further to my earlier thread asking about motorcycles. DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY YET,JUST DREAMING TBH 😉

looking at the £1500 track day car thread (and how good a car you could buy for £1500),got me thinking,could it be possible for me to buy myself a cheap to run/reliable car that could do motorway speeds with no bother, unfortunately am not mechanically minded 😳

what might you suggest?

it would actually be easier for me to get a car,as i wouldn’t have to pay for all the clothing e.t.c.also could leave it outside with less fear of it being nicked than a motorbike.

thanks 🙂

Old daewoos peugeots and rovers etc a plenty for 500 and less pick the right one and your laughing pick the wrong one and everyone else is laughing.

What you gonna do when it needs serviced / hits a big bill./ needs taxed/insured. New driver , insurance will easy be 1k +

Keep it simple with a base model with less to go wrong, my mate picked up a Toyota Yaris for £600 a few years ago with 80k on the clock it’s done 120k now with no fault and only using consumables. An old civic would be worth looking at too.

Toyota Corolla 1998/9 model with 1.6 engine.

as above, it depends on how much you are prepared to spend to keep it running.

plenty of nice cars in the 1k to 2k bracket now – at teh right time these can be yours for less if you can afford the running costs (camebelt, tyres, VED etc)

Buy private on an unsexy car with no frills check gumtree/ autotrader regularly and one will turn up at some point.

What you gonna do when it needs serviced / hits a big bill./ needs taxed

you are right trail rat.it just sucks not having any transport bar my bicycle.would like to be able to go to the coast e.t.c and maybe take my bike somewhere also.

Trains , buses , taxis all are cheaper than running your own car for occasional trips.

I sold my Skoda Octavia estate, 1999 a few weeks ago for £410.
I was expecting £600, so was a little disappointed.
Was an excellent car, no problems at all, would do 40+mpg, and 80mph all day long.

So, yes, easy to get a decent car for £500.

Bought a Pug 309 from a Newsagents window ad once. Cracking car. Drove it for a few years while I was skint.

trail_rat – Member

Trains , buses , taxis all are cheaper than running your own car for occasional trips.

You buy now you invest in NCB (bloody insurance).

I got a Focus estate 18 months ago for £600,bit raggedy looking,parking scrapes etc.but sailed through MOT and I’ve been all over the place in it,fold rear seats down and bike goes in with wheels on,a great car but maybe I was just lucky!

When I was a student I managed to get an Austin Metro for £180 with the intention of getting some no claims going for when I left uni. The car was bloody brilliant for the money, nothing wrong with it. The no claims thing went to shit though as it got nicked after 3 months.

We have a vw polo 1.0 from 97. Just done another trip from edinburgh to bristol cruising 70-80. Fun round the bends on the a71. It just keeps on going…

500 notes would get you a good one. Cheap on everything too. Last mot cost us a tyre. Amazing wee car

Easily, last car was a Volvo v70 bought for £350, from e bay, unseen. Did a years happy motoring, covering 12k miles, coming up to mot time, thought it would cost a few quid, so sold it for scrap for £200.
Found myself a little, fabia estate, again with 12 months not, high mileage, but impressive condition an service history. Covered nearly 4k miles in it, no bother, and it returns 47ish mpg. All for the staggering sum of £450. It can be done, if you know where to look.

I bought an old diesel Toledo a few years ago for £500 with 174000 miles on the clock. I had over 2 years trouble free motoring and nearly 50mpg until the cambelt snapped, so yea it’s possible if you look hard enough

Absolutely. Just go for a traditionally reliable make like Toyota, VW(of that age!), Honda etc etc.

When I was doing this local newspaper ads were the best place to go.

As for busses, trains and taxis for occasional trips – that works unless you want to go biking or climbing or something out in the wilds. Far less convenient then!

Agree with molgrips on the local free paper ads. My best hunting ground is on facebook. Find a page for cheap cars in your area, there are loads around.

Most of my cars have been around that price. (Some a lot cheaper, but prices seem to have went up in the past few years).

Current car was £750. I’ve changed the exhaust (which I knew it needed when I bought it), the brake pads, tyres, battery, and a couple of bulbs. All consumable items really. That’s all it’s needed in 3 years. Straight through every MOT.

It’s easy to buy a dog too though. Personally I’d go Japanese and ask someone to help sniff some out, or at the very least come and look at it when you buy it.

