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Currently looking for a cheap small automatic car for a near neighbour after the demise of her fiat 500, she only has a tiny budget, circa 2.5k, she fancies a jazz, the only one I've found locally looked like it's spent most of its life in Helmund province, quickly learning the days of half decent cheapys are gone....
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Recently passed daughter is driving a 54 registered Jazz CVT.
Suits her as she’s no badge snobbery and her medieval reenactment hobby demands she carries shields, spears and a whole other bunch of random kit.
This, too, looks like it’s been in the hands of a myopic delivery driver, with nary a straight panel, but a transmission judder was fixed by a change of transmission fluid, a noisy rear wheel bearing was easy enough and its has had discs/pads/calipers on the front.
Expecting to have to do the same on the rear for MOT in February.
I do need to swap the headlight bulbs for more effective ones, but they’re behind the wheel arch liner and it’ll be a Twixmas job.
The wiper linkage failed, but a quick fix with pattern linkage arms.
We paid £1300 for it, and I’m confident in its ability to fly up and down the country.
Last edited by: mcb100 on Tue 16 Dec 25 at 15:40
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>> ... quickly learning the days of half decent cheapys are gone.... >>
Several people, especially SLO, were saying that long before the HJ site closed. And I suppose with the current noises about the EU abandoning the deadline for ICE cars, maybe things won't improve for a while ? My 1991 Pug 205 (in excellent running order) may have value yet ...
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I had a Pug 205, reg B211 UCP. I’d imagine it went to the scrap yard decades ago.
Best cheap, and superbly reliable, old car I owned was a Mazda 626. Bought for £995 second hand in a private sale, 2.0 top of the range 5 door petrol. It never missed a beat and I sold it to a girl I knew who continued to run it for several years.
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>> I had a Pug 205, reg B211 UCP.
Had a very basic two door 1.7 diesel 205, F158 NTM if my neurons are connecting. Station car after OH needed to get daughter to childminder and work.
Obviously nowhere near a GTi for acceleration but if you used the diesel torque and trusted the roadholding it was massive fun to hustle through the local B roads.
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>> I had a Pug 205, reg B211 UCP. I’d imagine it went to the scrap
>> yard decades ago.
My first company car was a 205XS - E45 FLK. I did 30,000 miles in 18 months and it was an absolute peach of a car. I was running a contract out in Stratford-on-Avon and had to drive there from London every week for about 6 months. I always found the quieter back roads to have more fun (this was in the late 1980s...) I'm sure that was turned into bean cans many years ago!
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Recently upgraded our Panda ownership from the 2010 model we've had for 8 years to a 2018 model.
The old car had a relatively high mileage of 144k, but was well looked after, very clean and reliable in our ownership. Advertised on Gumtree and eBay, hundreds of views and several watchers and a few "what's your lowest price" enquiries. Car was sorned and sitting on the drive and I was prepared to leave it there until the new year if no serious enquiries. It's the wrong time of year being close to Christmas. I can't imagine anyone thinking I'm going upgrade to a 15 year old Panda. It was always going to sell to someone teaching their kid to drive or someone needing an emergency replacement car with limited available funds. Ours whilst being the highest mileage up for sale was also one of the straightest. Some of them were piles of poo for double the price.
Lovely chap phoned wanting the car for his SiL who's car had just sprung a major oil leak. Arrived a few hours later, paid and drove it away. £200 depreciation over the 8 years. Terrible!
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MCB, you struck lucky, one I looked at was a utter shed, rear arches were a rusty, bubble mess, paint, what was left of it looked like it had been sand blasted and the interior was filthy, guy wanted 1800 for it, didn't bother getting underneath or driving it.
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At £2,500 you are at the bottom of the market for a Jazz.
At that sort of price I would be looking at a range of smaller cars, older seller, owned a few years ( a genuine private seller!!) - maybe giving up driving / reducing from 2 cars to 1.
A good Mazda 2 / Hyundai , for example, might not be as appealing as a Jazz but at that price you are searching to find the best car for the money you have.
A straight /well looked / good MoT history Mazda 2 / Hyundai i10 is a better buy than a rough Jazz IMHO.
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Nissan Note 1.6 Auto 2013 and earlier? Small car with fab interior space that has the reliable old school Nissan 1.6 engine mated with a great torque converter auto gearbox which has an overdrive. Lasting the test of time mechanically and re bodywork. It's good value and can fit in the budget.
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KIA VENGA.
