£6500 for a car...

[RedPandaMama]

If you had £6500 for a car, what would you get?

I did have a 2016 Renault Clio and I liked it but someone crashed into me and it's been written off now I feel weirdly nervous to have the same car, but I'm not sure if that's really stupid. I'm still a bit panicky when driving so I'm not sure getting the same car would help.

Just me and DD (2) so don't need tonnes of space. Economical and reliable is preferable as money is tight-ish and I can't afford random repairs - I had an old Golf that had a habit of needing a £500 every 12 months and it was a nightmare.

Essentials: 5 doors, isofix base, some boot space.

I've been looking at the Citroen C1 Puretech, or Kia Picanto. Cheap insurance and road tax. Both seem decent and around the £5500-£6500 for a 2017 model.

Open to any suggestions!

They are cute but the fiat500 scores very poorly on EuroNCAP for both passenger and pedestrian safety.

Plus Fiats are not famed for their reliability. They are second from bottom in the 2019 JD Power reliability survey.

Toyota Yaris.

Big enough for your and DD, economical and come top in EVERY SINGLE car reliability test.

Honestly they’re bloody great

I love my Citroen C1, they’re absolutely fantastic little cars and they go on for miles. I do a LOT of mileage (120 miles/day commute) motorway and rural roads, and it’s never let me down, repairs are very rare and I can get a full set of tyres for less than £150. It’s the second one I’ve had and I won’t buy anything else, every mechanic I’ve ever spoken to raves about them for reliability.

We had a similar budget and broadly similar requirements to you and bought a Seat Ibiza. It’s very economical to run and doesn’t feel like a tin can on a motorway, although more acceleration would be nice.

We’ve put 8000 miles on it this year, and it’s handled it well (more than half of that on motorways, which we didn’t anticipate when we bought it).

We looked seriously at this, the Toyota Yaris and Kia Rio but I didn’t like the Kia Rio’s higher rear windscreen, and the Ibiza has a bigger boot than the Yaris.

Mazda 2 or 3. We went to Mazda from a Corsa and the difference is amazing. Boot is huge, loads of space inside for us all and the heated seats and heated windscreen have been amazing in the cooler weather. Much more reliable too, ours is a 62 plate and still flies through MOTs without any advisories. We spent a small fortune on the Corsa before we changed and wish we'd done it sooner.

I honestly recommend VW up! I have had my fair share of cars and it's been the best, brought it 3 years old and it's now 7 years old and only thing had to do was replace tyres and brake pads. £20 pa tax and passed every MOT mechanics have always commented on what a sound car it was. I have the 3 door but 5 doors are available, I have yet to see a broken down up! On the hard shoulder. The thing is not much goes wrong with a vw up!