2nd car - for school pick ups - what woudl you choose?

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the car will be doing about 10 miles a day. shall I go for a new car or second hand? I say to my hb that with the mileage we will be doing on that car, maybe to go for a second hand, as the mechanics will not be used too much so hopefully will not break that much?

The sensible choice is second hand.

Provided you buy a well maintained car from a Geman or Japanese manufacturer, a second hand car should not have significant reliability problems. I bought a 3 year old Skoda (VW/Audi group, so "German"). I have had it 6 years and driven 85,000 miles in that time. The only times it has "broken down" have been 2 failed batteries and a broken coil spring.

I can't see any reason to pay a big premium for new.

what about Honda 9 yeras old

I'd go for a Honda Jazz - we have a 2003, bought 5 years ago for £4.5k, it has been absolutely reliable. DH has been doing 12,000 miles a year with it as his work car, and I'm about to take it over as a family runabout (DH is getting something bigger).
It's not glamorous, and not massively comfortable for long commutes, but it's ideal for what you describe.

I would get a mini or a polo. I think school run cars need a degree of safety and a bit of style. Super examples of both of these can be found second-hand. Polo can have 4 doors too.

I would recommend a used Japanese car. Nothing (usually...) goes wrong with them. Even though it might be an old one, maintenance costs stay low as long as it's been treated well, and given the mileage you are going to put on it, you sure don't mind to get something with 70k-80k miles or more on the clock, you can get quite a few bargains. Civic, Jazz, Almera,...

Also, I'm interested, does anyone know if there's any website where you can calculate/compare running costs for cars? i.e. somewhere I can fill in a form saying I'm going to do 100 miles a day, how much would it cost depending on the car, etc... Rather than just showing up MPG!

Does anyone else think something like that would be useful or am I just being lazy?

Polo can have 4 doors too.

But only in India, Russia and South Africa

I would buy a £500 Micra, what else will do 50mpg cheap insurance and cost less than £1000?
Just bought one for our daughter to learn in and cant fault it

My polo has 4 doors!

Really economic to run too.

We also have a 4 year old fiesta that we bought 3 years ago for our boys to learn to drive in. It's really solid compared to the polo.

Loving my Kia venga. I do similar mileage in my commute to work and its a lovely car for me to drive and roomy.

I have a Ford focus and it usually behaves (it's 11 yrs old but looks fine).