Want to buy your first car? Help is here!

I'm possibly in the process to buy a car. I've come across a Toyota Yaris, 53 plate, 1litre, which has done 26,000 miles. Not that I'm an expert but the mileage seems low, but I've been offered it for £900. It seems ideal for me as a first car and insurance may not be the cheapest but it's got to be cheaper than the Vauxhall Astra I was potentially looking at few weeks ago. Thoughts?

Why not a 1.0L car?

Some of the cheapest cars to insure are also the newest. Such as Group A releases from the past few years. Not cheap to buy, but cheaper to insure. You'd be looking at around £2200 to insure your first car if it's generic 4-6 year old car with a relatively small engine.

I'm not sure what you mean by the second bit. You want him on your insurance, or you want to be on his insurance? Who is the main driver and who is the named driver?

Look up insurance groups, the lower the insurance group number the cheaper the insurance is. Your issue is that theyre pretty much all 1.0L - the smaller the engine the cheaper the insurance.
You can be the main driver and him the named driver if thats what you mean? That should bring down the costs.

Thanks for the reply, thats some useful info.
could you mention me some of the group a releases from the past few years, it would help me narrow down my search.

thanks

Narrowed down the two cars im most likely to get. Either a yaris or an aygo 1.0-1.2l, reliable..

What do you think?

I've had my car for almost a year now but I only just stumbled onto this thread so here goes.

I got my license at age 18 (czech republic), drove my parent's car for about a year. Then, as I moved out, I was gifted with a 2006 Alfa Romeo 147 1.9 jtdm for around 5000 pounds with 89000 km under its belt. Insured in the czech republic for third-party for around 300 pounds. Spent heart-braking amounts of my savings fixing things like the EGR valve (which broke, conveniently, just as I drove from the dealership), the front brake pads and bought new tires. After a year, add to that list the following: rear brake pads, rear alignment, fuel filter (the diesel in the filter at one point), oil change and new front windscreen after a stone aimed for my head and missed. Clutch is starting to feel like it's ready to die, so fingers crossed it does so before I leave the house. It's coming up on service time as well, which means new timing belt (yay!).

Lesson for you? Unless you're a die-hard petrolhead, go for something german...

Narrowed down the two cars im most likely to get. Either a yaris or an aygo 1.0-1.2l, reliable..

What do you think?

I owned an Alfa Romeo 147 some years back, it never broke down or had anything on it go despite it getting a thrashing every single time it was started up........you know it's hard to control yourself when you have a 3.2l car

Obviously some parts are going to cost money on such a car, it isn't any normal car on the road.

You think a German car would be any different? You always buy a car on it's condition and maintenance history not the nationality of it's manufacturer.

Wow you must have had the only problem-free alfa in the world

That's the thing though, I bought the car with full service history and after an extensive road test. Nothing appeared out of order apart from a few chips on the front bumper, and the service history said that the EGR valve was already replaced, and that was listed as a fairly routine thing with the 1.9 jtdm on alfa-owners. The problem is that the engine started playing up the second I got it home. Turns out when they replaced the EGR valve the first time, they put in a used one, a common practice in my country

Statistically, german cars are far more reliable than italian cars. This isnt a stereotype, I'd rather go on holiday in italy, but according to the data ADAC have gathered, alfa romeos dont do too well against vw golfs in the reliability area I'll stipulate that I wasn't exactly babying the car since I bought it (handbrake turns on snowed up parking lots spring to mind), but I've thrashed a few cars here and there before, yet the alfa seems to be suffering from normal maintenance issues more than the other cars...