Would there be any reason not to buy a Mercedes Benz as a first car?

BetterThanThou

I'm 16 right now, I want to start driving once I turn 17, I'm going to start saving up money to purchase a car once I turn 17 and get a driver license.
I've always liked Mercedes cars, I looked them up and noticed quite a few of them going for under €2,000. All of them more than ten years old, obviously.
As long as I have a mechanic look at the car before buying it, would there be any reason not to purchase a Mercedes as a first car? Specifically, a C-Class.
Their engine sizes seem to range from 1.7 to 2.0 litres, would this be a huge petrol waster? I don't plan on driving a lot, and I noticed even some "small" cars like Renault Meganes at 1.6l.

P_1

Main reason I guess is that it would be a biatch of a car to try and pass the test in.

There's a reason why most instructors use the little hatches

And the insurance will probably cost you at least both arms and 1.25 legs

Alanstrainor

The main problem will be getting insurance on something like that. You're talking thousands.

My advice, go with something small and nondescript, and move up to the nicer stuff when you have your license and some NCB.

Being perfectly honest, it simply wont work. Insurance companies will laugh you off the phone.

challengemaster

Best of luck getting insurance at 17 with no previous experience. I reckon it'd be at least 3k for insurance

BetterThanThou

That's the part I was worried about and meant to ask about in the original post.
I've heard it's much cheaper if you get put on someone else's policy, I'll most likely have my mother put me on her policy once I start driving, she drives a Nissan Primera if it matters. Would it still work out at a huge price like that?
Edit: Come to think of it, is this possible? I'm nearly positive I remember my brother being on my mother's policy with his own car a couple of years ago, or am I mistaken?

challengemaster

That means you can only drive the car her policy is for (the Primera)

If you get your own car, you need your own policy which with very little experience you can expect to pay €1.5-2k at minimum

BetterThanThou

challengemaster wrote: »

That means you can only drive the car her policy is for (the Primera)

If you get your own car, you need your own policy which with very little experience you can expect to pay €1.5-2k at minimum

I must have been mistaken then. I plan on ringing up some companies to get some quotes, but, would you have any idea how much it would cost to insure something smaller at my age? Something around 1.0-1.2l?

challengemaster

Same applies, it'll be at least €1.5-2k no matter what you get.

My first year on a 1.2 punto was €2k

tdonegan1990

Please do up a quote online for the merc you want and post up the result on here!!
Im guessing near 4k!

Aykina

I love old Mercs too, but once when they get old repairs will be high - big ticket items that tend to go in 10 year old Mercs include axles, and ECM and lights and bulbs go all the time. Older Mercs have slightly dodgy electrics (in my experience). Parts are more expensive.
Other main disadvantage that I can think of getting an old Merc as a first car is that they'll spoil ya for anything else ;-)

shinkansen

17 year old with a merc
not gonna happen*

and yes a merc with that small an engine would have as much welly as penny farthing.

just get a fiesta and get a merc in 10 years time like most normal people.

hell even most normal people don't get mercs at 27.


/thread




*unless sugar daddy covers it

68 lost souls

If she has two policies the second will have 0 no claims bonus so will be just as expensive as even as a named drover with no experience it can get pricy. Also if you have a claim it will mess both of her insurance policies up.

On a side note one oft pet hates is people driving on their own with a learners permit. It's illegal, you will get your learners permit at 17 more likely you will not get you ful licence until 18 so no point I getting your own car till then anyway.

MadMardegan

Pffft, my first time getting my own policy was on a 1.8 mondeo when I was 21 and I still had to pay 1.5k!

dahamsta

challengemaster wrote: »

If you get your own car, you need your own policy which with very little experience you can expect to pay €1.5-2k at minimum

New drivers pay double that or more for their own insurance on hatches; a saloon - even a dinky little pretend Merc like the C - would be absolutely astronomical. I'd guess maybe 3 times the cost of the cars in the OP?

