Saving up for a car for soon to be 17 year old DD...

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...any suggestions for a small car with a reasonable(!) insurance rating?

Good safety rating obviously top priority.

Not sure on budget yet - probably £3k ish.

DSs insurance was approx £3k! He is very jealous of his female friends that are getting it for £1/£1.5k! Got his first renewal in about 6 weeks, fingers crossed it comes down! 🤞🤞

Still lots of older petrol cars around if that's what you mean.

Lots of 20-25 YO cars on the road, still running fine. Which means that the cars like mine - currently 5 years old small petrol car will likely be a young driver's first car in 10/15 years time. There's about 250 Citigos under 10 years old for sale on Autotrader and all but 9 of them are petrol and will be the type of cars young drivers will be buying for the next 10/20 years.

Shouldn't be putting yourself as the named driver to keep insurance down. If the car is the teenagers then he should be the named driver as he is the main driver

Put yourself as a named driver will bring the cost down but the child is the main named driver.

I'd check what type of timing belt these small car suggestions have too. If it's got a wet cam belt that hasn't been changed then you're looking at £700 + repair straight off (compared to dry belt £200 or chain which shouldn't need any attention).
I've just got rid of a car because this needed doing alongside another job and it wasn't economically viable to repair.

My dad had just bought my 17 year old DD a Citroen C1. It's a 65 plate and was £3500. It's a lovely little car and she's made up with it.

I wanted her to have a Toyota Aygo, but they are very expensive.

*Was that per hour?

Where we are it's £40 per hour.*

Sorry I should have said. It's £67 for an hour and a half lesson.

honestly the citigo’s/ups/miis knock socks off 500’s for drive, reliability and running costs. They are great, the lower bhp ones are also insurance group 1. Some of them are free tax. And the parts are so cheap, there’s loads of little modification bits you can get (like 3d printed McDonald’s ketchup holders!) and an active owners group. Little cars with big personalities and loads of room inside.

if not then the c1/aygo/107 would be my second choice.

stay away from anything jap in that price bracket as rust will be its enemy.

This seems really popular amongst new and learner drivers. Very low insurance group and barely more power output than my food mixer so low (or as low as they get for 17 year olds) insurance premiums.

That’s another good shout. The Kia picanto or Hyundai i10 both good cars. Slightly more on the expensive side, I think due to (comparatively) rarity in that price bracket though.

It was about the only car my dad refused to help us to get when younger as he said the safety rating is shocking.

I don’t think I’ve seen anything suggested with a wet belt. The VAG and older c1/aygo/107 certainly don’t have.
They tend to be on newer vehicles and even then slightly bigger.

wet belts put a lot of people off, any half decent mechanic will be able to change them (lots won’t do them), you do have to change them within the recommended period.

@BourbonsAreOverated My car was an 11 year old Peugeot 208 and it had a wet belt.

which no one’s suggested, it’s also bigger than being suggested here.

Regardless of the name of car you need to look for something that is in insurance Group 1 or 2 otherwise it will be prohibitively expensive to insure.

We have used Citygo and an Up, which are basically the same car. Fiat 500s look adorable but I've heard too many stories to buy one.

Granted if you don’t have a friendly decent mechanic it probably should be a consideration. But it’s not so much of an issue with these dinky cars

Thanks for that really helpful comment 🙄. As seen in the rest of the rather more helpful posts, there are plenty of decent options

Prices for teen insurance are lower than a year ago. The fact people are getting insurance for around or less than £1k is a big improvement on a year ago.

Things that bring costs down include getting the quote for 3 weeks time instead of tomorrow (which is what someone who has just passed their test often does) and also paying annually and not monthly. The latter can make close to 50% difference.

Def run insurance quotes before buying the car. There is no totally and universally applicable approach that can be applied to all cars - postcodes, exact model, insurance and accident history of the main and named drivers can all play a role and lead to surprisingly expensive or cheap results. You have to spend the time checking for specific number plates and use several different comparison sites. It can make the difference of over £1k in price.

Worst scenarios I’ve heard are families which bought the car their DC loved without checking insurance group or engine size - big engine Mini or similar. They assumed it would be cheap to insure as small- but big engine and high insurance group made it uninsurable with most firms for a 17 year old and extortionate with other insurers who would quote.

As a poster mentioned wet belts I’ll give a heads up.

PSA puretech engines 1.2L in a lot of newer peugeots, Vauxhalls, Citroens, Renaults, and obv the eco boom 1L fiesta.
All tend to have wet belts. The Citroens I have seen as early as 2013. This is well worth considering. I wouldn’t go near one with a barge pole and I am a mechanic. I appreciate some of these makes haven’t been mentioned but please please do your research on smaller engine cars before purchase - wet belts are so expensive if they go wrong.

I wouldn’t touch the ecoboom engine in the fords (and definitely this price bracket) But looked after the others are ok. Some mechanics refuse to work on them, but they are just belts in oil. That’s it. They do need more care, in as much as sticking to the changing schedule, but that’s the same with all newer small higher powered engines.

Which actually is one reason the citigos/miis and ups are so good. They are perfectly balanced in power, engine size, and simple.

We got a 1.0 Corsa. Great little car, comfortable and easy to drive. Low insurance (group 1). Bit bigger than the 107/C1 etc which weren't big enough to transport DS sport kit in the boot with friends admins their kits.

I’d definitely pick anything from the VAG group.

We’ve seen more catastrophic failure in low mileage PSA engines than we’ve seen in eco booms. 40,000 mile corsa that went bang due to a wet belt. It was less than 4 years old. It had a full service history and had been maintained. Also a 3008 Peugeot (bigger than cars mentioned upthread) with 30,000 miles on the clock and the belt was very swollen. Just about swerved a major failure on that one.

Personally I’d stick to one with a chain. They tend to be slightly more forgiving.

We just got our DD a Mini One basic model. Insurance was good for first time driver, me and hubby on as drivers but DD as main driver. I think we paid about £1700 for the year and she has a smart box rather than a black box so every drive she does well the premium comes down for next year. That was with Sterling/Adrian Flux.

Unfortunately I don't think you would get one for £3k - but might help someone else.

If your 17 year old has their own car to learn to drive in, the initial insurance will be based on their provisional license. What happens when they pass and have a full license? Do you just contact the insurer and they'll update the policy, with you paying the extra? I'm just used to having annual policies so am checking how this works.

My ds drives a Hyundai i10. Fabulous little car.

Dd2 has a Toyota Yaris hybrid, but she put a lot of her own money to that, much more expensive.