first car for a teenager
Discussion
my son is 17 in April, but whilst some way off for his first car , he is car mad and cannot wait to drive, and would buy a car now if he could. But what with high car insurance for youngsters plus he doesn't want any run of the mill car like a Corsa or Polo, I just wondered any suggestions/advice for a pending 17 year old's first car ? We have even considered going down classic car route for something a bit different. Say car budget £4-5k. Any suggestions ? Must be sensible insurance costs.
Depends what you mean by classic I guess - 4-5k isn't going to buy much from the 90s or earlier sadly
Insurance is going to be expensive, less so pre-passing his test, and will often mean black boxes once he has passed to make it semi-palatable.
A couple of my friends and I went the left-field route when we all passed in the late 90s - with a similar budget and not wanting the standard issue micra / corsa / saxo / etc. ... I had a Suzuki SJ, one had a TVR wedge, one had 60s beetle - all were on limited policies, no driving between 11pm and 6am and all with very limited mileage too.
It reduced costs massively but dont know if the same options apply now (I doubt it tbh, and you couldn't pick up any of those cars for that budget either).
I bought my nibbling a 208 GTI for passing his test a few years back and the insurance pre-passing was c.£1800 and when he passed it pretty much doubled with the black box etc. IIRC -
Insurance is going to be expensive, less so pre-passing his test, and will often mean black boxes once he has passed to make it semi-palatable.
A couple of my friends and I went the left-field route when we all passed in the late 90s - with a similar budget and not wanting the standard issue micra / corsa / saxo / etc. ... I had a Suzuki SJ, one had a TVR wedge, one had 60s beetle - all were on limited policies, no driving between 11pm and 6am and all with very limited mileage too.
It reduced costs massively but dont know if the same options apply now (I doubt it tbh, and you couldn't pick up any of those cars for that budget either).
I bought my nibbling a 208 GTI for passing his test a few years back and the insurance pre-passing was c.£1800 and when he passed it pretty much doubled with the black box etc. IIRC -
Classic cars are mostly on restricted mileage insurance as they are not often used as a daily.
You will need to estimate your annual mileage and I would guess classic car insurance will be no cheaper if used as a daily
He will probably be considered the same risk even in a classic car.
This might be useful for you but probably not what your son wants to drive?
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/insurance/cheap...
Your budget will probably just about buy a car but you might need at least 50% or more again for insurance.
You will need to estimate your annual mileage and I would guess classic car insurance will be no cheaper if used as a daily
He will probably be considered the same risk even in a classic car.
This might be useful for you but probably not what your son wants to drive?
https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/insurance/cheap...
Your budget will probably just about buy a car but you might need at least 50% or more again for insurance.
Edited by Monkeylegend on Monday 15th June 11:22
Putting "coupe" and <£5000 into a well known car sales site throws up all sorts of interesting options.
Audi TT, Honda CRZ, Astra GTC. lots of German metal, although often diesel.
Might not be much dearer than the predictable superminis.
I was quite taken by a bright red 1.4 Turbo Astra GTC, 2017, Cat N, but given what a lot of teenagers do to their first cars, is that so important?
Don't quite a few classic car policies come with "So long as you have another insured car"?
Audi TT, Honda CRZ, Astra GTC. lots of German metal, although often diesel.
Might not be much dearer than the predictable superminis.
I was quite taken by a bright red 1.4 Turbo Astra GTC, 2017, Cat N, but given what a lot of teenagers do to their first cars, is that so important?
Don't quite a few classic car policies come with "So long as you have another insured car"?
andyalan10 said:
Putting "coupe" and <£5000 into a well known car sales site throws up all sorts of interesting options.
Audi TT, Honda CRZ, Astra GTC. lots of German metal, although often diesel.
Might not be much dearer than the predictable superminis.
I was quite taken by a bright red 1.4 Turbo Astra GTC, 2017, Cat N, but given what a lot of teenagers do to their first cars, is that so important?
Don't quite a few classic car policies come with "So long as you have another insured car"?
CRZ a great shout. They won't get any cheaper, fun, all mod cons, different. Audi TT, Honda CRZ, Astra GTC. lots of German metal, although often diesel.
Might not be much dearer than the predictable superminis.
I was quite taken by a bright red 1.4 Turbo Astra GTC, 2017, Cat N, but given what a lot of teenagers do to their first cars, is that so important?
Don't quite a few classic car policies come with "So long as you have another insured car"?
thanks for the comments and suggestions , will look into them . Perhaps a classic car is not the way forward plus might be costly to maintain. Yes I have heard insurances go up once passed and not a named driver on a policy.
Honda CRZ a good shout and something a bit left field and will be reliable.
Funny enough, when we googled cheap cars for a 17 year old, Mazda MX5 came up on quite a few websites as an option. Apparently majority of people who own them are in member clubs and take care of their pride and joy hence relative cheap insurance.