Newbie, unless you have money to burn, your options are mammy's car or something very, very small. It's just a fact of life I'm afraid, we've all been through it. I started in my mum's 800cc 3-cylinder Daihatsu Domino, aka Cuore. It was great craic, and almost impossible to come a cropper in. Wish I still had it for pootling around the city.

sebastianlieken

car: €2000
Insurance: €2500 - €3000 (if you can even get insured)
Motor Tax: €750
Petrol: you calculate this
Maintenance / servicing: a fair bit, and if anything even semi-serious goes wrong you're rightly buggered.

and remember, all those costs (except the purchase) are annually reoccuring costs... they dont just dissappear after you've paid them once...

1st year total: approx. €7000
2nd year total: approx €4000

honestly, get something sensible as a first car. Even if you do save up for the merc. it will most likley break your heart. Just sayin'

Scortho

At 18 it cost me 2800 for insurance on a polo. That was 2010 so I wouldn't be surprised if it was around the same if not more now. You're on a provisional, no matter what you get, the car will be a bomb to insure.

Bpmull

What is to stop the ops mother insuring the merc and the op going on as a named driver. I don't see the need to have the insurance in your own name straight away most insurance companies count named driver experience. As for the merc it will cost a bit more to run but other than that. Someone mentioned passing the test I passed my test in a skoda octavia first time if anything I think the tester was happy to see me coming as anyone else seems to take it in a yaris fiesta etc. if the op starts driving a c class merc they know no difference as they have never driven a smaller car so its not really a disadvantage.

Scortho

Bpmull wrote: »

What is to stop the ops mother insuring the merc and the op going on as a named driver. I don't see the need to have the insurance in your own name straight away most insurance companies count named driver experience. As for the merc it will cost a bit more to run but other than that. Someone mentioned passing the test I passed my test in a skoda octavia first time if anything I think the tester was happy to see me coming as anyone else seems to take it in a yaris fiesta etc. if the op starts driving a c class merc they know no difference as they have never driven a smaller car so its not really a disadvantage.

The mother would have 0 years no claims bonus as she is already insured on another vehicle. It's a ridiculous system that you can't use your no claims bonus on more than one car.

Nolimits12

68 lost souls wrote: »

On a side note one oft pet hates is people driving on their own with a learners permit. It's illegal, you will get your learners permit at 17 more likely you will not get you ful licence until 18 so no point I getting your own car till then anyway.

Why do you hate learners driving alone? If I didnt drive alone as a learner I wouldn't be the driver I am today. You need to gain confidence by driving alone in the car. Having to rely on someone everytime you want to practice driving makes it impossible. You will get a lot less driving experience and probalbly fail your test. When you have a full driver in the car you tend to lean on their judgement, you just need to gain the experience alone.

I'm still a learner and I am most definitely a lot better than most of the drivers on the road today. OP make sure you get as much driving experience as possible, be it alone or with someone. Dont try drive alone immediately give it 1-2months of lessons first. I drove alone after edt lesson 4.


My insurance was quoted at 1.5k and it was then quoted at 900 when I've a full.Im not going to drive until I get the full and just get insurance on parents car for now (my parents work a lot so no hope of me driving often). But I had 1 year driving exp alone prior to this, including driving to work and college daily.

68 lost souls

Scortho wrote: »

The mother would have 0 years no claims bonus as she is already insured on another vehicle. It's a ridiculous system that you can't use your no claims bonus on more than one car.

And as I mentioned if he had a claim then it would affect both policies for his mother.

I remember getting quotes when I turned 17 and my brother was selling his 1l Corsa at the time. Worth 1000 insurance for me would have been 3000 third party fire and theft. As far as I remember even as a named driver on my mothers 1l car when I started it was about 1200-1500

mickdw

My 1st car was a 2.0 audi 80. I was around 20 at the time. Cost 2700 punts to insure.

Mr Benevolent

BetterThanThou wrote: »

I must have been mistaken then. I plan on ringing up some companies to get some quotes, but, would you have any idea how much it would cost to insure something smaller at my age? Something around 1.0-1.2l?

Put it like this. I got my first insurance at 30 on a 1L Corsa. They still charged me €1500. At 17, you'd be charged almost double that. A year on, of course, I can get insured on whatever I want up to 3.2L for €700.

BTW, being having your brother insure his own car under his mother's name was illegal. Do not expect sympathy from the insurance company if you do the same and are involved in an accident.

Frankie Lee

If you could find a decent one of these they wouldn't be a bad car to start off in.

