to ask if your automatic car is any good?

[Wouldloveanother]

Planning to buy an automatic in a few weeks (second hand, I’m not made of money!). It needs to fit a toddler car seat in the back so I’m thinking not a hatch back. But ideally quite small and un-fancy.
If you drive an automatic, I would be really grateful for your car reviews!
sorry there wasn’t a ‘car’ section so AIBU it was..

I have a Seat Leon. I love it, so comfortable and easy to drive and basically a golf underneath.

The boot space is pretty decent as well, its quite deep so can fit lots in.

I've had a vauxhall corsa - old shape, a suzuki alto which was quite small and changed cos it had a lot of rust and now have a toyota yaris also old shape. All of them old cars. Have only ever driven automatic. Very happy with all. Looking on autotrader recently and even very old cars seem to be going for a lot at the moment.

skoda octavia and fabia here. Both estates and both awesome cars.

Our new car is here in 2 weeks! Toyota Corolla Tpuring Sports. It's a hybrid automatic estate.

I get top mobility allowance and we desperately needed something I can fit my wheelchair in as 2 adults and 2 adult sized teens plus a wheelchair in a focus is a squeeze!

DH had never driven an automatic before but absolutely loved it on the test drive. And he was fascinated by the hybrid part where the engine stops! Like magic!

I have a Toyita Corolla Hybrid which is an automatic. I love it.

Did you notice a big drop in fuel costs? We are keeping everything crossed that the fuel savings will make up for losing the mobility allowance!

I have an automatic Astra which I love. Have bought Dd an automatic Skoda Fabia which is very reliable, surprisingly big inside for a small car and seems well built compared to some of the plasticy small cars we test drove.

Took me a day.

Ford Bmax. Not flashy or anything but reliable and affordable. Plus the sliding doors were a great help getting my disabled mum in the back seats and would be the same for children I would imagine!

This is what we drive! It's great - really smooth and easy to drive, and loads of room for our two DC and all their stuff. It runs on the battery a decent amount of time which means we don't have to fill it up as often - obviously a big advantage at the moment.

Love my auto Honda Jazz - so smooth and impressive getaway at junctions and traffic lights! The only drawback is that it takes a while to change up the gears when accelerating to more than 60mph (eg on a motorway slip road) but other than that, I can't fault it.

Personally I think with a budget of £2500 for an auto it'll be a case of what's available within that budget, rather than picking what you want.

We have a small garage, can't tell you how often we get asked for small autos under £5k. They aren't easy to find at all unfortunately, and an auto version of a car is also more expensive than a manual would be.

The last 10-15 posts read like a roll call of personal car choices - all due to the OP titling their post “is your auto car any good?”

for anyone just joining the thread, the OP has a budget of £2500 and was previously wavering on buying a “hatchback” due to a perception of it having 3 doors or fewer.

so it’s great folk like their Kamiqs and Corolla Hybrids, however these could be 10 x the budget of the OP.

Nissan note auto post 2013, my tax is £30 compared to £220 before 2013. A big difference.

Ok that’s nice. And how much more did you pay on the sticker price in the beginning? I’m willing to bet more than £2500.

Which is great and fair , but not everyone has that chunk of cash.

OP has £2500. They are highly likely to be paying the pre- £30 a year tax bracket, but that’s fine

We had an automatic five door hatchback Ford Focus when we were at the toddler stage, it did the job perfectly well and we replaced it with a newer version ten years later. I'm surprised to be the first person to mention the Focus, because there's loads about. Google talks about transmission problems but there weren't on either of ours.

Both our cars are currently automatic but probably bigger & more expensive than you want
We have a Land Rover DS and an electric iPace which are both fantastic to drive
I did used to have an automatic VW golf which was also great to drive.
I swapped because my hips and knees are damaged due to RA so it was getting very hard to operate a clutch but also electric cars are automatic so that's the direction of travel.

We have a auto golf and wouldn't be without it.

I work in car sales and you may struggle with your budget. Autos are more expensive than manuals so there won't be much choice out there for you.
You may find getting a car on finance a better option if you want a car which is going to be reliable

Good luck on your test op!!

The Focus models with the automatic transmission model problems were from 2010-2016

once again, the OP has a budget of £2500 which would realistically only get her into the 2000-2009 models - there’s possibly a couple of the 2010s which will be cheap enough but very high mileage

I have been driving autos for a while. Just bought a VW Polo for DS who is learning to drive ( multiple reasons why he is learning in an auto) . It is a fabulous little car. I don’t really drive little cars but it is really economical (45-50 mpg), very nippy, and has apple CarPlay so I can listen to my play lists. I’ve driven it on the motorway and it easily cruises at 70.
It has a sports setting and a tiptronic gear box so is classified as semi automatic.
Unfortunately if DS passes his test this week I won’t get to drive it as much.

I have an automatic Mercedes A Class, love it. So easy to drive and the most economical car I have ever owned.

I love mine.

It's an Astra from 2009 that I bought for £1,500 two years ago, and it's a great little car.

Would never go back to a manual.

I have an auto Mazda 2. It looks tiny on the outside but it fits a toddler seat and a booster seat, and the boot is surprisingly spacious when I needed a pram. It's now filled with camping chairs and various sporting equipment for ferrying my boys around. I used to work at Enterprise Rent a Car and there were some awful autos that felt really clunky when changing gear, but I can honestly say I can't even tell when this changes.

Depends on the gearbox.

Do your research - it's an expensive fix.

I just changed back to manual as my gearbox in my last car had an ECU malfunction and cost me £1k to fix.

I bought a hybrid Honda fit last year, great car all round. 50 euro a month for petrol. Small but not squashed. And the back seats fold down completely which is so handy when I'm doing a food shop. The only problem is it would be hard to fit a pram in the boot of needed, my youngest is 12 so we're way past baby/toddler stages. I'll definitely be sticking to automatic hybrids.