Car advice!

[AddyT.]

Hi All,

A long story, but from the imminent sale of my Mk7 Golf R, I am looking at buying a car for around the £3k mark from a dealer rather than privately.

This would be a backup third car as my wife has her own 7.5 Golf R and I have a ‘17 E Class coupe as our primary daily drivers. We’ve found it really helpful having a third car for different reasons. A prime example being at the moment the Merc has a failed starter motor so until its fixed my Golf is being used…crucial to be mobile also with young kids.

Pretty open minded on what to get. Needs to have four doors, guessing a manual is more reliable at this price point? Something like a Polo size would be too small but anything from family hatch size or upwards would be absolutely fine. Used to diesels but could be a petrol. Like a lot of us, something fast is nice but gotta try and ignore that this time.

Had a quick look at things like Golfs and Leons for this budget. As to be expected, pretty much everything has done over 100k which is OK. Just need to bear in mind common things that could go wrong or to check work has been carried out that should have been done. Due to my car history always default to looking at things like VW’s but you might not recommend thats a good idea at this budget. Not so keen on things like Kia’s, Hyundai’s or Vauxhalls but open to most others.

Any thoughts would be greatly welcomed 😊 Only saying to go through a dealer so theres a bit of a “safety net” if things go wrong just after getting the car.

[samoht]

Thoughts:

The sort of dealer selling a £3k car is liable to take a fairly minimal view of their post-sale obligations. I'd want to find somewhere fairly local with a good rep, otherwise your legal rights may turn out not to be worth the paper they're written on.

A traditional torque converter auto is probably no worse than a manual in terms of likely costs. The manual could need a clutch & dual mass flywheel changing, for instance. I would however avoid DSGs in general.

For occasional use, any fuel savings with diesel won't be significant, petrol probably less to go wrong overall.

As a reliable backup car on a budget, a cheap Japanese petrol is generally the least trouble. Toyota Auris, Honda Civic, that sort of thing. The issues with a £3k VW are that (a) because they're desirable, you'll get an older / higher mileage car for the money and (b) they're generally a bit less reliable like for like.

You can even get a Civic Type R for that sort of money, although no idea if you should
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202512048...

[AddyT.]

samoht said:

Thoughts:

The sort of dealer selling a £3k car is liable to take a fairly minimal view of their post-sale obligations. I'd want to find somewhere fairly local with a good rep, otherwise your legal rights may turn out not to be worth the paper they're written on.

A traditional torque converter auto is probably no worse than a manual in terms of likely costs. The manual could need a clutch & dual mass flywheel changing, for instance. I would however avoid DSGs in general.

For occasional use, any fuel savings with diesel won't be significant, petrol probably less to go wrong overall.

As a reliable backup car on a budget, a cheap Japanese petrol is generally the least trouble. Toyota Auris, Honda Civic, that sort of thing. The issues with a £3k VW are that (a) because they're desirable, you'll get an older / higher mileage car for the money and (b) they're generally a bit less reliable like for like.

You can even get a Civic Type R for that sort of money, although no idea if you should
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202512048...

Hi there,

Thank you so much and it is greatly appreciated and this is some excellent advice!

I will start to take a look at traders in local area (am in Suffolk but can go to neighbouring counties if needed) and see what they have. That's a great shout on torque converter auto's and you mirrored my thoughts about DSG's.

Completely agree on VW's and definitely paying a premium for them and despite what my wife says, I know they aren't as reliable as people say. My Golf hasn't had much go wrong but one car does not reflect the whole brand that's for sure. I was thinking about something Japanese. Had no idea you could get the CTR for that money! I know the ride is supposed to be pretty firm in them but no idea on whether they make a good used buy or not.

Thank you again and really appreciate your thoughts!

[Mr Tidy]

I agree with samoht about avoiding a dealer when buying a car for £3K - at that price level I suspect any "safety net" would be full of holes!

Japanese cars are a good shout, but in years gone by I've had a few Kia Cee'd and Hyundai i30 cars as rentals and been pleasantly surprised by them.

[ZX10R NIN]

At this price point I'd be buying from both private or dealer, buy on condition & receipts.

Alfa Giulietta Veloce, good reliable cars but a bit scarce:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202505062...

1.4t Astra Ltd Edition:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202512178...

SRI:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202512038...

1.6i:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202512228...

1.4T Newer shape Astra SRI:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202511288...

[spikeyhead]

I always think that £1500 to £4000 is the wrong amount of money to pay for a car.

If it throws a big bill it's not worth repairing, but it's too much money to lose on one big mechanical issue, especially if you can't do the spannering yourself.

I'd find something locally with at least nine months MOT for £1000 or less

[M4cruiser]

If you like things from the VW stable then the Skoda Fabia must be a good shout.
Cheaper than a Polo.
Not much wrong with the petrol manuals. Check the road tax though. At this price level it's not going to be in the sub £100 per year bracket.

[paul_c123]

spikeyhead said:

I always think that £1500 to £4000 is the wrong amount of money to pay for a car.

If it throws a big bill it's not worth repairing, but it's too much money to lose on one big mechanical issue, especially if you can't do the spannering yourself.

I'd find something locally with at least nine months MOT for £1000 or less

The problem is, some people have only £1500-4000 and they don't want to deal with the negatives which come with a £1000 car.

[spikeyhead]

paul_c123 said:

spikeyhead said:

I always think that £1500 to £4000 is the wrong amount of money to pay for a car.

If it throws a big bill it's not worth repairing, but it's too much money to lose on one big mechanical issue, especially if you can't do the spannering yourself.

I'd find something locally with at least nine months MOT for £1000 or less

The problem is, some people have only £1500-4000 and they don't want to deal with the negatives which come with a £1000 car.

I'd argue that the negatives which come with a £1000 car aren't much worse than with a £3000 car, certainly not by a factor of three. I guess it helps if you can weild a spanner, and don't care much about minor problems with a car that don't detract from it's ability to start, stop and steer.

[M4cruiser]

spikeyhead said:

I'd find something locally with at least nine months MOT for £1000 or less

That's not possible in my area!
Browsing Autotrader for cheap cars, I end up setting the minimum price at £1,500, because below that it's all "no MoT" or "XYZ doesn't work but is probably a cheap fix". Etc.

[ThingsBehindTheSun]

samoht said:

You can even get a Civic Type R for that sort of money, although no idea if you should
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202512048...

With 3 months Mot and previous advisories for corrosion, I would imagine it is an MOT testers proddy screwdriver away from being scrap.

[samoht]

Certainly worth checking a car of that age carefully, e.g. in this case to try to find out what 'varies places are corroded underneath' actually means. Could be serious, could be surface rust. And generally a 'fun' car for £3k will be more likely to be ragged than a vanilla one.


I don't agree with £3k being a bad budget, there are plenty of eg ~2010 Japanese petrol cars that will most likely be fine for a while. And ultimately yes, if you're not paying depreciation you have to pay maintenance to stay on the road, motoring costs money. But just because a car throws a bill isn't a reason to give up on it in my book.

[Belle427]

Honda Jazz is a decent size but the engines are a bit lacking in them, ideal for a small runaround though.
Probably a car I would buy myself if they made a slightly hotter one.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

I wouldn't go near a dealer at that price. You'll get less for your money.

I bought a 2013 E class Merc privately for 4k