MartinM

Its that time of life - will have a 17yr old in the house next month who (he tells me) needs driving lessons and a car asap

Quandary - we have 2 cars now. Company BMW (sorry), company car insurance for me and wife, no drivers under 25. MY00 Scoob, insured in wife's name plus me as aditional driver. I'm not even gonna ask NFU for a quote to add him onto the Scoob insurance!

So, what to do?
- buy a £500 Peugeot 205 (or similar) and insure him to drive it. Quotes so far are £1500 comp, £1300 TP. Ouch, but it gets him on the insurance ladder and the depreciation on the car can't be more than £500. So cost for the first year is max £1800.

- buy a £500 Peugeot 205 (or similar) and insure me or wife to drive it, with him as additional driver. Haven't got any quotes yet, 'cos I don't know if me or wife can have two policies at the same time and I don't know how he would stand with respect to being on the 'ladder' after the first year

- sell the Scoob (doh!) buy a £6000 Peugeot 206 (or similar) as the wife's new car. Add him as additional driver. Quotes seem to be around £600, but depreciation would kick in at say £1200 per year. And I still don't know how he would stand with respect to being on the 'ladder' after the first year.

Any thoughts/novel solutions that other people have used in this situation???

Regards

Jerome

I would go for option 1. Get a £500 Pug and insure him as the driver. Bear in mind, if he writes the car off (not difficult when it's worth £500) you only lose £500. Hopefully he'll be lucky and start building up a NCB. May look after the car more if it his, not his Mum's car.

Also, be wary of having him as an additional driver. The insurance forms normally ask who the main driver is and give a quote according to that person. If you insure with him as an additional driver, he has an expensive prang (scratches a BMW) the insurance company may look into who the main driver is. It won't be difficult to prove it is your son.

Jerome.

Dream Weaver

Martin

Heres what you should do:

The £500 route is the best bet as he will be able to start building NCD up so long as there are no accidents, and you can keep the Scoob.

You would be better going for something cheaper to insure. 205's are great but being French parts are more expensive, hence insurance costs more.

When I was 17 I had an MG Metro - great fun, easy to work on and cheap parts from the scrappers. Insurance back then (10 years ago)was £149 per year

So hunt around and find the cheapest to buy, insure and work on. Try getting quotes for different types of car - my friends brother is 18 and has a Rover 214Si. Fairly quick, cheap to buy, quite reliable and newish. You can pick one up for about £700 on a H/J plate. Not sure about insurance for them though - try

robski

Well only option 1 or 3 is your choice.

I would go 1, but why a 205!?

robski

Geezer

How about you don't insure him for either? Let him take proper driving lesson with a qualified instructor, so he doesn't pick up your bad habits (no offence intended, this is directed at all non qualified 'instructors' i.e. us parents!) and then when and if he passes his test, he can save up to buy an old banger and insure it himself, thus teaching him the value of money/property and you get to keep the Scoob without worrying that a testosterone driven 17 yr old off will put it in a ditch at 130mph showing off to his shell suited girlfriend. Voila!

Geezer

DavidRB

Geezer: Exactly! All the 17 year olds I knew who had their cars bought & insured by daddy wrote them off (and often their replacements!) because there was no reason to care about things like NCBs.

If he wants a car that badly, then he should be prepared to (at the least) contribute to paying for it. No way I'd sell my car for one of my kids - not that I have any!! Yet.

Although the insurance hit of insuring him now is high, if he racks up a couple of years of NCB, then it gets cheaper quite quickly.

If you go down the route of insuring him as a named driver on you or your wife's policy, then you'll probably end up stuck with him on it until he's 25 as he won't want to come off it. If the worst happens and he has too many accidents, then it knackers your insurance too.

Oh, and has been pointed out before, it is illegal to list him as a named driver if he is the main user of the vehicle. Insurance companies have invalated policies in the past for this offence, which means you get to add driving without valid insurance into the equation.

MartinM

Thanks. Interesting thoughts. Keep 'em coming. So maybe a MkIII Escort instead of a 205 then?

As a slight aside, one of his friends passed his test last Friday and yesterday hit a BMW Z3 in his Metro. Maybe these high insurance premiums for young drivers are right after all

chiark

How about a new car with 2 years free insurance?

Now I know that this sounds expensive, but the insurance saving for two years may cover the depreciation...

If offspring has any income, get them to chip in towards loan for the thing, too...

MartinM

Chiark - I thought that the mfrs. had twigged on to this and there's normally a minimum age limit of 20 or so

...unless you know any current examples otherwise of course

Markus

Ideally, get him a car and get him started on the insurance ladder.

When I was the tender age of 17 I went on my dads insurance for four years, granted I wrote off both the cars, so insurance would have not been ideal, but I did it this way as the insurance companies wanted aprox 1400 quid to insure me on a 1.0L E reg micra (old shape)! and I was not having that.

As for you or missus having another policy for the 205, that should be ok, though if you/she were main driver on both cars and you're with the same insurer then they might think something odd is happening. I know that having two polices for the SAME car is not the done thing

Where's Rum* when you need him!

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

How tall is he?

