Finding a car for between £2K and £4K

[covilha]

Slightly on the back of another car buying thread...
I have always been able to buy very good second hand cars for less than £2K. : VW Polo for £450, Toyota Corolla for £1500, Newer Polo for £1950. My last purchase was 10 years ago and it survived for six years. I am am again looking for a second hand car and there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING for less than £2K and I can't find anything that does not look like a rust bucket of trouble for between £2K and £4K. Am I being unreasonable to expect a small, safe second hand care in this price range please? Thanks.

YANBU at all, but it's odd to see this thread as I have always been able to find cars for £800 or less, and done very well over the decades, but my ds is now looking in that sort of price range and there seems to be a real dearth of things to look at - or when he sees one, they are gone when he phones up. There is some stuff advertised that I've paid well under £1K for similar, but very little that seems any better than the sort of thing I buy, until you get into the £6k bracket.
It does seem odd.

Ugh that’s the danger zone . In that price range it can seem tidy but be riddled with problems. We only buy cars under 1k. They are still about but you need to be patient and persistent. We bought a great car for £800 a month ago.

Exactly eek. It's the kind of money where you need it to last a couple of years without major bills at least and if you do get one, it's going to be a hard decision whether to pay up or get rid.

Cheaper and you'd probably let it go to the great scrapyard in the sky without a second thought (although there's the inconvenience of having to find another one), more expensive and it's likely to be worth it as it's more likely to keep going a few more years to make paying for the big repair worthwhile, but in that price bracket, it could equally be the start of the expensive bills and it's not a trivial sum to drop down the drain.

If you can't find anything, and you're financially stable and always likely to need a car, might you look at going the other way and look at a nearly new small car, with the plan to keep it for a long time? A few years ago, I had a PCP on a Skoda citigo for £130 pm with no deposit, which also included servicing and breakdown cover, obviously a warranty, so no repair costs guaranteed for 3 years. The only extra cost was petrol and insurance.

I initially intended to buy it at the end of the PCP, but instead went into my company car scheme, so I handed it back when I'd paid 50% of the total amount so after just over 3 years, I even just made the original tyres last, they were a couple of months prior to needing replacing when I returned it.

So it probably cost less than an older car that I'd have to pay for repairs on and the only way I could have run a car for less would have been to get a much older car and hope I'd be lucky with repairs. But it was completely hassle free and a fairly cheap way to run a car.

@covilha

Slightly on the back of another car buying thread... I have always been able to buy very good second hand cars for less than £2K. : VW Polo for £450, Toyota Corolla for £1500, Newer Polo for £1950. My last purchase was 10 years ago and it survived for six years. I am am again looking for a second hand car and there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING for less than £2K and I can't find anything that does not look like a rust bucket of trouble for between £2K and £4K. Am I being unreasonable to expect a small, safe second hand care in this price range please? Thanks.

When you say there is "NOTHING" under 2k... can you be more specific about your search criteria? There are just under 20,000 cars advertised under £2,000 on Autotrader.

So I'm presuming you have set criteria that then narrows this down?

I mean this Toyota Corolla is one lady owner (if the advert is to be believed), it's ULEZ compliant, it's only 40,000 miles which is remarkable for the year, and it's got electric mirrors, electric everything.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/2021051827792244_

Here's a 1 owner VW Polo, again ULEZ compliant, nothing wrong with it from what I can see, no rust etc and clean:

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202105182777995

Is this going to be one of those "oh thanks so much! I didn't realise - that's great!" threads?

Hooray for this thread! I bought my car for £700 six years ago and I've gone up and down the country in it. My garage said at the MOT that it won't pass next year and won't be cost efficient to repair. I'm saving £1k to buy another one next spring and could perhaps double that but it seems there is no benefit in spending £1k or £2k as everything is at the very least 12yrs old.

I know MN hates PCP (and yes I do see the many downsides) but I needed a reliable car for work. When I needed a car just for school runs and local work I didnt care if it was a safe ish banger.
My last car expired and my budget in ready cash was up to 4k but even at 4k you could still have the expensive repairs that a 1k car would bring. So my thoughts were go cheap or go large (PCP route) and avoid mid range vehicles.

It depends where you live doesn't it?

I could give you a very good 2nd hand car dealer, but it would be pointless if you live in Dawlish or Carnoustie

I bought a Polo for 2.5k it was 10 years old at the time but had been well looked after and had low milage.
Lasted me for 9 years and is still running but have sold it on due to a baby on the way and we now have a caravan to tow!

