5 grand for a car..

The_Bullman

Basically this is pretty much what i can raise. Unfortunatly I don't have much of a clue of car prices and therefore I have no idea what this would would buy.

this is where you guys come in. Since you are pretty knowledgeable what would you get.

The restriction that could come into play is insurance. I am 23 and living in the north-east so it can't be a high risk car.

Let the ideas commence

ando

€1300 will get you a alfa romeo 155, 1996, 114000 miles
€5000 will get you a bmw 316 1993, 1.6, 94000 miles



more on cbg.ie

Chimaera

Try www.autotrader.ie as well.

silverside

if you look in the buy and sell you should be able to get a 98 low mileage micra for that kind of money.
Look for an irish car as parts will be easier to get. Ok zero street cred but also very reliable and cheap to run and insure. Performance is not bad either (dont laugh) 68 bhp in a light chassis means very nippy around town.

Blitzkrieger

Personnaly I'm going for the best Mazda 323 Saloon 1.3 I can get next month. Not very exciting but a mate has one with a comfort pack and it was a lot of car for the money. Reliable too.

Turner

I can get ya a bmw 520i 1990 for E1200 nct'd and taxed. bout 100k miles

Borzoi

With so many cars to chose from, you really need to have half an idea of what you want.

The basic trade off for a set amont of cash is:

Size vs Age

You can get a nice, large old car for under 5K (eg Chief's Beemer)
or you can get a newer smaller car for 5K (A Micra or similar)

Given that your 23, and presumably don't want to spend more on the insurance than the car - you're probably going to be looking at smaller cars with 1L engines (or thereabouts) in which case you should be able to pick something up fairly handy.

As the others have said look at www.cbg.ie and www.autotrader.ie they'll give you an idea of what you can get it your price range. Then go out and start looking and test driving and haggling.

Good luck

seamus

Originally posted by Chief---
I can get ya a bmw 520i 1990 for E1200 nct'd and taxed. bout 100k miles

Nobody even consider touching this car bout 100k miles and then some

As people have said, go trawling through the mags and websites, and get a general feel for what people will sell their cars for, and look at for hidden stuff. If a car is way cheaper than everyone else's there's a reason, usually mileage. Avg. mileage for a car is around 10k/year, which is a pretty good bar for measuring if a car has high or low mileage for its age.
If you can, get a knowledgable mate (or better still a mechanic mate) to come along if you go to look at cars.
If you buy of a garage, you'll at least have some sort of comeback should the thing fall apart around you, but if you go private, you could pick up a real sweet bargain.

Atomic Pineapple

Yeh go for a micra or a fiesta or something small like that, I have a 01 fiesta myself, there a nice car to drive and nippy, and cheap enough to insure i'm 19 and on a provisional licence and cost me €3600 to insure itthis year which is pretty decent i think.

Turner

E3600 to insure a car omg are you mad. There has to be some way around paying that much money.
I just bought a honda civic 1.3 and was qouted E3500 (im 22 full license), I got a transfer of ownership form and signed the car over to my dad. He is now the "registered" owner of the vehicle. He got a quote for both of us for E1059 which we accepted. I give him the money he pays the insurance its my car I drive it.
Simple.

leeroybrown

I reckon that if you have 5k to spend that your best bet is to get something that falls into a low insurance bracket. Theres no point in paying massive insurance on top of your 5k.

John2002

I recently bought a '99 Rover 214i for €5500. 58K miles. I thought this was a decent enough deal but it took me a while to find it. Be prepared to spend a lot of time looking for a car.

MarkR

I got a jap starlet, and I think that the imports are brilliant. I have electric everything in a 1993 car. Nippy as hell as well. :-) There's very little difference in insurance costs in the 1l to 1.3l. Mine is 1330 16V DOHC (or so my mechanic friend tells me - sounds cool, eh?)

And that was for 2500. Another big thing is economy. Do you need a big car? If it's just you and maybe a passenger, then look for a small car. If you think you'll be moving a lot of stuff go for a hatchback (Got 6 boxes of wooden flooring in the back yesterday - The new house will be the end of me!)

Tax is another thing to be careful of. With every .1 of a litre it goes up, so mind that. As for the difficulty of getting parts for a jap, i've had no worries. Get the part number abd you'll get the part (maybe have to wait if it's obscure, but not too long)

Anyway, good luck. Btw, my brother bought 1 pug 106 today for 5995 (look 2, 1998) took a grand for his old car, got it for under 5. The irish cars have a crap spec compared to the japs. Go jap!

Oh yeah, 24, full licence, no ncb (first ins) €3,072. :mad:

Put down my details for november when i hit 25, goes down to less than 1300! I even (chancing my arm) put down the car as a starlet gt turbo. Same price. I can't wait.

Atomic Pineapple

yes i am mad €3600 is the cheapest i could get, its my third year getting insurance and it went up a grand each year, wtf!?

never had a claim or any pionts or anything like that on my licence!

still couldn't live without a car so had to pay it