To be honest I would avoid vauxhall corsa's. Cheap as they are, they genuinely are penalty boxes with underpowered engines and sloppy gearboxes. Neither very well built or reliable, to be honest I can think of better cars so spend your money on. Handling is crap too.

Try and get a honda civic or toyota corolla for generally trouble free motoring.

My first car was a Vauxhall Omega 2.0 litre, which at least allowed for some enjoyable RWD handling and comfortable motorway cruising.

Insurance?... £1300 for my 1st year when I was 18. With tesco paid in 12 installments

I seem to remember that when my cousin got his forst car in about 2000, he got a good quote from Tesco, but I think they were underwritten by RBS then; they aren't any more so might not be able to be so competitive.

man you guys get rocked over there. i have insurance on my 2000 mazda 626 2.0l for 8 months, cost? 419$ USD. you guys seriously get slammed.

Yes it frustrated me too when I moved to america for a couple of years and found I could insure a gigantic dodge intrepid with a 3.5 litre V6 engine for less than half what it cost me to insure my omega back in the U.K

Insurance in the UK is based upon a cars: weight / power / statistical accident rate / colour / repair costs / drivers age.

these are then factored together to produce an insurance "group" from 1-20

My Vauxhall Omega was a group 10 car which is right in the middle.

You wont find many if any cars like BMW or Volvo below group 10 simply because of the cost of repairing them if you have a bump.

If you do your research though you can find some surprisingly sporty and fun cars that don't cost much to insure for various reasons from cheap parts to the fact boy racers tend not to drive them and thus the accident rate is lower.

EDIT:

but yes I can't figure out how premiums can be so low in the United States... especially considering the shocking quality of the driving I experienced over there.

I could not believe that you could get a licence over there with absolutely NO lessons... as long as you could pass the written test and perform a parallel park in a parking lot between some traffic cones.

yeah Ive always had good insurance up until I got totally raped for speeding.

I pay 1,700 a year now for my 3 series BMW

With admiral I was only paying 418 quid,got done,was banned then every insurance company I applied from would offer a premium but refuse to honor my no claims bonuses so Ive had to start all over again....

When I first passed my test at the age of 19 in 2000, I found the cheapest cars to insure were small Fords. I had a 1981 1.1 Fiesta. £800 TPFT. Considered a Ford?

strange, i've always had the opposite experience with fords... was quoted £1700 from elephant.co.uk when i first passed back in 2001 - that was for an '85 1.0 Fiesta that we paid £300 for!! Over the years my parents have bought 2 more fiestas (both mk5) and still insurance was high considering the pile of donkey shite they use to make the things.

in this day n age you seriously don't wanna be driving around in any pre 99 cars specially fords because they are simply not safe in a crash.

OK I had a pristine 1994 turbo mk5b escort but I had been driving for a good few years prior to that,so I was happy that I could avoid most accidents because I drive defensively,but I know that if I hit anything that I had no control over it would be goodnight nurse for me,the car didn't even have an NCAP rating it was that shite

new drivers need to find a car that's at least NCAP 3 in my opinion

Fabia's from 2000-2007 are NCAP 4

Most VW's from 2000 are NCAP 3/4

Fiat Punto's 2000 onwards are Ncap 3/4 grand Punto is NCAP 5

Vaux/opel corsa's are NCAP 4 from 2002

SAXO is an NCAP 2 http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/wacko1.gif

all taken from the NCAP website so I hope its "a reliable source"

people should be looking for cheap but safe.

I had a 2005 Vauxhall Corsa and i'd agree with what you said - absolutely poor in just about every aspect. The only good thing about it was the engine which was very good for a 1.2, but that was about it.

Same here - except I was the only one who ever drove the most on the policy. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/laugh1.gif

Buahaha. Same here for the first 2 years. I covered like 30-40,000 miles on my first 2 years on my car. Mum only ever driven about 2000 worth of miles. Whoops. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/laugh1.gif

@ kyros.

I'm not sure why, but the ATR would cost me £1200 to insure, that's for a frickin' 2.2litre. Yes the CTR is slightly faster (0-60 6.6seconds vs 7secs) but I would rather have the ATR. It has more room and probably a lot better on the motorway.

CTR is nice, but I don't think I could go to driving a 3dr car since I've been driving a 5 door. It's just too convienient having a 5dr. I'd feel so restricted with the 3dr.

Plus, £1200 is cheap for a 2.2l ~212bhp. I'm paying £940 for a frickin' 1.2l 75bhp 8v! http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/wacko1.gifhttp://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/mad1.gif

That said, right now, any 2L car would cost me about £1200-£1500 to insure. I was looking at quotes for a BMW 520 E39, A3 2.0TDI, A4 2.0TDI, all around the same price range. But the ATR is more realistic considering I can pick one up for roughly £4.5-£5.5k. The Germans are £8k upwards for a decent one.

Insurance is considerably cheaper when you're 21 compared to 17. And even more cheaper when you hit 25.

i know what your saying about 5 door convienience. the ctr was £1000 to insure for me like i said, i dunno what an atr would be but im guessing it would be up there somewhere as my bmw 323 was about £800.

i think insurance companies see cars like a ctr as a good car to stack up the premiums on. it's almost as if certain companies 'forget' for other similar less common cars like an accord type r.

I think it racks up to how many claims any insurance company gets involving one particular car.

I personally think Corsa's are pretty expensive to insure considering there's loads around, and my stepdad, who's a regional claims manager for quinn direct, gets LOADS of claims involving a saxo or corsa all the time. He's a good judge to determine which cars are less likely to appear on a claim form.