Cheap Reliable car for oncall firefighter

[prwilmo]

Hey guys looking for a cheap car under £1k to get me to the fire station quickly when on call.
As with any car your meant to warm it up before abit of spirited driving but it won't be an option for me, so I'm already cancelling out turbos, vtec, vvti, diesel etc that require abit more care.

Manual if poss. But most important is reliability!! Small cars would be welcomed as I would have more chance parking near my house (on street parking), AND with abit of street cred as I don't want any unwanted heckling down the station lol😂

Thanks in advance
🤘🏼🤘🏼

[prwilmo]

Great suggestions guys!! Thanks for taking the time, but looks like I'm just going to buy my own Fire Engine haha

Found a great Astra coupe 1.8 very clean but sold just before i got the time to view.

Lexus is200 keeps popping up? Any experience with one of those?

[prwilmo]

RedAndy said:

It's on the larger side of average - but the guy is a fireman... so he probably is too? He'd look daft folded up inside a Fiesta.

The Surf/hilux is a small offroader which is big compared with a large small car. SO what? it's not HUGE and un-parkable on a normal street.

I'm 6'2 so a ford ka was out the question lol I did have a Clio 182 which was a squeeze but loved that thing to bits. we have a guy at a nearby station who's about 3ft tall lol, we send him down any tight spaces.

Yeah hilux/surf would be abit tight around these parts, I don't drive carelessly to station, but it's quicker than average, but not breaking speed limit (incase station manager sees this) so a 4x4/truck would be uneasy on the bends. I have use of a l200 and ranger at day workplace and not the best for driving in a hurry.

Thank you all again, going to look at a civic this weekend and a Volvo s40. There's also a focus but abit too far away.

[prwilmo]

JMF894 said:

As a wholetime/on-call WC/FF myself a couple of points:

1) You only only be driving as per the laws of the road. You are not EFAD driving when responding to your alerter so no need to worry about ragging it

2) Based on the above anything will do and normal car buying rules apply.

There's a single carriage way National speed limit on way to station so I'd be travelling on that with a cold engine, I would never drive above the law, just want a car that can cope with driving for 3mins then off.

Thanks

[prwilmo]

ZX10R NIN said:

I think I've cracked it:

2005 206 GTI 180 73k mileage 2.0 N/A so no worries with short journeys as well as reliability, as well as the 180 ponies to get you to the station swiftly.

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

Or the regular 140bhp cooking version.

2005 55k

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

Nice!! Thanks! My friend just said about these! He had the 140 and was surprisingly the most reliable car he's had!