What car should i buy for up to 1000 pounds?

Perhaps something which has been a rep mobile in the past. Vectra/Cavileer type thing, rather than a newer, smaller car. The bigger cars have a better tendancy to last the distance as they won't have been trashed like the smaller cars (no need)

others may not agree, i say a v old Toyota, a Celica for example, had many and get one with good body work and the engine and gearbox lasts forever if maintained. May not be everyones cup of eat but you get retro classic sportiness for little cash

If you're only going to do another 30000 then the mileage isn't an issue, the condition & service history are all that matters.

The message from "Michael" contains these words:

Some idea of what you want to use it for would help.

My wife's Clio was about that - and is ideal for her - but useless for me. My Montego estate was £250 - and is ideal for me but useless to her.

The message from "Michael" contains these words:

My Montego's got over 160k on the clock and is fine. I've had cars up to

250k without trouble - particularly diesels.

Is insurance an issue?

If not I would recommend a 1987-1990 Golf GTI 5 door 1.8, ideally a 1989/90 model with Digifant (can't remember when it changed, so earlier might have it). They are incredibly reliable, comfortable, will do 45mpg easily (even when being caned), and are available for £1000 or a little less if you shop around carefully. You want unmodified mechanicals, but don't get too fussy about other boy racer bits that may have been added - just as long as the engine, gearbox, suspension and brakes are up to scratch the boy racer bits put people off and make the car cheaper. Obviously if you can find an unmolested one, it would be more sensible.

Richard

The former will blow the head gasket at around 130,000 miles, if it hasn't already. The latter will scare the crap out of you when it comes to getting the clutch replaced and needs a timing belt at 50,000 intervals with new idlers etc.

Diesels are /not/ cheap cars to run at banger level.

Richard

Montegos are unusual in that the rest of the car rots away before the engine expires - the Perkins engine is unkillable.

Richard

Try and find a late-ish (97/98) Mk1 Punto with about 50000 miles on it. Check that the head gasket and clutch have already gone and been replaced - the former usually goes at about 35000 miles and the latter at about

45000 miles. Should easily make it to 80k with light servicing, and shouldn't cost too much.

HTH Al

Yep, 90(G) Celica was last of the third gen, and you can find examples with only 90k on for £800. Some even have service history at that price!

Al

We've had a subset of this discussion before (XUD headgasket reliability), but I'd say they can be. My BXs certainly are.

cheers, clive

It is.

If you don't stop when the water temperature rises unexpectedly, anyway.

They are known for around the 100k mark, head gasket failures.

At least they give you warning all is not well before it is too late.

-- JackH

It seems to be later ones - we had a bunch of them, 1993-5ish with the 1.9 (ZX, Xantia and Ian's 306 and 405) all go at the same time with no common things apart from the mileage. One 205 with 100,000 miles, but again, similar age - 1992 IIRC.

Likewise we nearly bought a P-reg 405 estate with 250,000 on the clock, it drove fine. ZXs, though, I would avoid as they seem to have the bulk of the bad engines. The Xantia we could hardly blame, the 1.9 is slow and got thrashed constantly.

Richard

Hmm... I would split the 1000 into four bundles of 250 quid. Put 750 into shares and buy a banger for 250 quid which is a private sale and has nothing obviously wrong mechanically, with a year's MoT.

You can then afford to buy a lemon and three other cars that are good enough to last the year, hopefully not in that order. Dont' make the mistake of fixing the cars if they go wrong in an important fashion, just move on to the next.

Optionally a high miler, ex-salesman car probably fits the bill. People are scared of high miles but these are often properly serviced and have the potential to last pretty well. This can go wrong expensively so you risk the "one shot and you're out" chance of buying a lemon.

A Cavalier would seem to fit the bill and would give you a fair bit of change out of a grand. Great repmobiles. Still loads about so easy to get spares (plenty of donor cars at your local scrappy too), dirt cheap to run, simple to work on, economical for its size and later ones don't seem to suffer from tinworm much (apart from the rear wheel arches).

(Cue responses of "a *&#"ing CAVALIER???") :o)

i was thinking more of 70's ear (onyl driver RWD) but yes the ones you mention are great although not as sporty as i would like. differant from usual French stuff

The message from Richard Kilpatrick contains these words:

Provided you look after the head gasket.

- it cost less than £50 to fix - and that included a perfectchance to replace a cambelt of uncertain age.

The message from "AndrewR" contains these words:

Never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear.

You are going to be looking at 8-10 year old cars for this money and given that average mileage is 12k a year this is hardly suprising.