Help finding king shed of all sheds

[MikeAR147]

My wife decided she wants to learn to drive and at the same time wants to learn how to maintain a car.

So I think it would be best to buy a shed to learn in and also do basic maintenance. This is where it gets fun, with her learning to drive it would need to be dirt cheap to insure and preferably dirt cheap on fuel too. I am not bothered about if the car is fast for what it will be used for and also we want something which has MOT. .

The budget is a whole £500, do such cars exist any more ?

[Doofus]

There are 2,235 cars on Autotrader with a maximum price of £500. Fill yer boots.

[Amused2death]

Several Facebook groups devoted to cheap cars, most areas have at least one.

[wack]

Have a look on shpock the boot sale app, quite a few cheap cars on there , or there's always ebay though you're deep into trader prentending not to be a trader terrotory

First question i always ask is , is it registered in your name.
One went

Er no,

Ok ,you're a trader then

I aint a trader bro , i just buy and sell a few cars innit

End of conversation

[angels95]

Peugeot 106 1.5D. Plenty around for £500. Very simple and easy to work on (no ECU and very basic). Insurance should be cheap for a new driver and if looked after it will go on forever. Also very economical.

[shakindog]

Vw lupo or seat arosa 1.0 cheap to buy cheap to insure and cheap parts.
I've bought one of each in past month for my kids to learn to drive in.
Also fun to drive for you too.

[MikeAR147]

I try to avoid eBay at all costs because of as yiu said the people pretending to be private sellers but being traders.

A good shout on the pug and the lupo. Il look into both and see if there is any half decent ones relatively close.

[RSTurboPaul]

angels95 said:

Peugeot 106 1.5D. Plenty around for £500. Very simple and easy to work on (no ECU and very basic). Insurance should be cheap for a new driver and if looked after it will go on forever. Also very economical.

No ECU? That seems completely alien nowadays! How will the Government retro-fit a speed-limiting Big Brother 'Intelligent Speed Adaptation' system? haha

But... but... 18.5seconds to 60mph? lol

[Joratk]

MK4 Golf with the 1.9TDI CR engine? Bulletproof and can be had cheap.

[InitialDave]

If she wants to learn to maintain a car, it would be wise to buy something similar to what her "real" car will be down the line. Also, making sure she doesn't abjectly hate whatever the cheapo one would be is a good idea.

£500 will easily get you a working, MOT'd car without necessarily having to have something with big issues in the near future. Stuff at this price point may not have been looked after very well, so need servicing immediately, but that's just the way it goes.

Disregard any non-structural bodywork issues and buy on mechanical condition.

I'd say a Mk1 Focus is likely a good bet. I could probably find a dozen of them within half an hour of my house for the price right now. Get a Ghia with the AC and heated front screen if you can, makes piss-all difference to price over a boggo one at this end of the market.

Example: 1.6 Ghia, full MOT http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2001-FORD-FOCUS-1-6-GHIA...

People saying VW are right too. I'd likely go for a Golf over a Polo, though. A more "family car" sized vehicle is usualy better value at the bottom end of the market, because so many teenagers and new drivers are trying to buy the smallest/lowest insurance option it can artificially raise prices for the same condition.