When you say there is "NOTHING" under 2k... can you be more specific about your search criteria? There are just under 20,000 cars advertised under £2,000 on Autotrader.

Presumably she means "within her local area" - Autotrader lists cars from all over the country so finding one for 2k in Cornwall when you live in Newcastle is slightly pointless.

Nothing within a reasonable distance.

Nothing that looks like it's worth the money. Just because it costs under £2k doesn't mean that it's sensibly priced for what it is.

Nothing that's the right size, plus any other requirements like number of doors, type of fuel, insurance group etc.

Where are you looking OP? Historically I've always looked on Autotrader, but when I bought a car in that price range late last year, it became apparent that sellers of that type of car often advertise on other platforms like eBay or Facebook marketplace.

I got a 13 plate ex mobility car with 20k miles for £3k. Its amazing and like new. My independent garage said it with kadt me years.

It always fascinates me how people aren't prepared to travel to secure their car.

I've bought cars from up and down the country. If you want it, travel for it.

They are there - try motors.co.uk. I bought a decent 10 year old car for £3k in 2019, I looked again at the same garage and they still have them. Chap did say that such vendors are a dying breed, with everyone daft enough to go on finance and with the idea that a car more than three years old cannot possibly be safe for ickle preshus, the market is shrinking. Not to mention the pressure on the planet caused by all the new cars but hey. Who actually cares?

What do you need from it OP, and where are you in the country?

I agree with pp - there’s this sort of danger zone once you hit £1,500 or so imo, where it’s not cheap enough to just go “Aw, next” at the first major repair, but not expensive enough that you’ve got a warranty or some other reassurance about quality.

Fwiw I’ve finally settled on a car after a really painful search - need three cars seats in a row and Ulez compliant - and finally found one I was happy with in Perth, Scotland. It’s now on its way to me on the other side of the country on a car carrier, for £99. Dealers can do all sorts, worth asking. Though I’m a bit sad that I won’t get a road trip to Scotland out of it.

If I was buying for myself rather than a family and wanted longevity I’d aim for a 7-8 yo Toyota similar to what pp linked.

DD has a VW Golf as does her DP
DS same car - DP has VW Passat - also just bought a VW polo for a friend (helped choose not paid for)
All have been between £1500 and £3000
Just go either ultra cheap - or small dealer with warranty and be choosy - if you can take someone who knows something about cars

If you want a cheap reliable car you need the following:

1. Petrol. Modern diesel engines are horrifically complicated with all the emissions stuff they need. Petrol is far far simpler.

2. Japanese. VW have this great reputation for reliability but the surveys do not bear this out. A toyota / honda will last forever and it's no accident that the Nissan Micra is known as the automotive cockroach as it's damn near indestructible.

3. Service history is much more important than mileage. a 100k car that's been well serviced and maintained will be much more reliable than a 50k car that's never had an oil chance. MOTs are not the same as services.

They are out there, but I agree that they are much more scarce than in previous years. I pad £1600 for a 2007 mondeo estate that needed a (quick) job doing but all equivalant others were going for over £1000 more. Keep looking, maybe at free / facebook ads too as nobody wants to spend £50 on autotrader selling a car for £500.

@Ginuwine

It always fascinates me how people aren't prepared to travel to secure their car.

I've bought cars from up and down the country. If you want it, travel for it.

I've also done this for particular cars in a private sale. But if I wanted to buy from a dealer with a warranty I'd pick locally as any warranty items are much easier to deal with if you are local.

Agree with @Hollowgast

I hear this @DynamoKev - I was also wondering though what kind of warranty a 1-2k car would have?!

Personally at that price I'd buy something known to be uber reliable (2000-2006 Toyota), stick a bit of money into a kitty each month for running repairs. You'd get more out of that than a warranty on a car that old.

And yes @Hollowgast is spot on. Superb buyers guide

we bought a skoda citigo, 5 years old, 40k miles for £3500, it is a great car

I got a vw polo for £1400 a few months ago. Admittedly it's 19yo with about 100k on the clock but it's been well maintained and my village mechanic said it had had quite a bit of money spent on it to get it through it's MOT by the previous owners.

Second hand prices have definitely shot up. We bought a brilliant 6 year old car, 8 years ago for 2k.
Had to buy another 2nd hand car last year. We were hoping to pay around 2k again but had to dramatically up our budget after scoping out the market, ended up paying 5k for an 8 year old car. Madness!
It is a good one though and I think it will last us a good few years.
Used car prices are not what they used to be!

You can have my Tigra for £1k