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/vintagecars/3481707

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/vintagecars/4611232

advertsfox

MadMardegan wrote: »

Pffft, my first time getting my own policy was on a 1.8 mondeo when I was 21 and I still had to pay 1.5k!

23 here with a 1.2 Punto and it was €1200 :O

furtzy

Nolimits12 wrote: »

I'm still a learner and I am most definitely a lot better than most of the drivers on the road today.

And theres the problem!

68 lost souls

Nolimits12 wrote: »

Why do you hate learners driving alone? If I didnt drive alone as a learner I wouldn't be the driver I am today. You need to gain confidence by driving alone in the car. Having to rely on someone everytime you want to practice driving makes it impossible. You will get a lot less driving experience and probalbly fail your test. When you have a full driver in the car you tend to lean on their judgement, you just need to gain the experience alone.

I'm still a learner and I am most definitely a lot better than most of the drivers on the road today. OP make sure you get as much driving experience as possible, be it alone or with someone. Dont try drive alone immediately give it 1-2months of lessons first. I drove alone after edt lesson 4.


My insurance was quoted at 1.5k and it was then quoted at 900 when I've a full.Im not going to drive until I get the full and just get insurance on parents car for now (my parents work a lot so no hope of me driving often). But I had 1 year driving exp alone prior to this, including driving to work and college daily.

As I said first off it's illegal, it does/soon will carry an instant 80 euro fine and a penalty point rising to 3 and 1000 euro fine if appealed.

Secondly they guy has no experience at all and it looking to buy his own car, a recipe for disaster.

I never once drove on my own on an L plate and passed my test first time 6 years ago. I did plenty of lessons through an insurance policy to reduce it, a couple of pretests and also had family members drive around with me. I got plenty of experience.

Driving alone after 4 lessons is no where near enough experience to be unleashed on the world, there are so many situations taht can occur that you wont be ready for.

Nolimits12

68 lost souls wrote: »

As I said first off it's illegal, it does/soon will carry an instant 80 euro fine and a penalty point rising to 3 and 1000 euro fine if appealed.

Secondly they guy has no experience at all and it looking to buy his own car, a recipe for disaster.

I never once drove on my own on an L plate and passed my test first time 6 years ago. I did plenty of lessons through an insurance policy to reduce it, a couple of pretests and also had family members drive around with me. I got plenty of experience.

Driving alone after 4 lessons is no where near enough experience to be unleashed on the world, there are so many situations taht can occur that you wont be ready for.

Well my unleashing on the world seemed pretty successful.. I know its illegal but I am a complete advocate of it being the only way you can learn. My friend is working and living in the city and he has a car and is trying to learn how to drive, but only drives once a week. Im sure he wont pass his test. We got our provisionals together and its obvious I am a lot better at driving than him.

The 12 edt are crazy! The biggest pain ever. Okay some people do need 1 lessons, I accept that. But since my 6th lesson instructors have just been doing pre-tests with me and correcting me on tiny tiny anal things (siting up straight for example).

johndaman66

Scortho wrote: »

The mother would have 0 years no claims bonus as she is already insured on another vehicle. It's a ridiculous system that you can't use your no claims bonus on more than one car.

I am unsure but think that Bpmull might have meant selling/ parking up the Primera and the OP's mother transferring her NCB onto the Merc that the OP is intending to buy.

Of course you are correct that if his mother were to take out a second policy on the Merc with the OP as a named driver on it then she will be starting a fresh with zero years NCB on this policy. Insurance companies aren't stupid, they see through this arrangement and the premium would be at least as high as it would be for the OP to insure the Merc in his/ her own name. Also, if the OP were to have a fault accident, which lets call a spade a spade is a high enough probability with a young driver with little experience it would have implications for both the policies his mother holds. As such I don't believe its of any advantage for the OP's mother to take out second policy and name OP on it, in fact arguably a disadvantage.

Also, the OP is meant to be a second driver on the policy so if he/she is the main driver of the car they are breaking the terms of the insurance contract...Of course we all pretty much know that this happens the world over in reality.