As a general rule, in this kind of price range, the vast majority of people are looking for something not just cheap to buy, but cheap to run. Meaning small cars fetch much bigger premiums than big ones. You’ll struggle to find any kind of supermini for this cash which is in good condition. They get snapped up right away when the price is low. On the other hand, if you fancy a big V8 or something (OK, maybe not a V8, but you get the idea) people can barely give them away. You can get some absolutely mint cars for insane prices. And of course, there’ll always be something in the middle.

It does help not to be afraid to get your hands dirty. (There’s plenty of info online if you suddenly need a crash course on fixing cars. The owners clubs are ideal, because they know all the common faults). Old cars do tend to come with a bit of character. A few squeaks and knocks maybe. You’ll often find they’re very simple fixes. Sometimes it’s easier just to live with them.

As said already though, much of the cost comes from elsewhere. Fuel, tax, insurance, MOT, servicing….it’s never cheap. But it doesn;t have to cost you an arm and a leg.

It’s perfectly possible to buy a decent car at that price. However running it is a different mater. With no no claims insurance will be at least the cost of the vehicle no mater your age. Add on ~£250 a year tax, plus general running costs and even if it doesn’t break down it soon adds up. If you can’t do it yourself then even simple maintenance gets a lot more expensive never mind more complicated jobs.

i did the same recentley got a sv650 for work and a 02 plate 60k seat ibiza for 700 for family and riding trips had it a year had to do clutch,2 tyres and backbox that i labord myself but that done it should be good for a while with minor servicing its had full seat servicing untill i got it dont think iv done to bad

If your near Hudds I know of a 04 Clio for 390

My dad was offered £600 for his Yaris D4D with 60k on clock 4 years back. Instead he gave it to us. Just passed 90k, with nothing but brake pads/ Discs when we got it, wheel bearings and a service or two.

Nothing doesn’t work. It feels like it has many more years and miles left. No cam belt. No fancy electrics. No DPF or DMF. Parts are cheap. Not glamourous, but a fab wee thing.

It’s not like we give it an easy time:

The mighty Yaris by matt_outandabout, on Flickr

How often would you use the car ?
My Land Rover often doesn’t move for a week as I cycle to work.
Under slightly different circumstances, I could well be better off not owning a car and just hiring a van or buying a bus or train ticket occasionally.

Could that work for you ?

As above, if you don’t need a car they’re hugely wasteful and expensive.

If it’s for occasional trips for biking or climbing there may be a few non-ownership options. Is there anyone you can borrow a car from in exchange for sharing some of the costs? Is there a local car club? Or a cheap van hire place?

thanks for the responses.

i don’t need a car tbh so can live without one.

am just craving going further afield sometime (and hopefully inspire me to actually start riding my bike again)

i live in devizes and as no transport/unfit it just gets a bit er monotonous just cycling the same places (where there are places i would love to cycle in the southwest/uk just cannot get to them. it just seems a big faff also using public transport (trying to get a bike on trains/cost of tickets e.t.c so that was another reason for thinking about a car (obviously you have to pay petrol e.t.c) but you can go when/where you want e.t.c.

will think about it anyways (just have to start saving the funds).

If you use this;

Retro rides pre 2000 section.

Then it’s not finding one that’s hard, it’s choosing!

Are your balls of two different sizes?

APF

Retro rides is great for virtual tire kicking.

Not track car at all, but my daily driver up until 2 weeks ago was a 1999 VW Bora 2 litre that I paid 800 quid for, 3 and a half years ago. Paid about the same again in broken parts in that time, but all in all a solid motor for the money

I’m glad I didn’t know about Retrorides when I was last car shopping, I’d have bought something really really stupid.

Buy an old volvo 850 / v70 estate. Built to last forever, fit bikes in the back with easy. Cheap as chips comfy to drive solid as Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo.

Get an S3. The roads will really come alive.

i don’t need a car tbh so can live without one.

am just craving going further afield sometime

try chatting up some of your local car/van hire companies for a trade account – convince them you’ll be regular customer. You should be able to get smaller cars and vans for around £15 – £20/day. Get a stand alone excess insurance policy for about £30 for the year so you’re not paying any extra waivers on hires and your laughing. Even if you can’t get an account get on their mailing list. Most hire co.s do more work-related business than leisure related so the often have deals for longer hires at weekends and xmas and easter (even with a trade account I get better prices at these times, usually 7 days for the price of 4)

That would get you a trip away every other weekend for a year for less than the cost of a years insurance, let alone the price of a car, you’d never have to pay for MOTs, servicing and repairs and you’d always be driving a new car thats exactly the right size and shape for what you want that day.