First car; cheap sub £1k or spend more for reliabilty?

Tbh I don't mind if a car has any scratches or dirt or anything. As long as it's reliable and won't give me any headaches for a good few years.

Regarding Cat C and D (which I didn't know what it was until now), if I'm spending 700-800 pounds I wouldn't be too worried about selling on. Just at least getting 2-3 years out of it would be fine for me.

Also, I'll be getting Co-op's young driver insurance - I tried getting a quote for a 1997 car and it said it was too old. I think the max age for them is around 2000-02.

Thanks for the advice

They need to be 1998 or newer with co-op.

trust me £1000 will do i bought mine for that price 2 years ago and it still runs perfectly with no expensive bills just your usual odds and sods.........all i can say is be really careful with what car you buy and take your time choosing it otherwise it will become what your dad said. Also don't buy a ex-mobility vehicle since they will probably be in poor condition.

I'm looking for my first car. I will be using it for a pizza delivery job and the usual shopping, going out etc. I've been looking to get a reliable make for sub £1000. But my dad is saying that I'll encounter too many problems with such a cheap car and it would be expensive in the long run, and I should be looking for something around £2.5k-£3k. I think this is too much and with a good car make I shouldn't face many problems. Is there any way to convince him that a cheap car will do? Or is he correct?

Make sure you buy a saloon for pizza delivery, so as to avoid smells coming into the cabin. I recommend a Jetta. The Volkswagen Jetta is a suave and sophisticated saloon up to almost any task. It has the space for a family, even an expanding one, and the great looks any car lover would admire. It packs a punch too which perfectly compliments that elegant look. What more could you want from a car than both performance and class? Best of all, this motor is German and is perfectly suitable to late night street racing and will gain me instant respect amongst my peers and females alike.

You need to bear in mind that a pizza delivery job will absolutely thrash the car. Either buy cheap and scrap it when you wreck the suspension, or buy cheap and learn how to maintain it, because you will be doing suspension and brake work on it. The front suspension on my '97 Golf estate with 140k is absolutely shagged, mainly from doing pizza delivery, but also because I'm pretty sure it's factory and it's fairly tired at 140k. I'm waiting till I quit in a couple of months to totally rebuild the front suspension. My previous car, a 52 plate Renault Scenic with only 80k on the clock, simply couldn't keep up with pizza work and just broke. Both rear shocks snapped at the heads (common problem with those though), and I broke two engine mounts, a gearbox seal, the gear shifter linkages, and a driveshaft, all in less than three months. I decided after that mess that I was going back to VW. Sort yourself out with a 90's Polo/Lupo/Ibiza/Arosa and it should look after you fairly well.