I am an oldie wanting to buy a small automatic car for myself for about $10, 000. Only to drive short distances in Brisbane and the odd trip to the coast. Am looking at Toyota Yaris 1.5 ltr, Mazda 2 (which may be a bit more money) and possibly Hyundai I20 or Nissan Micra. Have been on carsales.com looking and the more I look the more daunting it all looks. I intend to sign up to Racq and hopefully persuade the owner/s to let me take the car to have it checked. This costs about $250 for a full check per car so I need to get my act together as to what car is the best. Any way what I would appreciate is some feedback/opinions everyone has about these cars and any thoughts on what I should look out for when I go to see the cars (I am a female oldie and mechanically retarded).
Need opinions on buying a secondhand small car
Comments
Big thumbs up on Toyota or Mazda from me. The Toyota Corolla is commonly held up as the 'perfect' first car because they're cheap to run, reliable, cheap parts if they need to be fixed and drive well with pretty good safety. Yaris is not too shabby either.
I have a Mazda myself and love it. I bought it second hand at the auctions while waiting for an insurance payout after writing off near new Ford Falcon almost 10 years ago. I still have it today and I've spent a total of $4k in 10 years on maintenance (servicing, tyres etc). That's pretty damn cheap!
Sure, it's not the most stylish car, and the windows aren't electric, but it's very comfortable, easy to park and depreciation isn't an issue (nor do I cry anymore if someone scratches it in a carpark).There's free checklists available online for doing a car inspection yourself -use this for your first pass and rule any out that have obvious issues that would be expensive to fix. Cosmetic damage (paint scratches, small dents) will significantly reduce the price but won't affect the mechanics as long as you're not OCD about the mark.
Check the auctions too - lots of generic white Toyotas sold at pretty good prices. Catch is you can't test drive, but they can still be fully inspected.
Good luck
Go for safety as well, look for how many air bags you get as well as the ANCAP rating, I've seen a couple of those little cars smashed to bits.