To ask what the cheapest possible way is to get a teenager on the road

[Getdsontheroad]

DS is 18 and passed his test last week. Due to where we live having crap public transport, his part time job being a pain to get to, me being sick of having to give lifts, family dynamics and him wanting to start an apprenticeship after college it’s very much in our interest to get him a car. DH and I are not wealthy and need to do this in the absolute cheapest way possible. Please could people with DC of a similar age please tell us what the absolute cheapest you can do this for including insurance, tax, other costs etc.

Sadly Nothing is cheap for a young driver.
I suggest you look at a small engine car , mine started in a 1l 107 , £20 road tax and cheap on fuel.
Maybe pick a few cars on auto trader and run an insurance quote, this will give you some idea as to what car to narrow it down to . DS paid around £1000 for his first year insurance with a black box .

Pick a low litre engine like 1.4 or less.

We got a smart car with only two seats for our second dd which was far cheaper than the Fiat we got for dd1. Like @coldcallerbaiter says, get a small engine.

Insurance is still going to be a grand though I'd say. And I've got girls.

Insurance is cheaper if you start it in a couple of weeks, I don't know why.

You can get a black box of course too. My nephew has one with an app so he can look and make sure he's driving properly which he seems to like.

The best thing to do is go on auto trader and do the filtering and you get to know what sort of prices are reasonable for what car.

Then you can start looking for a good one with as few owners and as much service history as possible.

As PP have said or a moped which is probably the very cheapest way of getting around. The roads were full if teens on them when I was younger I wouldn't be keen on safety grounds but if it's a requirement and you have no other options, I'd kit him out in the best safety gear I could afford

DD owns the car and is the main driver and has insurance in her own name, but adding me as an additional named driver brought her premium down by quite a bit.

But as others have said, there is nothing cheap about getting a young driver on the road.

I Think if you put another person onnas a named driver it can reduce the insurance significantly?

check the cars mot history via number plate and what it has failed on
i made mistake of not doing so once

pay insurance up front if possible . Our sons was reduced by £500 doing this

DD is 19 and insurance is £1600 (fully comp)with black box on a mini. Prior to that she drove my small car as a named driver for an extra £30 pm. It’s a shocking amount but having me on her policy as a named driver has reduced the price . We paid the annual price as cheaper and she pays us by direct debit each month.

Do you only have 1 family car, or are you already a 2-car household?

I think you can get the insurance down by being 3rd party only, having a black box and by adding one of the parents to the policy.

It'll still be a grand though.

My dd has saved her own money in order to get a car and insurance, she's nearly 18 and had a pt job since she was 16.

I think you will find insurance more than 1k. We got our 17 year old son a 1 litre Eco flex Corsa in May (£35 tax). Insurance was 1.5k. Adding a parent as a second named driver brought the insurance down by £600 so definitely try that. Don't buy a car without getting insurance quotes first. Most insurance companies insist on a black box at that age, they provide them, easy to fit yourself. Google insurance bands and look what cars are in the cheapest bands. Tiny cars like a Yaris or Ka are cheaper to insure

Yeps agree with others.

Get a car with a small engine - 1L is fine. You can use this as part of your search parameters. Something like a Toyota Aygo, Citreon C1, Vauxhall Corsa.

A car more than ?? years old and you don't pay road fund licence. Not sure how old but DS2's car is 2013 and the tax is zero.

DS2's insurance is £980. He had been driving for 2.5 years by the time we got it tho (Covid made taking his test difficult) - nearly 2 years with me and then about 8 mo since he passed. Think this might have reduced the figure a bit.

We paid it all at once (cheaper than monthly). No black box as it stops you driving in the evening and we heard a lot of tales of people struggling to get insurance after various misdemeanours (like driving after 10pm, ie not really a misdemeanour as such). Also it only lowered the insurance quote by about £100.

Older car - can get something OK for about £2-2.5k. Maybe 10 years old, say 70-80k mileage. That's if you follow the rule above of max engine 1L. My car (an Aygo) is 1l from choice and it's fab.

These estimates are incredibly cheap I feel- probably looking at over 2k now as insurance prices shot up in last few months

DD’s black box has no curfew. It’s a great idea as it ensures she’s driving well.

DD’s was £1600 fully comp in November.

Yes I see a lot of pp saying higher prices for insurance than DS paid. This was in April last year so it may well have changed.

His car (90k miles, Citroen C1) is a good one btw but still needed £500 of work to pass its MoT and is just now in the garage for £300 of work to fix the power steering.

He sweetly queried with me "Isn't the insurance I pay supposed to pay if repairs are needed?" bless

What was disappointing is that DD was named on my policy for a year and that counted for nothing in her policy even with the same company.

Black boxes seem to be less of a thing now - I only know one out of a dozen very new drivers with one, and he's doing more miles than he initially thought he would (quit college and works now) so it's not really saving anything.

Black box saved DD several hundred.

Look at multi car insurance too you get a big discount.

Mine added me to insurance and it came down by £500. Third party. Paying just over a grand with no black box. We are considered a safe area though and it’s down as being on a drive.

Also don’t get anything popular. An old reliable make - anything Japanese for example is less expensive than newer Citrons. It’s a first car and will likely be scraped or dented.

A car more than ?? years old and you don't pay road fund licence. Not sure how old but DS2's car is 2013 and the tax is zero.

This totally depends on the tax bracket the car is in, DH car is older then that and we certainly do pay tax on it.

My son is 20 and passed just before Christmas, insurance is £2500 for the year for a 1.2 polo, black box made very little difference to the premium. Insurance premiums have sky rocketed this year. We ran quite a few different cars through the insurance comparison sites, they were all coming out over £2k.

Luckily he works full time and is paying for it as we would struggle massively to cover this for him.

DD’s is 2012 and pays road tax. Just hope next year’s will drop after a year clear( hopefully) on black box.

Ok fair enough.

Let me rephrase - a low-engine car over a certain age is tax free. I pay road fund licence on my 1L Aygo bc it's only five years old. That's £140 DS' doesn;t pay for his 10-yr-old 1L Citroen.