Best second-hand buy for around a grand?

[dave_c]

Recommend a type of car that you generally consider good value for around a grand (preferably under) and what I should look out for under the bonnet? 

It doesn't really have to have 'outstanding' performance, what really would be appropriate would be it's a reliabilty and would get me to across the city and back on a daily basis and throught the coldest nights.

[Impret-Sir]

The sad fact is that for that sort of money you are not going to get very much. (I hope that your budget is purely for buying the car, with some extra to pay for the tax and insurance.) I suppose your best bet would be something like a Ford Fiesta, basically simple mechanically, and quite cheap and easy to put right when it does play up. I would buy it from an auction site too if you can, this way you should get more for your money. Whatever you buy, go for service history and a mature owner, rather than very low mileage or the youngest car you can find, this will have a positive bearing on reliability. You might have to accept that the bodywork is a little "tired", but again, this is less important at this sort of money than mechanical integrity. Get a test drive, look for blue smoke from the exhaust when cold and any obvious oil leaks under the bonnet, and listen for any rattles or other "odd" noises from the engine. Probably the best advice would be that if you are not confident about being able to spot a good sound second hand car then you should take somone with you who is.

[KebabMeister]

I agree.  Ford Fiesta's are cheap to insure and to run and parts are reasonably cheap too because of its popularity.  They do keep their price though, so for a �1000 you'd probably be looking at cars 7 - 10 years old.

 

Japanese cars are also good.  They're probably the most reliable cars you can buy - something like a Honda Civic.  Unfortunately they too hold their price and are quite rare compared to the very popular Fiesta.  Buying a car for �1000 is always a gamble because you just don't know when it's going to break down or need repairing etc.  Although Japanese cars are very, very reliable, when they do go wrong it is often expensive to repair.