Most reliable used cars?

We will need to buy a car this summer when we move to the UK.  We will have about 5000 pounds to spend.  We are looking for a well built, reliable car 5 door car with low mileage and only a few years old.  We would prefer a used Honda Jazz or a Toyota but these seem to be out of our price range.

When I do a search on auto trader it shows lots of Vauxhalls, Renaults and Peugeots.   How reliable are these cars?  It also shows lot of Ford Astra's.  Any brand to stay away from?

This site has the reliability ratings for all cars sold in the UK.  I hope it is helpful.

http://www.reliabilityindex.co.uk/tophundred.html?apc=3128339010848601

We would prefer a used Honda Jazz or a Toyota but these seem to be out of our price range.

Really? The Bristol section of the Trade-It website has a used 2005 Honda Jazz (68,000 miles on clock) advertised for £4,994 and the site also has almost 4 pages of Toyotas advertised for less than £5,000 (the majority being less than £3,000)... and that's just in the Bristol area!

My parents been buying used cars for 20 years and have never paid more than £3,000 for one (they tend to buy Nissans as they have found them to be very reliable and not too expensive to repair if something goes wrong, although one was a 5-door Peugeot 406 - which had so many problems, my parents have sworn off Peugeots for life!).

Two years ago, I bought a 5-door Nissan Micra (1996 model, 80,000 miles on clock) for £800
In 2003, my parents bought a 3-door 1995 Nissan Sunny (1995 model, 35,000 miles) for £1,000
In 2004, they bought a 5-door Nissan Primera estate (2000 model, not sure of mileage) for £3,000

All three of these cars are still running well and we've had very few problems with them at all (apart from my Micra which was a panic-buy because I needed a car ASAP and just went with the first one I saw, despite it not being quite up to scratch).

well I havent been here for veyr long but the vauxhall astra seems very reliable its comfortable even for a big guy like me (6"4) plenty of space in the boot they ride nicely and if you get the diesel model(1.7-1.9) you can get 40-60 mpg while still having plenty of power to get you away from lights

Have you tried some classified?  I remember when we were looking for one, we got it off someone who was leaving the country so they had to get rid of it.  Just make sure you take a look at the car and give it a test drive and get all of the car history.

Anything Japanese particularly Toyota or look for a Mk 3 VW Golf.

When searching on Auto trader, I have limited the search to 40,000 miles or less and would really prefer under 20,000.  And no more than 3-4 years old.  In the states we ususually buy new cars.  We are probably going to be driving around a lot, so don't want to worry that something will go wrong with the car.

We also need an automatic, so that definitely lowers the choices.  I know how to drive a manual, we had one for a few years in the states and I hated it and vowed never to get another one.

If you're looking for automatic, you might need to ease up on some of the other factors.

No matter what age/make/model/miles/transmission the two things to look at are tax and MOT. If there's no tax, you're potentially looking at another £500 or so. If there's no MOT, it could be a pile of rusty poo (the same is true if it has an MOT that expires soon... usually means that there are repairs that make it cheaper for the person to sell it).

That said, for £5000 you should have no problem finding a reliable car. We bought a reliable classic luxury car for £520. (It is currently off-road, but that was more of a personal decision than a problem with the car.)

What's the reason for wanting one with such low mileage and so new?

  We are probably going to be driving around a lot,

I think it costs about $50 to fill the tank in Blighty so you may not drive as much as you like to.

Hi Susanjc

It's actually a fallacy to assume a 2nd hand car with low miles is going to be a good or well maintained car. There's plus and minus points -

1. A low miler may have been a 'shopping trolley' - i.e lots of short journeys around town, in which case engine wear is likely to be increased as it probably never gets the chance to get to full operational and efficient temperature before it's switched off again.

2. A High miler is likely to have spent a good propertion of it's time used at correct operating temperature and therefore likely to have less engine wear.

3. From what jen252 said - I'd disagree with her first statement. Tax & MOT are not the prime considerations for most people looking to buy a 2nd hand car. condition and mechanical reliability/problems are likely to be top considerations. Mileage is a 'psychological' baragining tool used in the industry. If you can get past that, you're likely to find a car which suits you better. Road tax has been mooted for large increases for certain vehicles, so check on the government website and cross reference with any potential shortlist of cars you are interested in. Some have stayed the same price, others have gone down. Generally, the upto £400 or so tax increases are for the very big engined cars and luxury models and large SUV's types.

4. Service history is vitally important in buying a car, goto the auto trader.co.uk website and theres a full impartial section for buying a used car, checkpoints and things to consider.