68 lost souls

Nolimits12 wrote: »

Well my unleashing on the world seemed pretty successful.. I know its illegal but I am a complete advocate of it being the only way you can learn. My friend is working and living in the city and he has a car and is trying to learn how to drive, but only drives once a week. Im sure he wont pass his test. We got our provisionals together and its obvious I am a lot better at driving than him.

The 12 edt are crazy! The biggest pain ever. Okay some people do need 1 lessons, I accept that. But since my 6th lesson instructors have just been doing pre-tests with me and correcting me on tiny tiny anal things (siting up straight for example).

Congratulations and good luck with your test, you may be one of the good ones but not all are good and its better to be safe than take risks when it comes to something like driving which puts lives in danger. The reason for your friends poor driving compared to yours might not be the fact that they are driving only at lessons but more so that some people are better natural drivers.

The 12 lessons are there for a reason, they may seem stupid to you but they are worth it and they help road safety. Here is an interesting quote from a previous thread regarding learner driving

( A small private survey conducted at an RSA test centre recently. The results concluded that the pass rate on the give week was 15% pass.
Of this amount all the drivers had, had 2-8hours proffesional driving lessons in their life, not over!
20% had only 1 lesson maximum before their test and no other driving lesson within 2weeks.
85% had driven to the test center illegally unaccompanied.
95% of drivers did not know if their driving instructor was registered with the RSA. (ADI = Approved Driving Instructor)

98% were sitting their test for the second time plus. That's 2% pass the test first time.
Of the 98%, 60% had already sat the test 3-4 times or more, and 20% sat the test 8 times previously.

Nolimits12

I wouldnt consider myself a natural driver at all. My boyf at the time when I started to learn even noted I was picking up use of the clutch very slow. I just didnt get it at all. Even with the holding tractor on the hill examples, it was the hardest thing ever. Driving on my own allowed me to be away from pressure and learn myself, in my own time. I cant book my test yet because Ive 2 more lessons left...

68 lost souls

It also put you and a lot of other driver sin danger then, if you couldn't control the clutch on a hill for example you could have ended up rolling into a parked car behind you or a row of moving traffic there is no way you should have been let out on your own. The opposite of how you felt should be true and should be how learner drivers feel. Your fully licensed driver is there to keep you safe not to judge you but to help you. Forget they are there unless you need them. Those 12 lessons early on would have been with a good instructor who could guide you and teach you better than a boyfriend or family member could as it is there job.

Nolimits12

Would you drive like that? Balancing the clutch on a hill to stop you rolling? Oh your poor car . I used to break and it was fine. In lessons you are never taught to rely on the clutch like how you describe, ever.
No, my instructor was just as bad. He was just passing me on the lessons, getting through them. I learnt nothing with him, so 12 lessons early on with him, I probably still wouldnt be able to drive.

68 lost souls

hand break on, engage gear, remove hand break , oops clutch wasn't right and you roll backwards into the car that is ready behind you to take off.

ABajaninCork

Nolimits12 wrote: »

I'm still a learner and I am most definitely a lot better than most of the drivers on the road today. OP make sure you get as much driving experience as possible, be it alone or with someone. Dont try drive alone immediately give it 1-2months of lessons first. I drove alone after edt lesson 4.


My insurance was quoted at 1.5k and it was then quoted at 900 when I've a full.Im not going to drive until I get the full and just get insurance on parents car for now (my parents work a lot so no hope of me driving often). But I had 1 year driving exp alone prior to this, including driving to work and college daily.

Here we go again....

If you'e that good, then why haven't you taken your test?

Nolimits12

For some reason I was imagining starting going downhill, as I was picturing were I drove back then. You have me there, I didnt have any uphill starts back then so I was fine.

Nolimits12

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Here we go again....

If you'e that good, then why haven't you taken your test?

Because Ive been working 6 days a week now Im studying 7 days a week. Theres no time for taking lessons. Also I live in kildare, started my lessons in killarney and was planning on taking it down there, but then I moved. Its impossible for me to get down there now. So ive to do it up here now. But with work and study theres no time to do lessons and practicing would involve driving 1hr out to the test route which I cant sacrifice right now.

Is that a good enough reason?

GarIT

I was looking at old BMWs bout a year and a half ago in the only place I could check online fully comp was €11k on a 2l. I was 18 at the time.

