What car < £500

[richardthestag]

Hello

I know that there are loads of these questions but where better to ask than down at the loacl boozer..

Mr Bro is looking for a nice little motor for his misses to take the kiddies to school etc. Key criteria are;

 • 4 doors minimum.
 • needs to be able to seat three small kids across the back seat, one in a proper car seat, one on a booster and the third crammed into what little space remains
 • small engine - cheap to run
 • cheap to insure
 • £500 ish ceiling on what they want to spend
 • cheap to maintain (i.e. with a hammer etc)

I suggested a Moggie Minor but she wasn't keen for some reason.

The car does NOT need to be fashionable, trendy or anything else that might otherwise bump the price up..

What suggestions?

Cheers and Happy New Year

Richard

[tiga84]

1990 BMW 318i E30

Couple on Autotrader for well under the £500 mark.

Should do anything you ask of it.

[TheLemming]

With a budget of £500 you dont really get to be too picky about the brand of the car, thats the price band where the criteria are condition, condition and condition.

I'd suggest going for the best "small hatch" they can find for the money.

ie Escort, Astra etc

[chris.mapey]

Volvo 240 Estate - mine cost £50 (and is going 18months later!)

Chris

[love machine]

A Pug of sorts, try an old, high milage 106 D. They are pretty good and pretty cheap. They go on forever, unless you experiment with running them on fuels they shouldn't run on

Suzuki 413 would be good, if you can hack the 2 doors, get a set of colway mud tyres and take it out on the weekends and try and get it stuck!

[hugoagogo]

TheLemming said:

With a budget of £500 you dont really get to be too picky about the brand of the car, thats the price band where the criteria are condition, condition and condition. I'd suggest going for the best "small hatch" they can find for the money. ie Escort, Astra etc

^this

doesn't matter what it is, just find a solid, running, safe, car preferably with cheap and available spares back-up, so boring fords and vauxhalls win
the flashier it is (bmw for big example) the more likely it is to be bodged up

[scared but happy]

An old Sierra 1.6GL estate. Cheap to run, insure and the most simplest engine on the planet.
2nd comes the Volvo 240GL in red. Why are they always red?

[dern]

I wouldn't put children in a 500 quid car unless I *really* knew what I was doing.

[Twincam16]

MKII Golf. Cheap, tough as old boots, handles well, GTi is cool, most of the engines aren't too sluggish and they're pretty safe too.

Why so cheap? Because that's how much they're worth.

[thegreatsoprendo]

You get some reasonable Volvo 440's for this sort of money of about 1995/1996 vintage. Also worth looking at Toyota Corolla/Carina's which are usually pretty bullet proof and good value.

[catretriever]

Twincam16 said:

MKII Golf. Cheap, tough as old boots, handles well, GTi is cool, most of the engines aren't too sluggish and they're pretty safe too. Why so cheap? Because that's how much they're worth.

Funnily enough I have an auto version that I was going to chuck on ebay next week for around £450. I don't want to break the rules here so drop me a line if you have any interest.

[richardthestag]

dern said:

I wouldn't put children in a 500 quid car unless I *really* knew what I was doing.

Not sure I understand why, if a car has a "legit" MOT, has obviously been well looked after and has seatbelts on each seat why should the kiddies not be safe?

Thanks for all the other advice, we have already been looking at Astras, Escorts, 306's, VW Golfs, etc Hadn't even concidered the Jap cars so will start there as these are definately unfashionable and should be dirt cheap to buy, run and insure.

Sierras around Portsmouth seem to have all disolved

Bro just about managed to convince himself that the Volvo s70 2.5T wasn't a crap car because of the badges, got a feeling I am going to have a hard time convincing him to look at older Volvos which is his loss..

Cheap Beemers sound a bit of a nightmare unless you are good with spanners..

He has just looked at a 92 VW 1.8CL golf Mk3 only £600 notes, sounded about right except for the starship miles >170k and vicar previous owner Rattled and clonked down the road cos all the bushes were shot = Money pit , run away

Thanks for the advice offered so far.. some good ideas

[aldi]

Ford Mondeo?