63,733 miles
Repair immediately (major defects):
Offside Track rod end ball joint has excessive play (2.1.3 (b) (i))
Offside Rear Shock absorbers has a serious fluid leak (5.3.2 (b))
Monitor and repair if necessary (advisories):
Nearside Track rod end ball joint has slight play (2.1.3 (b) (i))
Tyre slightly damaged/cracking or perishing all 4 (5.2.3 (d) (ii))
Bought it june 2022 from a friend (his wife had to stop driving) £2000 with above defects
So New shock absorbers new track rod ends and 4 new tyres
It had a full service history but as MCB's Jazz a lot of panel scrapes, but just touched them all in.
Brake light switch failed a couple of years back but replaced easily. Also had to remove washer bottle to clean gunge filter where the pump goes in, Fiddly job and quite a few cuss words used. wheel arch protector screws devils to get out.. ordered new screws and plastic bits that screws go into on arch..
Good runaround and plenty of the on autotrader/ebay/gumtree.
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Small engined autos are in high demand and command (much) higher prices than manuals due to rarity and the proliferation of people only taking auto tests (and then finding they can't actually find / afford an auto!). £2.5k is about the min for a retail auto these days - by the time dealer has prepped, and taking VAT into account, and the CRA margins are pretty thin even at that. With a tight budget probably just need to cast the net for anything that is auto at the price bracket and buy on condition - but it's going to be older and likely a bit scabby in places! What's up with the 500? Even if it needs £2k spending on it, it might be a better prospect than someone else's almost worn out cast off....
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Unless you are a competent diy mechanic I would question the wisdom of buying a car in that price bracket. It wil almost certainly need work done in the next 12 months and you need to have a £1000:put buy to cover that. For those doing a really low mileage public transport might make a more sensible option.
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>> Unless you are a competent diy mechanic I would question the wisdom of buying a car in that price bracket. It will almost certainly need work done in the next 12 months and you need to have a £1000:put buy to cover that. For those doing a really low mileage public transport might make a more sensible option. >>
That is an argument for keeping your car and fixing it, unless its failure is genuinely terminal. Most very cheap cars will need some annual work to pass a test, so the cheaper option may be to do that, on the basis that you will know more about the car you already own. It's too easy to say 'a car will cost more to fix than it's worth', which doesn't allow for the cost of getting a replacement.
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>> It's too easy to say 'a car
>> will cost more to fix than it's worth', which doesn't allow for the cost of
>> getting a replacement.
That.
Exactly.
Spent far more on 'lingo #1 in its final year than it was worth. Oil cooler, thermostat, alternator, exhaust and re-shim cam followers as valve/seat wear was compromising compression on cold starts. Best part of £2k but we'd had it from new and it did exactly what we needed.
Heavy steering issue that 3 garages couldn't get to the bottom of saw it off in the end.
Traded it for a Roomster and got £800.
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>> Unless you are a competent diy mechanic I would question the wisdom of buying a
>> car in that price bracket. It wil almost certainly need work done in the next
>> 12 months and you need to have a £1000:put buy to cover that. For those
>> doing a really low mileage public transport might make a more sensible option.
Might is doing some heavy lifting there.
Bus here is hourly and goes all around the Wrekin to get to town. Not much better the other way to Daventry either.
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Richard, the 500 suffered a catastrophic gearbox failure (apparently?) so she sold it 'as is' to a dealer as she had no money to repair it.
I only got Involved when I saw her and mentioned not seeing it for a bit, b***** shame as it was otherwise mint, personally I think she's been had, I would liked to have a look or get a second opinion ( got a couple of mates In the trade).
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That's a common fault, and can be repaired fairly cheaply - I've heard tell of £300 for the box rebuild but you have to add remove and replace, and might as well put a new clutch in while you are there, so perhaps £1k retail. If it was in good condition then seems likely she has been taken advantage of, sadly.
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A reasonable point but conversely there are a lot of people who could manage with public transport and which they might find preferable to the financial stress and uncertainty of trying to run an ageing vehicle on a shoestring.
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>> A reasonable point but conversely there are a lot of people who could manage with public transport and which they might find preferable to the financial stress and uncertainty of trying to run an ageing vehicle on a shoestring. >>
Agreed the cost of owning and running a car can easily outweigh the alternative of public transport, but the only true alternative to one's car is a taxi, which can add up to a lot for frequent journeys. The argument only really strengthens when an owner has to stop driving for health or visual reasons.
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Honda Jazz/Fit - Cheap used cars - mcb100
