Buying My First Car - Need Advice

Buying/Selling
1

Hey guys I have a really low budget at the moment of about £1500 and I needed a quick run around/work horse for local city driving and shopping. Car prices at the moment are crazy and I have been struggling to find anything I think would last me 12 months, I found the following car on facebook marketplace that I am interested in, the car is:

MODEL: HONDA CIVIC (COUPE)

ENGINE SIZE: 1.6

TRANSMISSION: AUTOMATIC

FUEL TYPE: PETROL

YEAR: 2003

MILEAGE: 96,000 MILES

PRICE: £1495 | $1919

I am not a mechanic and have very basic knowledge about cars if any. I know oil leaks are usually a instant no go… the engine cap having a mayo like substance usually means the head gasket has gone etc.

If the car runs fine and has no knocks or bangs coming from the engine, no smoking and seems completely mechanically sound… then how much do you guys think I should realistically pay?.. seller has it listed at £1495.

I checked the MOT history and it passed it’s last MOT with the following advisorys:

Repair as soon as possible (minor defects):

Front Windscreen wiper blade defective Both. (3.4 (b) (i))

Monitor and repair if necessary (advisories):

Parking brake has slight reserve travel.

Front Registration plate deteriorated but not likely to be misread (0.1 (b))

Rear Direction indicator slightly discoloured Both. (4.4.3 (a))

Nearside Front Suspension arm pin or bush worn but not resulting in excessive movement (5.3.4 (a) (i))

Offside Front Suspension arm pin or bush worn but not resulting in excessive movement (5.3.4 (a) (i))

Rear Brake disc worn, but not excessively Both. (1.1.14 (a) (i))

Brake hose has slight corrosion to ferrule All. (1.1.12 (f) (i))

Rear Coil spring corroded Both. (5.3.1 (b) (i))

Offside Front Tyre slightly damaged/cracking or perishing (5.2.3 (d) (ii))

All suspension components slightly corroded.

Will she last a year or so with the advisories on the MOT or is she not worth buying? Any advice would really be appreciated.

Thanks

1 Like
2

Who knows if it will last 2 weeks let alone a year. And as far as I know vehicles do not have he or she status.

3

Brit mot process is a bit excessive. Has a good mot? Buy it.

1 Like
4

Certainly seems so. Tail direction light slightly discolored? Who would have thought this an important inspection point.

In my career one of my main tenets was “work expands to meet the time allotted”. So if you only had work for 15 people but hired 20, it didn’t take long before all 20 would be busy as bees. So I tried to keep the number down so people were always looking at ways to streamline the work. Me thinks the UK MOT could use a little of that.

But hey, I was going to suggest finding a Skoda that still runs pretty good.

5

Seen a recent show on tv called british bangers. English guys work on $1000-1500 cars. They seem to look at $1200 cars and offer $849 and whine for days. They always buy Brit cars. Can’t afford Honda’s.

6

That’s not too bad for a 20 year old car. The first few items are things you can easily do yourself. If that’s all that is wrong, then buy it. I’m not familiar with MOT inspections. If they involve drive train evaluations (transmission, engine) thief that’s good if not, you might want to pay a mechanic to check them out too.

7

I’ll point out that if your budget is 1500, you need a car that’s cheaper than 1500 because you’re almost certainly going to have to fix something. And you’ll have to register/etc it. And if England is anything like here, you’ll also have to pay taxes on it.

2 Likes
8

My Grandfather always said he gave a difficult job to a lazy man because he would find the easiest way to do it.

Bill Gates got credit for saying basically the same thing, “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

It was more important to my Grandfather because he only had 10 or so folks working on his horse/cattle ranch. Unlike Microsoft, where the employees were not exactly stressed as they could relax at the snack bar, immersion/relaxation room, the dining rooms, exercise rooms, etc…