small car - €3.5k

natnifnolnacs

I'm looking to upgrade my girlfriends car. She currently has a 99 clio...we are looking to stay with a small car with preferably a 1 litre engine. Reliability and safety are probably the 2 most important factors, what would people recommend? I've been looking mainly at the yaris and am just going to start looking into fiesta's now, any other suggestions are welcome

Henry Ford III

1 litre class is tiny. Yaris is probably the best of them.

Fiesta needs a 1.25l engine really.

Max Power1

Fiat Panda! Go for the 1.2

natnifnolnacs

After reading a good few reviews etc it seems the premium put on the yaris as a 2nd hand car is justified. I am going to concentrate on finding a decent one over the next few weeks, only problem is there seems to be nothing down my end of the country!(I'm between Waterford and Limerick)

Everything anyway decent is in Dublin which is a pain...if anyone spots anything worth looking at let me know!

david

Seriously look a panda. You'll get a much better example for that money than you would a yaris. I hired a panda in Italy a few weeks ago and it was a great little thing.

natnifnolnacs

It is 2nd on the list, mainly because herself doesn't want to pay any more on tax than is strictly necessary. The 1.2 panda comes in about €100 more a year...also the yaris has a timing chain so no expensive belt changes

Jarren

over the budget but i'ts a very good value IMO

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/1740478

natnifnolnacs

It is good value but 2 problems.

1 - have you ever driven one? My grandmother had 2 of them and they were pretty tinny horrible things...
2- it's in Dublin like the rest of the yaris's for sale!!!

grudgebringer

Always thought the Nissan Micra was a sturdy car myself, we had two early on and never had anything other than self inflicted problems with them, cheap to buy, plentiful with Jap Imports, Easily/Cheaply serviced, handy to find spares for in scrapyards, economical, cheap to tax, pretty to look at (lie) :P ... but other than the last untruth, they are niot too bad of a car for a 1 litre knock about.

natnifnolnacs

I have ruled them out I'm afraid. They were developed alongside the clio and use french electrics. These electrics are now starting to cause problems and I've had enough of quirky french motoring for a while!

Also, I will occasionally have to drive this car.....the micra has to be the ugliest design ever!!!

natnifnolnacs

job done - yaris collected today

BostonB

Curious what you got and for what money?

natnifnolnacs

a 03 5 door yaris in spotless condition.It was nct'd an hour before I went to see it and comes with 6 month warranty. It was advertised at €4500 but I traded her clio against it so paid close to my original budget