed, just reversed into it, missed the gateway I was trying to turn around in)

Battered Landy with green L plates on gets a lot of respect from other drivers, an ideal first car, apart from they can be a bit pricey, but that is offset by the fact that older ones have usually finished depreciating if you look.after them