As title, my eldest has just turned 17 and is looking for his first motor...
Quotes are coming in stupid on what he's looked at , which I knew they would... (he's not passed his test yet)
These are what he's had quotes for tonight...
Fiesta van @ over 6K,
classic mini 1988 @ 3,5k
MY03 STi with mods @ 53k
So what would be an ideal first car for a 17yr old
Not bothered what it is or what it looks like, just to get the first year out the way

 

Ask insurance companies about having a black box fitted.
It halved a friends (also 17) insurance recently.

 

I owned a 1.2 M reg corsa and I paid £800 3rd party and that had my mum and dad on the insurance and I put down 4k miles a year

When my sister passed her test last year I gave her my old 1.25 zetec fiesta, she had me my mum and dad on the insurance fully comp and hers was £900

I find admiral is the best around and I'm only 22 and I pay £1100 with 4 years no claims for my scoob, all my family are with them so maybe check them out

Sam

 

I'm sure there was a lad on here age 20, with an STi and modded and was only paying £1100 3rd party

 

http://www.uswitch.com/car-insurance...ars-to-insure/

 

My son passed his driving test at 17 then his pass plus. He didn't start driving until he was 20 due to the unaffordable quotes.

 

I also had a 1.2 Corsa when I passed, with both my parents on as named drivers I paid less than a grand (not much less, mind). That was 7 year ago though..

Most people seem to go for 1.2 Renault, Vauxhall, Fiat, etc hatchbacks.

 

I had a clio mk1 1.4 for my first car when I was 17, was always slighly quicker than a 106,206,corsa, saxo,fiesta (similar 1.4s) and had more "toys". Insurance was £1k for me, tho the car was worth £500ish at the time. I did pass plus and it made no difference. Got my impreza at 21. I would suggest you look at either a fiesta 1.25 zetec (mk5) or seat Ibiza mk3

 

What's the budget for the car?

Ideally something extra safe and low powered would be best for a young lad.

Things like Citroen C1s seem to be very popular with young drivers, Fiestas and Corsas both come with leaf-blower engine configurations that are comparatively insurance friendly also.

Ridiculous insurance quotes are seen for all ages, I was once quoted the value of a 911 Carrera S to insure it, and have been quoted nearly £30k for my Cosworth by Tesco Insurance. Needless to say I don't use them!

My first car was a 1.8 Zetec MkI Focus by the way... not sure I'd be insuring a 1.8 anything on the cheap aged 17 these days.

 

Fiat Punto . . . we have a £620 Ebay (but looked before bidding!) one - it's great, cheap to run, red, Italian, and not that bad on insurance.

 

Try the older style seat leon 1.4's or ibiza 1.2's, cheap to run,sporty, quite reliable as well and woth plenty of room and relatively cheap to insure "Properly"

I had a 51 plate Leon 1.4s, fully comprehensive in my own name, no NCB, 500 excess with Tesco £1200. Not bad really, for your own outright and legal policy.

 

Not the car most 17 year olds would want but some Volvo cars are cheap for young drivers, my mates son had a old volvo 2 litre when he was 17 and it was way cheaper than anything else that he tried to insure

 

Cheers guy's, I'll get ringing for a few quotes @ the ones above

It all depends on what his insurance is going to be I would say around the 2k mark for his first motor but to be honest I would rather he got a banger ( no more than 1k) for the first year
But then again would the insurance be lower if he went for something newer

Thanks for the reply's up to now

 

Newer cars are generally cheaper to insure as they're safer in the event of a crash, and are generally assumed to be in better condition. I say assume, the statistics back this up in the insurance books. Go for something that's a bit oddball if possible; my first car was an HGT Bravo before they were picked up by the crashalots and it was cheaper than a 1.25 Fiesta for me to insure!

Check out diesel focuses and so on, they're usually cheap to run, cheap to insure, and cheap to repair thanks to a proliferation of them in scrapyards. Same with 1.7 diesel Astra's....

 

1992 Nissan Micra, sorted me out for five years

I loved that little thing!

 

+1 for a Micra.

 

I paid £700 fully comp for an Audi GT @18yrs old, but that was nearly 30yrs ago.

