To point out the practicalities to ds

OP rural areas are much, much easier to pass in due to the lack of traffic and limited test routes. He might be able to pass with a small number of lessons.
I wouldn't advise buying a car unless it becomes apparent that he needs a LOT more practice. I'm assuming you will be the supervising adult?

You can find lots of advice and even test routes on YouTube these days.. DGN and Conquer Driving are two I really like.

You don't have to 'tell# him anything. Just get him to research and come up with a plan

These prices are eye watering! My own DS is 21 and does not want to learn - he has autism and is crap at driving games on his PS so thinks it not worth doing!
I have explained at length it not the same If you ever need a sniper he is your man though.
I had my first driving lesson on my 17th bday as I was obsessed with driving- It was my birthday present and my mum agreed to pay for 20 lessons at £6 each. I passed after 17.
The insurance these days especially for young men is unreal as is the cost of the lessons- good luck to him but he is due a rude awakening. I didn't have my own car until 25 ish though but was a named driver on my parents car. I'm sure they only did that so I could pick them up from the airport or pub! Which I did happily as I had the use of the car most evenings and all the time when they were away.

Can he access that before he is 18?

Just be clear what you can contribute and what your expectation is re first priority contribution to rent/council tax once he starts earning. He’ll soon find out how expensive it is. We bought DS 10 lessons for his birthday at £35/hr and I think he’ll need 20 to be test ready. A 10 yr old 60k mileage 1 litre car was £3k - price of secondhand cars is ridiculous and he won’t get anything for £800 that isn’t a money pit death trap. The other restricting factor is waiting time for practical tests - could you support him to do theory test by buying the DVSA app and paying for test as a birthday gift then if he’s lucky he can book a practical test 6 months later. You can use a paid app to get practical test cancellation slots once you are in the system. Insurance for learning with marmalade is £1.50/2 a day depending how long you purchase (to practice in their own car) but once they pass it’s ridiculous. It would be good for him to start learning even if he can’t afford to run a car once he passes.

Although I'm old now, I passed after 10 lessons with no practice a month after my 17th birthday. My parents bought me an extremely old and rusty car for about £50, then I spent £800 I had saved on insurance!

Can you skip the boarding and lodging to help him get on the road? My parents taught me back in the 00's hours of driving round but saved a fortune. My first car was 3k it is now 9k for the same age car. Could you go down the multi car policy route for insurance?

I think insurance for a learner on their own car is more expensive than for a learner on someone else's car. We found it really hard to get insurance for DS on his own car, which he needed in order to get the necessary adaptations in order to drive at all.

DS actually passed after 5 lessons -- but he's been obsessed with driving since he was a toddler, spends his free time on racedriving simulators, and had driven our family car many hundred miles (accompanied) by that point.

DD ... looks likely to take longer.

My husbands just done his test, overall cost about 1300 pounds, insurance was quoted as 300 a month for a 30 year old man.

Id get him to check, you can pre check insurance costs

Ha! It took me 4x that in lessons and tests.

Has he seen the cost of insurance for young men these days? It's insane.

I'm doing lessons at the moment. It's £70 for a 90 minute lesson. I've been told it's a minimum of 40 hours on average to pass the new test. If changed significantly since the change in 2017.

So yes, he is being naive. But try to see it in a different way. If he has £800, a lot of 17 year olds would just fritter it away on nothing/their social life. My 16 year old has spent all her Christmas money on absolutely nothing and wouldn't even consider something as practical as a car, even if your son hasn't thought of the practicalities. Why not suggest putting it in a saving account (is this his gov child trust fund money?) Specifically towards him learning to drive, and help add to it. It must be a bit frustrating to know he has to pay rent out of a pittance that is apprenticeship money, with little spare time to earn any more for lessons.

My DS pays £70 each week for a two hour lesson. We live a long way from the nearest test centre, so now he is approaching being able to apply for a test. he is doing more lessons in that vicinity.

He has failed the theory a few times and they are about £25 each time (not failed it by much, only a few percent each time).

Like everyone else, I would be encouraging him to have the lessons and get his theory, then practical tests done.
Then he starts saving again for the insurance.

You are quite right that is the most expensive part, but it still makes a huge amount of sense to pass his test now and then save up for the car ownership and most importantly insurance as and when he can afford it.
It will also be cheaper a year or two on from when he passes.

I agree with others. 2nd hand car prices have gone though the roof over the last 2 years.

He may not listen, but if you want a recent example, these were the costs for my son to get on the road at 18.

£33 each driving lesson. He around 30 lessons - £990.
I also spent £120 adding him to my insurance for extra practice.
Theory and practical test - £85
10 year old Citroen C1 (38k and one owner) £5000
Insurance for the year, with a black box £1990
Breakdown cover £98

Didn’t need to spend £5k on a car, but I didn’t want the worry of him driving something that would constantly break down or only last a short time. His mate spent £900 on a banger that lasted him 3 months before he needed a new engine - total waste of money.

This is not a stealth boast by the way - just the reality of being a young driver and the costs.

I'd be supportive by helping him find an instructor and paying towards his lessons. At least he's keen.

Lessons are so expensive! My older dd learnt during and after lockdown and her lessons were £27 an hour. Now with the next dd they are £36.

Make sure he understands that a £800 car might be a 1,4L which will cost him £6000 a year to insure Vs a £4000 1,0 L car which might be more like £2000-3000 a year. I'd say he needs to pass his test then you can discuss getting a car.

I would say that 45 hours could be a strong possibility.

20-30 years ago people could pass with 10-15 hours, not anymore.

@KeepTryingToGetItRight what 19Lottie says, the pair of you go on Autotrader and you can narrow down the search criteria really well with that. Then take the registration and put it in CompareTheMarket car insurance site and get him to see what the actual figures are for that car.

You can change the reg without having to re-enter all the details. We did this 2 years ago when debating getting Ds a car but he was off to uni so wouldn't be driving it but we went through it all anyway just so he could see the figures.

Also look up petrol prices and get him to work out how much it will cost to run the car too.

Learning to drive for Ds was £68 for every 2 hour lesson and all the driving instructors here offer the 2 hours, no one offers 1. You can learn a lot of the theory of how a car works, understand the clutch, gears etc by watching youtube and lots of mock tests to see which lane to be in, how to handle meeting situations. DVLA recommend around 45 hours of lessons from an instructor. Having seen a lot of these mocks tests with Ds, some of them clearly need a lot more.

In this day and age sadly he won't find a car for £800.
If he does it will be incredibly unreliable. Maybe tell him to go online and look at 2nd hand car prices, I looked last year and a car as old as ours (2009) was about £4k, we paid that for ours 6 years ago.
He also needs to think about other costs, MOT, service, interim bills for when it inevitably breaks down.

Plus used car prices have gone through the roof since covid. An £800 car three years ago will cost £1500
now.

an £800 car is more than likely going to be a total money pit.

Ask him to find a car within his budget, then do a dummy quote for insurance using the reg.

Also, it’s not unusual to need 30 hours of lessons to pass, possibly even more.

Sit him down and Tot up these plus theory and practical costs. And a monthly allowance for petrol and maintenance.