First car for brother in law. C3?

[mini me]

All

Bit of advice required. My brother in law has just passed his test and so is looking for a first car. Doesn't have much to spend has wife and child and it's a first car so bear in mind no 2 seater American muscle cars needed here.

Had a good look at the usual places and found some possibilities. One of which we are gonna take a look at tomorrow. But. Tbh this is one car I know nothing about. It's a Citroen c3. 1.4 something or other. £500. 55 plate. Looks kinda too cheap to me? I'm a little worried and would appreciate any pointers on a c3. Mot history looks average bar the last one which mentions a fail on abs light plus abs wiring ( wheel speed sensor? ) and then a pass on same day. Bro rang the guy and he seems to claim no knowledge of this and just states the lamp is off now. Hmm. Anyway. Tips advice etc welcome. Here it is:

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2016...

Edited by mini me on Saturday 30th April 17:48

[Rjbell]

Check the snotters thread you might find some ideas there.

I would with that sort of money get a chevrolet. They are reasonably reliable but depricate so badly you would probably get something newer.

Edited by Rjbell on Saturday 30th April 17:32

[mini me]

Snotters thread? Got a link?

Cheers

[HustleRussell]

Rjbell, do you work for Chevrolet- whenever I see you on here you seem to be plugging some rebadged Korean metal...

[mini me]

Snotters thread? Got a link?

Cheers

[IanCress]

If the budget is just £500 then i'd be looking for a common car with the longest MOT you can find. Not sure if a C3 would be my first choice, don't think they've got the best reputation.
Personally i'd be looking at a mk1 Focus. Loads of them around so spares are cheap.

£500 is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. If they can add another £500 to the budget they'll get a better car.

[Valgar]

IanCress said:

£500 is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. If they can add another £500 to the budget they'll get a better car.

Absolutely true! It's amazing what you can get for £1k

However if £500 is an absolute limit, I would also consider a Nissan Micra, should be able to pick up a decent one with 8+ months MOT.

[mini me]

To be honest having gone from top to bottom on auto trader around the area at max price of 1000, I'm actually surprised at how much potentially good stuff there is for under 500. Some of it has even tempted me for some reason.

[Rjbell]

HustleRussell said:

Rjbell, do you work for Chevrolet- whenever I see you on here you seem to be plugging some rebadged Korean metal...

Lol

They have left the country so if I did I wouldn't be now would I.

They have 3 cars in the top 100 most reliable cars on the reliabilityindex and have you seen the prices? It's pretty simple formuna if you have no money you want to find the worsed depricating cars on the market which will bag you a newer one. Beggers can't be chosers and at that sort of price you do not need to worry about residuals. Then check your of worst depricating cars list with the reliability index.

Edited by Rjbell on Sunday 1st May 07:28

[Spitfire2]

Don't get a C3. Most horrible driving experience I can imagine. Horrible clutch action. Ridiculously sharp brake pedal. Bizarrely uncomfortable driving position.

If you want to go cheap, small and French I'd look at a Clio.

[legless]

My wife had a low-mileage, well looked after, fairly new 1.4 C3 when I first met her. In the following 6 months it suffered from the following:

- failed electronic throttle module
- both front springs fractured
- ABS module failed
- dashboard display failure
- rear wheel bearing failure

She traded it for an MX-5, declaring that she'd never touch French cars again.

[Blown2CV]

i can't stress to you just what an awful car the C3 was. The saxo on the other hand was pretty good.

[MrBig]

At £500 I would be looking for a Focus I or Clio II. Easy to work on, parts are cheap and plentiful and the cars I have known seem to go on forever despite a complete lack of mechanical sympathy (and indeed servicing) by their owners.

[mini me]

I can concur. The Citroen c3 has now taken second place in my list of worst cars I have ever driven. It was a complete wreck but even if it was in good nick it still would have been awful to drive. What were they thinking when they developed it?

Anyway. Fiesta and a clio to look at today. Fingers crossed.

[George7]

I've not driven it, but a friend of mine has a 2004 C3 and he seems to like it. He's not really a car person, from a passenger's point of view, it seems a bit underpowered (1.4 Petrol) but it rides fairly well for a small hatch. He's had it since 2011 and hasn't had many issues.

[maxdb]

I would stay away from C2s and C3s as they suffer from loads of issues. I would think of getting him something interesting for a 1st car.

[giantdefy]

I drive a C3 Pic and don't get the 'st car' references. I've had it from new in 2010 and its done over 110,000 miles and had only one semi costly bill in that time (£600 for a replacement fusebox and screen washer pump - know problem with the C3). Before the C3 I had a c4P and a Zsara Pic both of which did >100,000 with no bills other than servicing.

[mini me]

Possibly just the fact that it was a bad one then? I thought the reviews were fairly favourable tbh. Hence why we bothered to go look at it. It was very very bad though. I'm beginning to think the earlier comments re upping the budget are probably spot on though. There is so much rubbish out there and so many utterly dodgy people. It's really hard work. The fiesta this morning seemed like a good car. Was finally ready to buy but turns out he Can't find the log book. Wtf!

Edited by mini me on Monday 2nd May 14:55

[Willy Nilly]

£500?

http://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/h... if he can find another 100 quid get one of these. Mine was utterly reliable for the 12 years I had it.

[David87]

Read the title as 'C63'. Thread does not deliver.