The 1.8 is economical, comfy, modern design and has ABS/Airbags. Loads in your price range. Cheap spares.

As for 'not putting children in a £500 car', get real. Half the cars on the road are in that price bracket.

[chris.mapey]

scared but happy said:

... 2nd comes the Volvo 240GL in red. Why are they always red?

Mine's in Silver.

With a sunroof.....

Chris

[pentoman]

Recommended so far:


Heavily depreciated Mondeo check
Mk II Golf GTi check


all we need now is to recommend an RX7 and we have a carbon copy of every other 'what car' thread .

Seriously though.. at this price go for whatever looks good. Ask family/friends or a good local garage. I imagine deciding on a Fiesta then shopping around for a worth-bothering-with example at that price would be hit and miss at best. So you might end up with a Mazda 323 or a Polo or a Rover 216 but it will be rust-free, well maintained and have life left which are the important things.

[Twincam16]

The best thing to go for is the newest high-miler you can find. Something like a MK1 Mondeo with 150,000 motorway miles and a fleet service history will be well looked-after and nicely run-in, but due to the mileage (which is an inaccurate measure of a car given construction standards these days), will be hard for anyone to sell for anything like a decent price.

Look for auto and diesel - physically harder to 'thrash' and less likely to appeal to a 'thrashing' driver in the first place.

And I echo what was said about safety earlier - as long as it is looked after, with a FSH, the car shouldn't literally get less safe. Look at Saabs and Volvos - even when they're 30 years old they're still solid and protective and due to thorough engineering the safety features shouldn't give up on you. People put far too much blind faith in excessive numbers of airbags and electronic chassis stability systems. Even the newest, safest car in the world can be crashed fatally by an inept, inattentive driver.

[tyke]

My 205 gti.

[TheLemming]

I'd echo the comment about 80's and 90's Saabs and Volvos being built like tanks, there were several big accidents involving members of my family that the cars were driven away from (in one case after we sledgehammered some bodywork a little) that the Volvos weathered MUCH better than the other cars involved.

There are however a lot of cars out there of that age with a shocking lack of passive impact safety which I've seen practically disintegrate before my eyes. God knows how a friend of mine survived practically unharmed in an accident where the driver's seat / area was occupied by bodywork / pedals / dash in a Maestro.

(apparently he wasnt wearing a seatbelt and was thrown into the passenger seat as he lost consciousness... he used up 99% of his lifetime luck allocation surviving that one!)

[dern]

richardthestag said:

dern said: I wouldn't put children in a 500 quid car unless I *really* knew what I was doing. Not sure I understand why, if a car has a "legit" MOT, has obviously been well looked after and has seatbelts on each seat why should the kiddies not be safe?

Because every car I have ever seen at this price level has some defect which would compromise its safety when you really need it unless it belongs to someone who knew how to maintain it. Most cars at this level will have been run down and this is more true these days than ever before because fewer and fewer people are able to service their own cars. A car can pass an mot and still be unsafe enough for me not to put the kids in it. The main problem that would put me off relying on cheap cars is the inability to sustain heavy braking to stop cleanly in an emergency. Hoses could be perished, fluid old, pads thin, shocks worn... it could still pass an mot but really put it to the test and the thing may not stop.

To be perfectly honest it scares the bejesus out of me when I'm on the road near a really old car that's clearly being run on a budget by someone who doesn't know how to diagnose and rectify the suspension and brake issues of worn cars.

I don't mind driving them but I wouldn't put the wife in such a car because she won't push the envelope of the car's braking of handling unless she finds herself in an emergency and mainly because her reaction to something that doesn't feel or sound quite right would not be to immediately take the car off the road and rectify the problem which is what I'd do. We have a 98 mondeo estate as her car and I have to drive it on a regular basis to ensure that no faults have arisen and if they have I fix them immediately.

>> Edited by dern on Tuesday 3rd January 17:50

[remal]

Go to your local salvage yards. I have seen many cars 106 Pug, Audi 80's, Mondeo Mk1/2, Escort mk5, Sierra 2Ltr, for anthing up from £50 to 400.

all they need is a new bumper that the salvage yard can sell for £50.

Just the price of labour that keeps these cars off the road after a small bump