Get him a mini and he'll love it!! I know I did, after smashing my mums fiesta 3 times (I was a named driver) I got a mini and had to pay the insurance myself. No accidents since (touch wood!!).

There's a great mini community and the insurance can't be cheaper, especially through the MOC.

The only dilema is sticking your loved one into something so tiny. Thinking about it my mum loved that fiesta......

Justin

ed the dead

Mini mini mini mini mini

mattski

Luxury! If he wants a car so badly why don't he get his *** down a mine and work for the damn thing?

I would never buy my kid a car and insurance, sure help them out but imho tis just a bit excessive. Everyone I know who has had a car bought for them simply don't learn the value of money, having to work for something etc, I worked like a b1tch for my first car and it taught me a lot about myself and how wanting something can be sooo frustrating (which is GOOD). rant over

On the car front I don't think you'd go wrong with an old escort, safer than a mini and a bit more practical. ( a friend had a bad accident in a mini, engine replaced the passenger seat )

Oakley

When I bought my first car, it came with a free year's insurance. I bought it brand new on a low deposit finance plan when I got my first job.

All my parents did to help was pay for some of my insurance for the second and third years; as I was still at university that helped a lot. I'm currently paying for everything, and have just paid off my car and am trading it in.

I've seen a lot of people at uni whos parents buy them cars, and they genuinely don't seem to give a stuff about them. I'd really avoid that. I feel quite proud that I managed to survive paying for my first car, and I know own a 3-year old hatchback worth a few thousand as a trade in. It's satisfying, and it's got me into the car ownership game, as well as getting me an insurance record.

As far as new cars go, I imagine I drove much more carefully when it still smelled of new car and had 8 miles on the clock than I would have if it had 80 000!

chiark

First example I tried seems to do insurance still, but I could be misreading it...

Citroen Saxo 1.1 Forte - 6440 OTR, including one year's free insurance. Free insurance on hotter models is restricted to 21-80 year olds...

So it's only a year, and depreciation on the bottom of the range may be quite steep? It was on my wife's.

Perhaps it's worth a trawl around? Or perhaps I am once again talking out of my rear

Dave P

You may get your wife insured as a second driver on his insurance. I have heard that on occasions this brings down the cost.

I had to save up for my first car, a Hillman Imp the most fun car I have owned, we still talk about the way we could get it airbourne into the pub carpark and stop before becoming an integral part of the kitchen, and with a bag of concrete in the front boot it's snow handling was legendry!!!

Get him to look at the food for thought thread in this forum and explain this is why he should save up.

Dave P

dsmith

You can't go far wrong with a Mini as your first car

Not quick enough to do anything really silly, handles well enough that he can embarras all his mates in their Mum's shopping hatchbacks.

Favaourite moment of early driving career...Approach roundabout in Mini with Friend in Mum's astra behind. Don't lift and stick with line as if going straight across. when on the roundabout simply carry on round and turn right. Mate in Astra very very nearly puts it into a lamppost as the Astra can't take the roundabout at the same speed.

Then perhaps a nice classic sports cars - MG Midget or Spitfire, cheap to insure because its a classic, parts are ridicously cheap, and you get to look cool in the summer. (Small downside is that you have to spend every weekend up to elbows in grease to keep the bloody thing running) ... well it worked for me

Whatever, it may be worth not insuring him for a few years. The first few years may be less financially painful when he's 20 ?

Dean

Jerome

While I agree Mini's are great little cars, I can't help but think it would be an unwise choice for a new driver. Statistically they are the most likely to have a prang, so you'd want them to have a decent bit of metal round them. How about a Volvo 340?

Jerome.

fast bloke

Jerome - this might make them think about what they are doing? Also in a mini, it is difficult to be going quick enough to do major damage. The thrill is in feeling that you are doing twice the speed of sound when you are travelling at 45 MPH. At 17 he is also going to be looking for something with street cred. You won't find many insurance group 1 or 2 cars cooler that a mini.

p.s. I might be biased. I've had 4. If I could be arsed with maintenance on a classic one I would quickly make this 5

Jerome

Fast bloke,

For my first car I also wanted a Mini - much to my fathers despair. You're probably right about not going as fast. However, I had a nasty prang with a drink driver in a transit pickup when I was a new driver. I was driving a MkI Escort and that was damaged badly enough. I dread to think what would've happened had I been in a mini. Might not have happened if I was in a Mini though...

How about a Volvo 340 with a 7 inch spike sticking out of the steering wheel.

Also, with a Volvo, you wouldn't get him showing off to his mates in it - they'd have too much cred to be seen in a Volvo.

Jerome.

BOB.T

Make him buy his own car! It's a sure fire way to make him apreciate it. I had 3 mk1 Fiesta's, much the same theory as the mini only better!

I've always had my own insurance as I was told it was the best thing to do except my mates who were on their parents insurance are now coming off it and are being offered generous ncb anyway!

I have to diagree with young people being responsible for all rta's aswell. I work in a bodyshop and the vast majority of our work is for " the older generation". I was considering knocking up a survey as to age, fault etc, not sure how it would go down with the boss though!

Bob