Aibu to ask for your best car for teen recommendations

[Bluejeanjen]

My god son is learning to drive and needs a car. The insurance is mental! I’m going to help him out and he has savings. He has a max budget of about 4K (I know - lucky boy!) and I’ll be giving him £1000 but there will be about £1300 insurance to cover! I’m not very car savvy. Any one have experience in this? Is it better to go really old for the first one or a bit newer. The insurance seems as bad for all! Thanks so much

You want the lowest insurance group and something that's not attractive to the average young man/boy racer type. So not Corsas or Fiestas. Just about all the crashes that have been expensive for the insurance companies, where a group of lads crash a car and they're all injured, will have been in these types of cars.

The Toyota Aygo/Citroen C1 or another one that's the same or Skoda Citigo/VW Up/Seat Mio would be good. All very low insurance, still safe cars despite being small and at the age range you're looking at, the tax will be between £0 and £30 pa.

But £1300 insurance is typical and even quite low for a teen driver in their first year.

My DD has the i10 it is a lovely little car and feels far sturdier than her friends small cars. Insurance seems lower than some of the more popular Corsa's etc.

Hyundai i10 here. See so many of them parked on teens drives around our village and outside dds college. Great car, low insurance

@AuntieDolly

We got our son a Vauxhall Tigra. It's only got 2 seats as we didn't want him doing "lifts". Insurance was ok even though it's 1400cc

Oow that's a good idea

Toyota Yaris old style if you can get one
Incredibly reliable, cheap to own, run and maintain and very safe.
I sold my old one to my neighbour for his granddaughter to learn to drive in and it's still going.
Honda jazz is another boring but reliable car

Yaris and jazz will be expensive on insurance due to the cats being stolen at the moment.
I’d go;
Volkswagen up / skoda citigo / seat mii

Or the aygo / 107 / c1

Agree with LostArcher
Teen dc got a c1 but they are all the same car. We got a decent one, full service history, low mileage, cheapest insurance especially with a black box and paid around 4,000

Thanks all. Now looking at the citigo/up/mii

@LemonRoses

Best car is none until they have left school.

@LemonRoses - OP doesn’t say how old her godson is and most kids will have left school by the time they pass their test! Stupid comment.

Got my first car, a Renault Clio off auto trader. I filtered to traders only as didn’t want to faff of buying from private. I love it and insurance is really reasonable. Best best or to use auto trade to find a car he may like and do some comparison quotes for insurance

DH had a (second hand when he got it) Nissan Micra at uni, that car lasted until we were 30 (and would have lasted longer if someone hadn't bumped it and written it off).

Nissan Micra
Hyundai i10
Toyota Yaris or Aygo
Honda Jazz
Smart Car (safe!)
Renault Clio

Buying a car privately isn't faff at all, I found buying from a garage to be way more effort. Sooooo many forms, I wanted to drive away but had to wait a week to pick it up.

I'm looking now. So expensive. I would actually prefer Ds1 not to have a black box, but it depends on price.

When looking for a car for Dd we realised it isn’t all about engine size when it comes to insurance. I think the insurance companies have some sort of risk register of cars more likely to be in an accident. So anything which is popular with young lads is more expensive to insure.

DD’s first car was an old 1.2ltr polo, Fiat 500s also seemed cheap to insure as did stuff like Peugeot 107/Toyota aygo. But some less popular cars like some suzukis were also cheaper. The polo didn’t last long as was always breaking down and have got her a newer Skoda Fabia now.

@Bluejeanjen

Thanks all. Now looking at the citigo/up/mii

It may be false to assume small cars will be cheaper. In fact, there aren’t many of those models on Autotrader in his price range (only 22 Miis in the whole country). Maybe instead, despite all the suggestions, search for no make and a maximum price. So hatchback, max £3500, minimum year 2013 (all the Miis and Citigos in his price range were 2012 or 2013), max of 60,000 miles (most of them also had roughly 100,000 though there were some that had fair less admittedly), no Category N or S,* and you get 513 results. It just seems possible you may get more car for his money than a 2012 Mii with 100,000mi on it. Here is (hopefully) the Autotrader search with the 513 options: www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?postcode=Nw1%201se&price-to=3500&year-from=2013&maximum-mileage=60000&body-type=Hatchback&include-delivery-option=on&exclude-writeoff-categories=on&advertising-location=at_cars&page=1&sort=year-desc

*VERY IMPORTANT: I have excluded Category S. You see a Citigo that’s a 2016 for £3495 and only 46,000mi and think that’s a great deal, but then see the little “Cat S” tag. That means it was in an accident so large that it had to be written off. I don’t care what repairs they claimed to do to it; those kinds of cars are never 100% right again, in my opinion, because it’s impossible to know the exact amount of stress an accident that expensive puts on a metal frame - like why they tell you to always replace a child’s car seat that’s been through an accident. If you ever see a great deal, I would make sure it’s not Category S.

Vw polo or up

@Bluejeanjen

I was looking at i10 but they just seem so small. I worry they wouldn’t be very safe…..I’m probably letting my old age influence me as I just see tiny cars as being flimsy….I’m overwhelmed with looking to be honest

Mine is much bigger than the Aygo and C1. It's a fab little car and cheap to run.

Have a look at minis, they make the mini one in a 1.4. I had this for my first car four years ago and was the cheapest insurance I could find from all the quotes for different cars. They are very safe and i had it three years and cost me very little in repairs and my mum is still driving it around.

I drive a Hyundai i10 much safer than the smaller citreon V1 or the little Peugeot -

Holds the road better.

Drives similar to my Mazda 2

I like it! Cost £5000 for low mileage and Bluetooth stereo etc and heated seats.

We narrowed down to C1/Aygo/106 which are basically the same car. Some were insurance group 2 and some were 3 but there is a drop down on autotrader which tells you the insurance group and tax of that model. DS drives (to school) on the motorway and it is fine for him. His first year insurance is £800 with black box which I think is pretty good. Before he passed his test his insurance was about £220. We also looked at corsas and fiestas but our budget was less than yours so we didn’t get one. The Fiat 500 is really popular (with girls)

My DS (17) has a Ford Fiesta 1.4D, he is down as main driver with myself and DH as named drivers and his fully comp insurance with breakdown cover was under £900.

Step outside the box a little and Look at a Dacia Sandero. It is basically a Renault.
Cheap to insure, cheap to run and cheap to repair.
Holds it value well and very reliable.

I’m 23 and have been driving around a Hyundai i10 for about three years, it’s been great. Love how small it is for parking, I don’t feel like it’s a teeny tiny car when I drive it either. It feels more safe than the old micra I learnt to drive in. It might be easier for you to go and test drive them together until you decide?

The i10 is a very good and safe little car. My DD has a 15 year old Nissan Micra which sailed through its MOT this year again. Its very safe and reliable, and she commutes to her sixth form every day (nearly 20 miles there and back), and to her part time job. She had a Very small budget so we had to choose carefully, but yes the insurance is the killer.

Fiestas and Corsas can be higher on the insurance for teens as they are seen as “boy racer” type cars.

Skoda are a good idea.

You can always get some reg numbers from Autotrader and run dummy quotes to get ideas of insurance prices.

I’d imagine a black box will bring the quotes down a lot. I think they’re a good idea as they make new drivers more mindful of their driving and less likely to show off in front of their mates.

Also if you have a clean driving license, add yourself as a second driver, this can help reduce the police price by a fair bit.