5. For about £100-150 (i think) for peace of mind, if you search out a car you like (usually a private seller) and you are keen, it may be worthwhile getting an AA/RAC inspection carried out on it. It will highlight any possible areas of concern. Of course, don't do this for a number of cars you're interested in - unless you are Ms moneybags!

Jim,

$50 currently equates to around £35 GBP. That kind of fill up cost probably covers small supermini cars and some smaller 5 door hatchbacks. The mid size saloons (sedans) and hatcbacks would probably easily cost around £50 to fillup with petrol, and around £5more for Diesel. It depends on the size of the tank.

My workhorse 530 Diesel Wagon swallows about £64 on a fillup for diesel (70 litre tank 8 of whichis reserve) The F150 truck will easily take £92 ish to fill (90 litre tank) Last summer when the fuel prices went beyond insane here, I was putting in £85 into my wagon and the truck would swallow about £110 per fillup - and that would last only about 220 miles!

Lastly, theres plenty of people who use the 'bangernomics' principle of buying cars. this entails finding a good condition runabout car for say between £250 -2000 knowing what it's faults are and living with it using cheapy fix methods when needed. If a major component fails (gearbox - engine failure etc) then if no scrappy has a cheap replacement, those with time will dismantle the car and sell it for bits or more usually, sell it for spares/repiar on ebay to claw back some money. Worth considering if you are that way minded and have alternatives if it conks out when needed!

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

When I considered reliability, cost of maintenance, good milage to the gallon...I picked a Ford Fiesta.  Not everyones ideal..but it costs me practically nothing to repair compared to other car owners that I know.

That fact mine came in Disco Purple was a bonus  lol.

Hi Susanjc





5. For about £100-150 (i think) for peace of mind, if you search out a car you like (usually a private seller) and you are keen, it may be worthwhile getting an AA/RAC inspection carried out on it. It will highlight any possible areas of concern. Of course, don't do this for a number of cars you're interested in - unless you are Ms moneybags!

Jim,
My workhorse 530 Diesel Wagon swallows about £64 on a fillup for diesel (70 litre tank 8 of whichis reserve) The F150 truck will easily take £92 ish to fill (90 litre tank) Last summer when the fuel prices went beyond insane here, I was putting in £85 into my wagon and the truck would swallow about £110 per fillup - and that would last only about 220 miles!

Well you Brits are over paid so you can afford to burn money.
If I had to pay that kind of money to fill up I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
On the otherside. In many cases you can exist using the bus but even that costs an arm and a leg. So it is, stay at home and watch the telly!

Well we were in a dilema a few years ago, after our beloved Ford Focus was wrecked! They wrote the car off and were considering purchasing a newer model, as we had it for about 3 years and it was perfect (Focus 1.9tdi Ghia) cheap to run, spacious for our needs and really an all round "good" car. After much deliberation, we decided to go German (as DH used to work for VW), so we opted for a VW Golf 1.6 estate, as we had a newborn also at the time, this has turned out to be better than the Focus we had, and is just as cheap to insure, run, and even more spacious as we can put our puppy dog in the boot as well!!  good for food runs, and epecially good for runs to the local recycling centre as well!

If you are looking for an automatic and are in or near the south west, there is a place called Exeter Small Automatics (you can Google them). We bought a used VW Golf CL. While is was old (1995), it only had one previous owner (a little old lady who only drove it to church and Tesco) so it had something like 4k miles on it. We paid well less than £5k and it NEVER gave us a problem.

We're actually selling it now... but it's got a few more miles on it needless to say!

Hiya

Susanjc - I forgot to post in my response, take a look at the 'WhatCar' magazine in WHSMiths - this has many a guide on buying a car and reviews cars that I'm sure would be suitable for you. As you are looking at a used car, sometimes the prior versions are just as good and capable as the very latest models. Also, the 'Car Supermarkets' are places many people will buy from, theres quite a few around the country including a very large one here in Slough called http://www.trade-sales.co.uk/

also look at

http://www.car-supermarkets.com/

and over in White City NW London theres a truly massive place called

http://www.cargiant.co.uk/

Jim,

I think yer saying that tongue in cheek ! but you got it right, seeing as 'most' things including basic things cost so much here in the UK, there's really not much left over in disposable income! We pay approximately the same price for petrol as you guys, but instead of paying around 20-25% tax as in the USA, we pay around 65-70% in taxes on top. So nope.. not very many UK people can burn money ! (unless its petrol, diesel or heating oil!)

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!