ABajaninCork

Nolimits12 wrote: »

Because Ive been working 6 days a week now Im studying 7 days a week. Theres no time for taking lessons. Also I live in kildare, started my lessons in killarney and was planning on taking it down there, but then I moved. Its impossible for me to get down there now. So ive to do it up here now. But with work and study theres no time to do lessons and practicing would involve driving 1hr out to the test route which I cant sacrifice right now.

And we're off!! Excuse after excuse. Guess what? Did my lessons once a week. Worked two jobs and seven days a week. Didn't go out alone and took my lessons with an instructor. I passed.

My husband couldn't get lessons (he was learning before the law changed). Couldn't afford it. But he practiced with me sitting in the car beside him. Guess what? He passed.

Do you see a theme here? It IS possible to pass your test WITHOUT breaking the law and coming up with 101 excuses as to why you cannot comply. There is NO excuse for being in charge of a ton of steel without the proper test and licence to say you can control it safely. What on earth makes you different?

If your driving is as bad as your spelling, then I'm seriously worried...

H3llR4iser

Nolimits12 wrote: »

I wouldnt consider myself a natural driver at all. My boyf at the time when I started to learn even noted I was picking up use of the clutch very slow. I just didnt get it at all. Even with the holding tractor on the hill examples, it was the hardest thing ever. Driving on my own allowed me to be away from pressure and learn myself, in my own time. I cant book my test yet because Ive 2 more lessons left...

Very simply put, driving alone as a learner driver is the worst possible option:

- If anything happens, you are in the sh1te and big time; Don't come up with "ah nothing will happen, I'm a great driver". The road is dangerous, any driver can be caught out by unforeseeable circumstances;

- With the "pressure off" you can do a lot of mistakes and never realize which...

- ...will lead to the acquisition of bad driving habits that will be very hard to shake off. Example, I am giving my girlfriend lessons: I noticed she tends to rely on looking at the rev counter to start the car, looks at the stick while changing gears and has an habit of tucking her left leg under the seat while not using the clutch, rather than using the left foot rest. All very bad habits, potentially dangerous on the road, that would have gone unchallenged if she drove alone;

- Current Irish drivers average skills are DREADFUL, and I mean it. It's not a matter of respect of the rules, it's just that most of them have no real control over the car; It's literally the car carrying them rather than them controlling it. What baffles me is the behaviour when approaching junctions or crossings; If a driver has right of way he/she will just keep going like a train, the concept of "the light is green but I should still look out and be ready to stop if some distracted driver jumps the red light" doesn't even cross their minds; If you ask me, this is a direct result of years of learning unsupervised - green light, go, and that's all most drivers got;

- You already have a bad habit and it is thinking that you're a better driver than most on the road: you are not. You lack experience, you most likely have no idea about how the car effectively works. Can you answer questions like "how do you control oversteer?" without looking up on Google? If yes, fair play to you. Personally, I have been driving for the last 14 years across different countries, on the left hand side and on the right hand side. I used to drive on track days, I took advanced driving courses in Italy with professional race drivers as instructors; Yet, I still learn something new every mile I cover

H3llR4iser

Ah, for the OP: I would be asbolutely stunned if any insurance company agrees to even quote a learner driver on a C-Klasse, I'm afraid...

Nolimits12

ABajaninCork wrote: »

And we're off!! Excuse after excuse. Guess what? Did my lessons once a week. Worked two jobs and seven days a week. Didn't go out alone and took my lessons with an instructor. I passed.

My husband couldn't get lessons (he was learning before the law changed). Couldn't afford it. But he practiced with me sitting in the car beside him. Guess what? He passed.

Do you see a theme here? It IS possible to pass your test WITHOUT breaking the law and coming up with 101 excuses as to why you cannot comply. There is NO excuse for being in charge of a ton of steel without the proper test and licence to say you can control it safely. What on earth makes you different?

If your driving is as bad as your spelling, then I'm seriously worried...

I dont see how my spelling has any relation to my driving whatsoever. Bringing that up is just being an malicious. They may be excuses, but I think they are pretty valid reasons that have prevented me in doing the test. The fact that I had to travel to kerry to take lessons was just too costly and impossible. What on earth gives you the right to attack me like that when all I was doing was stating my opinion? Seriously, who are you to say something like that?!

