Have been ill for the last year and am just recovering enough to be able to drive. Need an automatic and looking for a small engine (no bigger than 1.4). My budget is only £2500. I am in a bit of a quandry of what to buy can you help
Paul Hardy, Sunderland, UK
Answer
Paul,
Your budget will buy you a year 2000 Smart City Coupe with 60,000 miles, a Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 CDX with 46,000 miles or a Nissan Micra 1.0 L with 31,000 miles.
These are all genuine cars that I found in the classifieds, they all have automatic gearboxes and are all £500 under budget. Tricky to find; but they are there. Search online, because then you can specify automatic only.
Stick the £500 in a savings account and add to it at the rate of about £10 a month because automatic gearboxes can play up when they get older and all these cars are 7 years old. You should have a couple of years trouble-free if you buy the right one though. Just check it accelerates smoothly when you push it quite hard and there are no whining noises.
Keywords:
small-automatics, smart-city-car, nissan-micra, vauxahll-corsa