 

1995 Nissan Micra did my lad for four years, 1.0 ltr and quotes were cheaper than for saxo's or clio's.

also more likely to have been driven nicely by a granny than ragged by a boy racer so less likely have mechanical fails

 

+1.

You can also limit the mileage and have a curfew, which in my experience (no jokes please - quotes for my daughter) considerably cuts down quotes.

I think she had a £2.4k quote reduce to about £1.4k if she didn't go out after 8 or 9pm and did only 8k miles. It was something like that anyway.

One other thing I'd advise and that's stay away from multi-car insurance, or at least read very carefully into it.

My daughter's got a Corsa 1.6 SRi (never listened to a word I said) and she's paying something like £1,200 at 20 with 2 year's NCD.
I looked into multi-car when I was about to get mine. With a quote I'd had, her car and the wife's we could have saved around £1,000 apparently.

However, that was mainly because I'd be the only car on the policy ie. 1 annual premium until the wife's car came up for renewal (2 months later), so it was only 10 months of her's being added and the daughter's was up 5 months later, so only 7 month's premium there.

Even though that still meant cheaper over the year I sussed that they wouldn't qualify for another years NCD, which then made it more expensive.

 

my 1st car at 17 was a mk3 fiesta 1.3 sx which was ok think i paid 1300 ish on my own insurasnce 3rd party,then i bought a rs1800 and put every thing on my 1.3 so i looked nice done me for 2year till the push rod engine blew, hes got to get something he like because hell remember it forever

 

I had a 106 1.0 when I was 17 and it cost me £1100 to buy and £1100 to insure. That was 9 years ago though.

 

Avoid the typical car you'd see driven by a 17-19 year old and go with a car you'd typically see a 70 year old woman driving.

 

That's what I did. My first car was a Volvo! Insurers probably thought I was to dull to go fast enough to crash it!

 

Thanks again for the feedback guy's

What type would a 70 year old women drive then?

 

what a bout something like a 1.1 pug 106 , thats what i started n was around 1k

 

I've recently been looking for a car for my daughter and getting quotes as she is going to start driving soon. With a provisional licence a Corsa 1.0 or 1.2 is around a grand to insure, Corsa 1.4 50 quid cheaper, go figure?!?! Also got a quote of only 10k to insure her on my modded scoob, when I looked for the lad a couple of years ago it would have cost over 28k!

 

when i 1st pass it works out cheaper for me to insure an 1.6 16v astra G than it did any of the smaller cars like corsa ect

 

Risk analysis partly entails statistics ie. the likelihood of something happening ('probability theory').

At a guess I'd say that statistically there's less accidents involving young people in larger cc cars than smaller ones.

And thinking about it, aren't there far far more young people who have 1.0 and 1.2 l cars as their first one, so therefore there's likely to be a greater incidence of accidents and claims ?

Ironic really, buy a small car to keep the insurance down but collectively one is causing the premium to rise.

 

That is what I put it down to, where are all the 2.8 mkII granadas then?

 

we went through this exact thing, as many do. I started looking at the usual suspects, saxo, corsa, 106 etc etc. the truth is, they are all generally owned by 17 year olds as they have teeny engines and appear to be affordable... but it is a myth. they are very expensive for what you get.

I discovered that there are much nicer, safer, bigger cars, more specification space and quality, and are nicer to drive that are not seen as 17 year olds cars but more of a first "family" car. if you buy right you can get a very cool one indeed...
our result was to get a Renault megane 3-door. 54 plate 1.5 dci dynamique. it is specced up to the hilt, yet does well over 55mpg, is not rocket ship fast but more than good enough, really nice to drive, 5 star safety rated, looks really cool, (subjective I know but it is different ) .
as a newly passed driver we are being quoted £1400. we were getting more expensive quotes on the typicallittle boxes described earlier, and to us it was a no-brainer.
we also went through "insure the box" . they fit a gadget to the car that monitors the driver. excessive acceleration, braking and cornering forces, speeding, driving too long ot too late are all bad. but it has made him drive like a saint so far. if this continues we could get a discount of up to 30% back on our premium. after a year or two bin the box and go for normal insurance once they have a no claim build up.

mikey