[MrWhosane]

What's the thoughts on a 2003 one. I'm 17 and have been quoted £1488 by CoOp. Is it a good car? Should I buy it? The car is £1500ish with 90k miles so it's not too bad.

[TowersMike]

I imagine that price is for annual cover; not monthly! I paid double that for my first year of car insurance and that was for a 1.1 Peugeot 106. In my opinion, its a brilliant car. Very well built and nice to drive. My parents own one Good mileage too for the age of the vehicle. I would buy!

[M4LLY]

(Original post by MrWhosane)
What's the thoughts on a 2003 one. I'm 17 and have been quoted £1488 by CoOp. Is it a good car? Should I buy it? The car is £1500ish with 90k miles so it's not too bad.

Is that annual or monthly payments?

[Elwyn]

£1488? Are you sure? How many miles did you say you do a year? 12?

My insurance is still that high after driving for two years.

However, if the price is right then it all depends what you enjoy driving. Personally I hate driving big cars, but that could just be because it's really difficult to park where I live.

Also, is that price as named driver? If it is and you will in fact be the main driver I'd tread carefully if I were you.

[MrWhosane]

Everything is legit. Annual obviously.
My quotes are low for a lot of cars because I've got 3 names drivers on 5k per year with me on upto 1k.

I'm main driver. As I'm in a job, I've said employed. Category B. postcode lowers the quote by £4000 of it was on my previous Cat D one!

[Elwyn]

(Original post by MrWhosane)
Everything is legit. Annual obviously.
My quotes are low for a lot of cars because I've got 3 names drivers on 5k per year with me on upto 1k.

I'm main driver. As I'm in a job, I've said employed. Category B. postcode lowers the quote by £4000 of it was on my previous Cat D one!

Category B as in insurance write off category B?

I thought that meant the car couldn't go back on the road?

(If category B is referring to something else and I'm just being an idiot please ignore me )

[MrWhosane]

(Original post by Elwyn)
Category B as in insurance write off category B?

I thought that meant the car couldn't go back on the road?

(If category B is referring to something else and I'm just being an idiot please ignore me )

No no lol, it's a category B postcode so the post code is a good area with low crime rates etc. the car is in normal condition.

[ROG.]

Good car for towing with a B licence as the driver can tow a trailer just under 1500 kgs plated MAM

Bit of legal trivia for those interested ....

[FXX]

Go for it. It doesn't have any "street cred" but that's why the insurance is affordable, it's a reliable motor and parts are cheap. Sounds like a great first car to me.

[Robertall]

Go for it. Big diesel cars are great. I got a Volvo v70 tdi. Servicing is pricey. But apart from that all goOd

[1992LP]

Excellent cars - I had a 1.8 Petrol 2002 Mondeo at 18 and I loved it! Cheap insurance because young drivers don't generally drive them.

As for the diesel, be VERY careful. Check:

Clutch
Dual Mass FLywheel (DMF)
Injectors
Turbo
EGR valve
Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF, although I doubt a 2003 would have one)

These are all common problems on the TDCI engine (and just about every modern diesel for that matter) and are very costly to put right.

There are 3 diesels in your price range:

2.0 TDDI 115
2.0 TDCI 115
2.0 TDCI 130

The TDDI is older and not quite as good as the TDCI engines from a driving point of view, but they are more reliable as they are less prone to injector failures.

You are as well to get the 130 over the 115 with the TDCI engines are you get more power, and the insurance is exactly the same.

There is also a newer 2.2 TDCI but I doubt you will find a good one for less than £2k.

Of course, not all of them suffer and it is all down to how the car has been treated in the past, but failures do happen. Make sure it has a full service history with all the oil changes performed on time (i.e. at least once a year) as extending the intervals can cause sludging of the oil and blow the turbo.

The reason I bought a petrol one is because I was worried about the above list, and I don't regret it at all. The 1.8 and 2.0 Duratecs (petrol) are brilliant and pretty much bomb proof if you go for a post 2002 one (inlet manifold swirl flaps can break off, rare, but does happen). Having said that, mine was a 2002 model and was perfect.

The mk3 in general suffers from:

Rust along the bottom of the doors
Anti roll bar links perishing (cheap)
Rear subframe bushes perishing (expensive)
Coil packs in petrol cars
Rear brake pipes are exposed, so can corrode prematurely

To be honest, I am really picking at all the faults that could happen. They are utterly brilliant cars and I would gladly have another. I actually miss mine a bit...

Good luck!

[persov]

I've got a 2002 TDCI ghia 130 ps. Great car. I'd go for it.

Check what 1992lp said and in addition:

I'd check the various pulley's and belts though, they need replacing at about 70,000ish. If they make a funny sound when the engine is running then they may need replacing soon. The last thing you want is one of the belts to snap with the engine running.

Make sure when you see the car it's started from cold, some will cut out when the engine is cold, or the glow plug light will start flashing and then within a few minutes the engine will cut out. Could be a few things causing it, some very easy and cheap to fix, some costly.

Go for a fairly high mileage one, it would have been used mostly on motorways which is better.

Don't worry if under acceleration it belches out some black smoke, the egr valve just needs cleaning (it gets blocked with carbon deposits, totally normal)



It's a great car to drive though, nice responsive steering, and rewarding handling for the size and class. Very spacious too, and its well put together, very very comfy too. It's pretty much a tank, would much rather be in a Mondeo than a small eurobox. Huge boot. Great cruiser. Go for the 130 ps for sure, lots of power and very accessible, overtaking is pretty easy.

[Emma:-)]

(Original post by FXX)
Go for it. It doesn't have any "street cred" but that's why the insurance is affordable, it's a reliable motor and parts are cheap. Sounds like a great first car to me.

I agree.
Id go for it.

[1992LP]

Good post from persov there - these axillary belts and tensioners can sound horrendous when they start to wear out!

Worth mentioning I would advise against buying a remapped one - that will generally wear all the expensive parts out faster which isn't nice. The 130 TDCI is a pretty quick car in standard form anyway - compared to the usual stuff that teenagers run about in

[Maccees]

Who is that insurance with? Cheapest I can get is £1400 (£1600 without) with one of those boxes, and I'm 19 with 2 years ncb.

Address is my Uni accommodation in Bangor, it has about 1 crime a decade there haha.

[MrWhosane]

(Original post by Maccees)
Who is that insurance with? Cheapest I can get is £1400 (£1600 without) with one of those boxes, and I'm 19 with 2 years ncb.

Address is my Uni accommodation in Bangor, it has about 1 crime a decade there haha.

Co-Op Young Drivers. Got three named drivers doing around 6,000 each with myself down for 1,000 miles. Got myself down as occasional night driving, with the other three on as Weekly, so using that logic, the car can go out every night if required without affecting the score, and as far as the 1,000 miles are concerned, if I ever get pulled over, how do they know if I'm really doing 1,000 or not?

Really I'll be doing around 10k possibly, maybe more so it should be fine.

[CurlyBen]

(Original post by ROG.)
Good car for towing with a B licence as the driver can tow a trailer just under 1500 kgs plated MAM

Bit of legal trivia for those interested ....

That never quite made sense to me, something like a Defender is a much better tow vehicle but with a B licence you're limited to 750kgs. It'd be a lot easier if they just specified a weight for B licences! Must get round to doing my B+E sometime.