What left hand drive car for my nearly 74 yo mum?

[duchesse]

My mum's car was written off by a drunk driver about a month ago. Luckily she wasn't in it- it was parked overnight in an parking area alongside a road. 2nd hand cars are really expensive in France so we're looking for a LHD car for her here in the UK.

Unfortunately she was not covered for replacement value on her car (she's really not well off) so the best we can hope for in terms of payout is teh £750 my sister managed to convince the lad's insurance company to stump up, plus £150 for scrapping the old one, plus £3000 that was left in my father's bank account when he died. (ie about £4000 in total).

We want to find something that
A) isn't massively expensive to start with
b) isn't going to cost a fortune in parts and need lots of mending
c) doesn't drink a lot of fuel
d) is left hand drive (very important as my mum is based in France)

Diesel would be good -both for fuel economy and the fact it's cheaper in France than petrol. Registered in France would be a distinct advantage (just in case anyone out there had such a car for sale) as France is a bit tricky re registration of foreign cars etc...

My mum favours a VW polo or a golf but one sister reckons they cost a lot to maintain and parts are expensive. We all agree that a 1.6 l engine is ample for my mother who is not a particularly confident driver.

Basically though, what make and model would you suggest?

Registered in France would be a distinct advantage

How much more expensive are secondhand cars in France? How much is it going to cost to bring a UK-registered car back to the UK every year for an MOT? If it's more than the difference between the countries' secondhand markets, buy in France.

VW parts can be a bit pricey, but they are usually fairly reliable, so overall they aren't that much more expensive.

Digging around on Autotrader, I found Chesham Left Hand Drive Centre, which has 5 French registered cars at the moment.

If reliability is your top priority, there's a French registered Toyota Verso at London Left Hand Drive Centre.

There are also some possibilities at www.lhdcentre.co.uk/carshowroom.html.

Thank you both!

To answer your question, Mittens: A fair bit more expensive! Eg a car that sells at around £4000 here would be €6-7000 in France. There is a procedure you can do to register the vehicle in France, going through the Service des Mines. My mother says overall it costs about €1000 to register a foreign car, but it would be a lot cheaper for a car already registered in France (some of these lhd cars still have French number plates for example!)