What do you recommend? Need a car, no (real) money.

[Haruka]

I bought a house less than a year ago due to the insecurity of renting. Didn't overstretch myself; I am comfortaly able to overpay, even if the property is in need of some repair.

As is the case often when you buy a new place to live in, I have only just began to build up savings again. I had a car accident a few days ago - totally my fault, insurance is fine, but I will need a new car.

I have managed to build up around £1500 in savings since buying the house and carrying out essential maintenance, but obviously that's by far not enough to buy another vehicle, let alone road tax and insurance. Insurance won't pay out yet, the garage won't collect for 3 weeks for assessment after they think it's a write-off, but the hire car is only here for 3 weeks. So I am very pressed for time, especially with needing to get to work promptly and without fail.

I have looked into my options.

-credit card, though most seem to have £1200 as a baseline, which won't be enough
-personal loan
-PCP
-car on hire indefinitely

I am veering towards personal loan, but is that wise? What haven't I thought of? I have a well-paying job of around £42k and a good credit history, though not perfect, because ironically I have never needed credit before.

The lack of payout is just what I got told by a (much older and wiser) friend, so I have no idea how reliable this is; I've never been in an accident that was my fault. I will be on my phone to the insurance tomorrow to tell them to get a move on; hopefully they'll be able to let me know more, too.

The funny thing is, the new quote for my insurance including the accident will be less (assuming same make/ model/ value) than I got quoted on my original automatic renewal - stuff that 😆

Pretty set on a loan now with a little padding added to pay insurance and road tax up front; that way I'll have a cushion is, say, my boiler decides to blow up next week. I'll be booking myself in for test drives mid-week and should hopefully have a new car ready for the end of the weekend.

One more thing - again, because I never had to do this before: How do I buy insurance for a car I can't buy until I hand over the money (and then drive off with)? Get all the quoted and then do it all there on the court? I know they usually buy road tax for you there and then, but how does insurance work?

@Haruka if you're fully comp you'll get market value or sum insured, which ever is the less, in the form of a cash settlement minus your xs. You may not need a loan? If it's a write off then it's straightforward and the cash should be in the bank quickly.

Right now you need to work out what insurance policy you have. Fully comprehensive or third party. ThT will then determine next steps.

It's fully comp with a few nice perks, like the courtesy car I'm currently driving.

But that's not what I'm asking, more of a request for a timeline of how I go about buying a new car? I understand the viewing/ test driving, then buying part and from (limited - I've only held a licence for a few years) experience road tax is done there and then by the dealer, but my ex used to sort insurance, so where does that fit into this timeline? It obviously needs to be done by the time I drive off the court.

Normally you would get given the registration a while before you can collect the car as they don't offer sell the car and give it to you on the same day.
You then ring your insurance and arrange your insurance to start on the day you collect your new car or the day before.

You can get insurance quotes on a comparison site, putting in the date you will be seeing the car (do it sooner rather than later….insurance goes up as you get closer to the date it will start)

Then, if you are sure you want the car the day before buying it, complete on the insurance online. Or even just do it whilst in the garage. It will be a case of clicking through the saved quote and clicking ‘buy now’ and putting in your card details.

The other thing is, when a car is written off, that insurance can be transferred to another car. There will be an admin fee, but it will run for the rest of the year.

If you get an insurance quote in advance you can just accept it when you're ready to buy the car.

Be aware that bank security sometimes gets in the way of transferring the money online. We've had to wait an hour or more for the payment to go through and phone up the bank to try and pass security checks (easier said than done when you're sat outside someone's house and your bank is asking you what date your mortgage payment goes out or other random question).

I think it might work more smoothly if you firstly transfer a small amount to test the payment is correctly set up, and once the seller has that money, send the rest, which will probably go through quicker as it's now an existing trusted payee.

When I bought a car recently (from a main dealer garage) I paid £100 deposit up front, without seeing it. Had previously had identical car so knew exactly what I wanted and what it would be like. Wanted to go and see it and drive away with it the same day as it was quite a distance.

I did the insurance quotes as mentioned upthread. Also rang bank about doing a card payment for about £9k. Wanted to confirm there would be no difficulties as a Saturday or delays. They made a note on my file and said any checks were automatically generated by payments, but the amount I was spending probably wouldn’t generate it. It was debit card as they tend not to take credit cards over £1k. I cut actually out £1knon credit card for the protection credit cards give and paid irher £8k on debit card. It went straight through with no checks. Also then paid the road tax on the credit card. I’d sat and completed the insurance payment on my phone whilst having a coffee in the showroom.

Not so many cars are bought and sold privately these days, so likely to be a garage, even if a smaller one.

Usually you’d only see and buy same day if it’s a bit of a distance. Otherwise, you can see the car and pay a deposit and go back next day or few days later. I’ve chosen online and committed to buy without seeing twice now. However, both times were main dealers which mean the cars are really the very best second hand cars with more warranty and checks than most. And Ididnt pay the balance without seeing the car. In both cases they said the deposit would be refunded if there was a problem when I saw it.

Just an update, I was lucky to have found an old car (07 VW) that was within my savings range when road tax was taken into consideration. I've convinced the seller to repair two parts (one rusted wing, one plastic part that had come off a wing mirror) and give the car a basic service. It still has 10 months' MOT left and drives well and seemingly without issues, so should tide me over for a while. I can pick it up early next week.

In a few months' time I won't be so dependent on a car as I will work within cycling distance from home, so the thing will only be needed for shopping trips/ trips into town and the very occasional drive elsewhere with maybe a 5min trip to work when the weather absolutely doesn't allow cycling.

While it stings paying an extra 10% for this given my insuarnce is now nearly £1000, I have let my insurers know that I'll be paying monthly, so at least I won't have to worry about the huge upfront cost.

It's all worked out well, thanks for all your help with this; I feel far more confident now in knowing what to do if this happens again.

@Haruka thank you for the update & enjoy your new car - sounds like you negotiated a good deal with the seller!