Would be interesting to know what the insurance cost is once they pass.
Honda CRZ a good shout and something a bit left field and will be reliable.
Funny enough, when we googled cheap cars for a 17 year old, Mazda MX5 came up on quite a few websites as an option. Apparently majority of people who own them are in member clubs and take care of their pride and joy hence relative cheap insurance.
Would be interesting to know what the insurance cost is once they pass.
adrianbatley3 said:
thanks for the comments and suggestions , will look into them . Perhaps a classic car is not the way forward plus might be costly to maintain. Yes I have heard insurances go up once passed and not a named driver on a policy.
Honda CRZ a good shout and something a bit left field and will be reliable.
Funny enough, when we googled cheap cars for a 17 year old, Mazda MX5 came up on quite a few websites as an option. Apparently majority of people who own them are in member clubs and take care of their pride and joy hence relative cheap insurance.
Would be interesting to know what the insurance cost is once they pass.
Easy enough to find out, just change the DOB on the comparison website and put in a test passed date of yesterday. That's what I did when checking for my lad as no point basing anything on provisional quotes.Honda CRZ a good shout and something a bit left field and will be reliable.
Funny enough, when we googled cheap cars for a 17 year old, Mazda MX5 came up on quite a few websites as an option. Apparently majority of people who own them are in member clubs and take care of their pride and joy hence relative cheap insurance.
Would be interesting to know what the insurance cost is once they pass.
Named driver doesn't work nowadays either and not a good idea. What does help to bring down the premium is to add a number of named drivers to a policy in his name I found. Reduced my daughters premium by hundreds when I added myself and my wife to the policy. You also want to avoid black boc policies like the plague if possible.,
Best bet is to keep trying different cars as some may well surprise you.
Got my son a 1.8 Alfa GT Blackline, but this was one year after passing his test. Been a great car for him. He learnt and had his first year in our old Fiesta 1.25.
Insurance on the Alfa is about £2k a year (1 year driving) and no black box with Admiral.
This one cost me about £1200, but then I spent another £1000 on it getting it sorted (incl cambelt).
Here is the thread on it: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
Insurance on the Alfa is about £2k a year (1 year driving) and no black box with Admiral.
This one cost me about £1200, but then I spent another £1000 on it getting it sorted (incl cambelt).
Here is the thread on it: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
adrianbatley3 said:
thanks for the advice on insurance . Interesting that Mazda MX5 and Toyota MR2 came up as cheap insurance cars when I googled cheap insurance for a 17 year old
Cheap is relative though, any insurance for a 17 year old with a newly acquired full licence will cost more than you would want. SWoll said:
Beato said:
Likewise car mad, 17 year old
Got this lovely mx5 a couple of months ago for him.
Not horrific to insure on his provisional.
Insurance always reasonable when they're learning.
Cool alternative and dad gets to borrow it too!
It takes a couple of minutes to setup a confused/meerkat account.
I'd do that for your son, making sure that the the license is set to full UK, Not provisional and then any time you see something that you like you can input the plate by editing a quote to give you a very good idea of cost once passed.
Might also be worth spending a few hours, looking for "outlier" cars. Is there something out there that happens to be cheap to insure due to their algorithms. Volvo S80, Rover 75, Skoda Superb, Toyota Avensis etc
I'd do that for your son, making sure that the the license is set to full UK, Not provisional and then any time you see something that you like you can input the plate by editing a quote to give you a very good idea of cost once passed.
Might also be worth spending a few hours, looking for "outlier" cars. Is there something out there that happens to be cheap to insure due to their algorithms. Volvo S80, Rover 75, Skoda Superb, Toyota Avensis etc
MattsCar said:
It takes a couple of minutes to setup a confused/meerkat account.
I'd do that for your son, making sure that the the license is set to full UK, Not provisional and then any time you see something that you like you can input the plate by editing a quote to give you a very good idea of cost once passed.
Might also be worth spending a few hours, looking for "outlier" cars. Is there something out there that happens to be cheap to insure due to their algorithms. Volvo S80, Rover 75, Skoda Superb, Toyota Avensis etc
+1 this is what I did, budget was a bit higher as I also wanted something for the wife to run around locally with eldest borrowing occasionally on eves and weekends, Mini Electric Hatch was the cheapest I could find on insurance! Hopefully this doesn’t change when he eventually passes…I'd do that for your son, making sure that the the license is set to full UK, Not provisional and then any time you see something that you like you can input the plate by editing a quote to give you a very good idea of cost once passed.
Might also be worth spending a few hours, looking for "outlier" cars. Is there something out there that happens to be cheap to insure due to their algorithms. Volvo S80, Rover 75, Skoda Superb, Toyota Avensis etc
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