UKC

Okay, I'm after some thoughts about a small second car. Situation is that for four months I will be commuting 80 miles a day for five or six days a week. I don't want to do the cumulative 6400 miles in my car, a Saab 93 as a fair bit will be in slow traffic so I don't want to sacrifice cash to the Swedish money gods. I am toying with getting a Punto 3 door or Seicento or Ford Ka on TPO insurance and minimising Saab mileage. Are there any other small cars I should consider?

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

I have a little Pug 106 (1.2L I think)for commuting to and from work. I'm averaging 53MPG (not bad for a 17 year old car). As for insurance, why do you want TPO? Comprehensive is often cheaper.

In reply to mwr72: Was thinking TPO would be cheaper, if comp is cheaper, I'll go with comp.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:
A fiat panda dual manual /auto Cost £200 per year insurance 2 named drivers

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

Get the saab LPG converted? (Assuming its petrol)

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

what sort of 80 miles per day is it? A roads will be a bit tiresome in a tiny car thats all. when we were a 2 car family we had a Fiat Punto 'Grande' which was 2 door but they were 'longer' doors than usual, feature of the 'grande' model, it felt like a regular family car for the front driver/passenger with loads of leg room. Never had any problems with it and pretty good fuel ecconmy too, it was a 1.2 IIRC. Also has a 1.1 pug 106, I bobbed around it that for 4/5 years, over to the peak, wales, scotland a could of times and took it over to Ireland a couple of times too. Great little car but was a bit noisy on the motorway. Never had anything major wrong with that either. If you can eek out a little more runng costs an Astra 1.4 will give you 4 doors, bigger boot and comfyer ride. just got rid of mine, been a great runabout for the 2 years or so I had it. Fuel wasn't great though, big car for a 1.4 engine I guess.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

If it's only for 4 months then why spend so much on a car, just lease one

http://www.carsondemand.co.uk/car-leasing-deals?gclid=CJfBzafrzbwCFQj4wgodh...

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

I'd seriously consider a Nissan Micra or a Suzuki Ignis / Swift. They're pretty cheap, and so long as the service history is good they should go on and on. The advantage of a small light car is all the consumables are cheaper (as is servicing, generally), plus tyres and pads last a lot longer. I'd generally look towards Japanese or Korean cars as the build quality tends to be better than the Euro equivalent. The Micra is probably the better bet of the models I mentioned, as parts are plentiful and you can generally get good reconditioned 2nd hand bits for a fraction of the price of new. Especially if you go for the older K11 shape Micra (up to 2002).

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

To be honest, buying, taxing, insuring and running an extra car to 'save' putting 6K on your main car seems an odd idea to me!

Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

My thoughts too!

If I was having to do the extra commuting I would rather be sat in the Saab.

In reply to Chris Craggs:

It isn't just the mileage. The petrol will cost a bomb in the Saab.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

The extra cost in fuel is going to be a lot less than taxing and insuring a second car though.

I can get about 50mpg from a 2 ltr Vectra (same car) on a run.

A 93 should average at least 40mpg, if less, get it serviced, blow the tyres up and look at your driving style.

Cheers Adam

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Certainly looks that way, but if you factor everthing in it's not a bad idea. The OP can get a car with long tax and test, recent service, decent tyres and no major mechanical issues. Depreciation is essentially zero on really cheap cars, so he will be able to sell it on under the same conditions as when he bought it (still with tax and MOT remember): good runners with these 'specs' rarely take long to sell. Fuel costs will greatly reduced, and he's saved 6000 miles on the Saab, most of a service interval plus negating the wear and tear on his main car. A deciding factor may be the cost of insurance, but if it's minimal it's probably worth it.

In reply to Bimblefast:

That sort of plan either works very well...... or very badly, if cheap second car blows up. Bit binary for me, you have to be lucky or very good at buying a good cheap car to not run big risk of spending a few hundred quid on something that either goes wrong spectacularly or is just plain unreliable. If the latter you get a drip drip of small things needing done to keep it going. You pay the first one as its only a small repair, the same on the second, by the third time you are thinking you'll be wasting the alst two if you don't do this one....

Could get lucky but....

In reply to Chris Craggs:


For a long dull commute I'd take to comfort of a nice SAAB over the small saving you might make buying, running then selling a little hatch.

Buying cars at the cheap end of the market I'd be more concerned about what state it's in than what it is.

jk

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

A few years back I got a second car because I didn't want to sell my two seater when the kids were born. I calculated that if I put the sports car on limited mileage insurance, left it in the garage, and got a cheap run around, that the insurance and fuel savings would pay for the small car. I ended up with a 1998 corsa 1.2 which I got for free. I have been driving it now as my main car for about 2 years and it has saved me a fortune. Also there is a huge luxury in having a car you really don't care about. Car parks are so much less stressful because if someone runs a trolley into it - who cares? It's got plenty of dents anyway.

I would say that for your plan to work you need to get the cheapest car you can that will be reliable enough to drive the miles you want. If you look at a multicar policy for your SAAB and new car you might find that the extra insurance is trivial.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:

Top gear had 3 small cars on their show last night:

Ford Fiesta (1 L 3 cylinder ecomotion: 60 mpg but £17,000)
Dacia Sandero (cheap looking, best mpg from what I could see, and £7000)
VW UP! (which was cute. No idea of the cost, but seemed economical too)

just as some other suggestions.

In reply to nickinscottishmountains:
I was lent a little diesel fiat panda a while back and it was fantastic, no wonder James May has one.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to Ferret:

Agreed there's a risk, but if the Saab develops an issue during this 6000mi chances are it will be a hell of a lot more money to fix than the likes of a bog-standard Micra (for which 2nd-hand parts are incredibly cheap). I could say I've been lucky, but all I do is walk away from potential buys with obvious mechanical issues. I've found a single mechanical issue invariably means further trouble, and if I'm going to spend money unnecessarily I'd rather do it on stuff I actually like. A checklist helps (I'm no mechanic) but I'm yet to buy a small car which has cost me anything over basic maintenance / consumables. Oh, and I always buy Japanese cars

In reply to Bimblefast:

Well - over the years I've done well and done badly in the banger market and I've never seen any consistent signposts for why some have been good vs others, with same checks and gut feel from me applied to them all. If the SAAB has a problem in this 6,000 miles, it'll have it later anyway so no great saving in putting off the repair a few months.

Having 2 cars may be handy though as whichever has the issue, the commute can still happen though.