best car for under €5000?

vibe666

we were looking at maybe an atra or something like that, but aren't sure what the best bet is for reliability.

not overly bothered what it is really, as long as it's got plenty of legroom (for my 6'5" frame), isn't too expensive on the insurance, is safe & reliable, and still has a bit of poke in it when needed.

we currently have a 97 fiesta, but it is useless in the wet, and even worse when there's ice on the road. i've narrowly avoided 2 crashes due to the wet, and yesterday hit some black ice and ended up doing a 180 spin in the middle of the road (thankfully no traffic, so no harm done, apart from to my nerves!). you might think it's me going to fast, but i was extra cautious because of the conditions early yesterday morning, and from past experience knew the car handled craply in bad conditions, and i was actually following 2 cars up slight incline at the time, and neither of them was going especially fast either and they had no trouble. in fact in all 3 cases i was following someone, so it's not a speed issue, and there's plenty of tread left on the tyres so it;s not that. the wheels are just very thin on the fiesta, and i think the tyres on it are cheap ones, so rather than spend a fortune getting wider wheels (would have to be alloys i would think to get decent width) and then new good quality tyres to go on it, we thought we'd just pay an extra couple of grand to get a better car altogehter.

anyway, that's mroe than enough waffle, so does anyone have any reccommendations for a good sub 5k car?

thnx in advance.

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HashSlinging

hi,im selling a toyota corrolla in the motor section, its exactly what you need (im 6' 5') and have no problem. Its nippy for a 1.3.. And im looking for 3.5k for it. no offers.

SouperComputer

tis OT, but in icy\wet conditions narrower tyres are generally better as they provide more pressure to the contact patch. I would say that possibly the compound is extremely hard. If you ever see the typres used in ice racing, they are very narrow, despite having to throw down 600Lb of torque.

Are you sure the geometry of the car is okay? Which end of the car began to loose grip first when you spun?

I have tyres like that on an Ibiza. The grip in the wet is not fantastic, and on ice you need to be paying attention! On a nissan sunny I had very narrow tyres and it stuck like $hit to a blanket in the wet and in icy conditions.

joejoem

I know people will blast this but I have a Fiat Punto. Ive never had a problem with it except for one or two very small things. I have loads of space and I am 6'7". I think its a pleasure to drive and I would highly recomend it. They do have a tendancy to break down but the more modern ones are very reliable.

vibe666

traction and braking are both fine in the dry, and even in the wet, on 90% of roads it's fine, but there's just a few spots of road where I get almost zero grip for some reason, but whenever I've had problems, it seems to be while I'm travelling behind someone else, and not going overly quick at all.


there's just something not right with it, and it's not worth enough to be spending money on finding the problem, when we were thinking of trading up anyway.

i'm looking through the autotrader website now.

might take a look at that corolla too HashSlinging, but we were planning on spending a little more than that to get something slightly better if we can (no offense).
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