Mother buying car, we have no idea about cars....

the deftone

My mother wants to buy a car. We havnt had one before so we know nothing about cars. We have no clue about how to go about buying a car. She wants to spend around 2000. So if you could answer some noob questions for me id really appreciate it.

Should we buy from a car dealer? I know there is a lot of places online to buy used cars but we would have no idea if the car was in good shape. Do dealers offer warranty's?

Is it possible to get a decent car for 2000?

Thanks for any info!

colm_mcm

For €2000 you're better off buying privately.
If your mum is getting her first car then price insurance.

I'd spend the money on a Yaris, 00-01, maybe 1700 and spend some more on getting it checked by a mechanic pre-sale

the deftone

No warranty scares the hell outta me though. I dont want her ending up with a car thats gonna cost her a fortune in repairs in a few months time.

bisounours

Not to scare you further, has your mother any car insurance history? If this is her first car (in a long time) she may be looking at insurance costs in the same price range of the car...

micks_address

bisounours wrote: »

Not to scare you further, has your mother any car insurance history? If this is her first car (in a long time) she may be looking at insurance costs in the same price range of the car...

What would her driving pattern be like distance wise etc?

2k is a low budget.. I'm guessing something like a Honda jazz, opel corsa, yaris in a 02?

colm_mcm

the deftone wrote: »

No warranty scares the hell outta me though. I dont want her ending up with a car thats gonna cost her a fortune in repairs in a few months time.

Any garage that would stand over the car for say a year would want to be making a good profit on the sale, say €700. That means they have to buy the €2000 car for €1300 including prepping it for sale.

The other thing is that any dealer selling a €2000 car isn't the type to give you some sort of "make everything better" sort of warranty in the first place.

That's why I say get a mechanic to check it before you buy, and get a good make of car to start with.

biko

Yaris, Micra, Panda
These cars are good first time cars, low running costs and low insurance/tax. Usually no major issues mechanically.
You can get a Panda for around 1600 (mid2000's).

As a suggestion, go to adverts.ie or donedeal.ie. Find a car you kinda like and take the reg and put it in chill.ie - this will give you a ballpark price for insurance.

Get a mech to check it out for a private sale and you should be ok.

FishOnABike

Any dealer guarantee at that end of the market is likely to be limited to 3 months engine and gearbox, if any. There's so little profit left in real terms at that end of the market that any guarantees are by necessity fairly limited.

bazz26

the deftone wrote: »

No warranty scares the hell outta me though. I dont want her ending up with a car thats gonna cost her a fortune in repairs in a few months time.

Your not going to get much in the way of warranty on a €2k car as there is very little profit in it for a dealer unless he initially buys the car for near half that amount.

You also need to accept that in the grand scheme of things your budget is not very big so your looking at cars that are 10 years old or there about so they are not going to be 100% perfect.