Most of my friends drove "illegally'' and all past first time. I know people who only took the lessons and went for the test and failed. How can you build confidence in your driving like that?

Im not arguing with you further on this, because I dont feel like entertaining you on this after your comments.

Chippy01

Nolimits12 wrote: »

I didnt have any uphill starts back then so I was fine.

That's grand if you're driving on a billiard table, but you're not!!

(Up)hill starts are part of controlling the vehicle, and seeing that you can't do them you are not in control - and you still reckon you can drive?
I'll make a note to avoid Kildare for the forseeable future.

ABajaninCork

Nolimits12 wrote: »

I dont see how my spelling has any relation to my driving whatsoever. Bringing that up is just being an malicious. They may be excuses, but I think they are pretty valid reasons that have prevented me in doing the test. The fact that I had to travel to kerry to take lessons was just too costly and impossible. What on earth gives you the right to attack me like that when all I was doing was stating my opinion? Seriously, who are you to say something like that?!

Most of my friends drove "illegally'' and all past first time. I know people who only took the lessons and went for the test and failed. How can you build confidence in your driving like that?

Im not arguing with you further on this, because I dont feel like entertaining you on this after your comments.

Free speech. You don't like what I post? Don't read it and certainly don't reply!! I seem to have hit a nerve...

As for me? I'm just an Ordinary Joe who's fed up with the BS excuses posted as to why people like you cannot stay within the law.

You build confidence by PRACTICE. If you can't see that, and you're cribbing about the cost of learning to drive, then you cannot afford it. It's as simple as that.

Nolimits12

Chippy01 wrote: »

That's grand if you're driving on a billiard table, but you're not!!

(Up)hill starts are part of controlling the vehicle, and seeing that you can't do them you are not in control - and you still reckon you can drive?
I'll make a note to avoid Kildare for the forseeable future.

I can do them fine now. It took me till lesson 4 to understand the clutch, thats what I meant about picking it up slow. I didnt drive alone till I felt ready. I wasnt some crazy fool who couldnt even get a car into gear driving around.

Nolimits12

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Free speech. You don't like what I post? Don't read it and certainly don't reply!! I seem to have hit a nerve...

As for me? I'm just an Ordinary Joe who's fed up with the BS excuses posted as to why people like you cannot stay within the law.

You build confidence by PRACTICE. If you can't see that, and you're cribbing about the cost of learning to drive, then you cannot afford it. It's as simple as that.

I guess I just dont like people who argue for the sake of it and fight their arguments by throwing in a completely irrelevant insult into it. We both are entitled to state our relevant opinions, but anything else is just attacking for the sake of it.

olcod

Confab wrote: »

Put it like this. I got my first insurance at 30 on a 1L Corsa. They still charged me €1500. At 17, you'd be charged almost double that. A year on, of course, I can get insured on whatever I want up to 3.2L for €700.

BTW, being having your brother insure his own car under his mother's name was illegal. Do not expect sympathy from the insurance company if you do the same and are involved in an accident.

Who's that with and what kinda policy is that ?? surely the higher value the car the more expensive the insurance ??

Mycroft H

P_1 wrote: »

Main reason I guess is that it would be a biatch of a car to try and pass the test in.

There's a reason why most instructors use the little hatches

And the insurance will probably cost you at least both arms and 1.25 legs

Meh I passed my test in a Defender 90! Wasn't unduely hard to be honest. :pac:

Blazer

I was 29 in a megane 1.4L and still paid out 2.5K my first year.

furtzy

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Here we go again....

If you'e that good, then why haven't you taken your test?

He doesn't need to. He's already stated he's better than most of us other drivers already

ABajaninCork

furtzy wrote: »

He doesn't need to. He's already stated he's better than most of us other drivers already

She, my good man, she!

Idbatterim

Would there be any reason not to buy a Mercedes Benz as a first car? Reply to Thread

nothing apart from their image as an old mans car IMO. If you want premium brand and image etc, Id go for an audi or bm... Based on your budget, Id probably write off the bm's actually, maybe go for an a3 or a4...