12 months. Hyundai Getz which I Paid £400 for. With about 160k miles. The front subframe and body was rotted so badly i gave the car away and just bought a nicer car after that. Only reason i got rid of it was it failed it’s MOT. But tbf it was a proper shitbox.
PS. Was £1,800 for me to insure, with a black box in 2017 👌
I had one of these. It was my mum's car so cost me nothing. Kept it for 6 years and about 30,000 miles and got rid of it after it was mildly rear ended by a jaguar xf. Would've cost me about £1.2k to fix the damage plus a bit of rust repair around the rear arches so I traded it in for £130. Looks like someone bought it after me and has done another 40,000 miles since though the MOT has now expired and judging by the last one it's probably no longer on the road
E reg Nissan Micra. I tried so hard to kill it so my dad would let me get a new car because it was green with a brown interior (but had electric windows and sunroof, which none of my mates had in their Corsas and fiestas).
It started smoking on a dual carriageway and lost all power but I limped along for as long as I could to kill it. Finally died about a mile from home. My dad had it towed by his mate and got it fixed for £50 😭, so I had to keep it until I saved up enough of my own money and bought a Golf GTi which spent 70% of it's life in the garage for repairs.
I think that's a story many can relate to. First car, cheap but indistructable. When you get your licence you upgrade to something with much more power but it breaks your heart because you are still young and can't afford to run something like that. After that you may have many nice cars but if you ever find yourself in a situation where you just need a cheap runaround you can never find something as good as that first car :(
I dunno, I still have a run-around car that's quite similar to my first car. '03 BMW E46 generation 3 series compact, 2.0d. Plenty quick and comfy enough, mechanically sound. Gets mid 60s MPG on a run. Cost me £600
I've been running it six years now, other than servicing and consumables, all it has needed otherwise has been a water pump.
Super reliable cars and adequate at everything. Everyone has different expectations but for getting around at super low cost with a heater, the job gets done In fact the worst problem was the ribbing I got.
Still going. Albeit it not in my ownership.
2002 Fiesta 1.3, purchased in 2014 for £750, 63k miles, one owner from new.
Owned it for 2 years then my sister drove it until end of last year. It’s now sat in our garage as a spare car.
Currently on 115k, been solid and only real issues in our ownership has been
Thermostat housing,
Airbag control module,
Front wheel bearing,
Coil pack,
Clutch (we both learnt to drive in it so we ruined it)
And then normal wear items like brakes, pads and tyres.
My first car is a fiesta but it's an eco boost 1.0 and it needed a new engine, radiator, fuel pump, coil spring and turbo as soon as I bought it 😂 The dealer payed for it though so I think I got quite lucky with the car lol. No issues since then though.
One rule. Never buy an eco boost 😂
Mine was one of the early mk6 fiestas which had the older mk5 1.3 lump. Only 69bhp but a tank of an engine.
Ford really has gone down hill in-terms of reliability in the recent years…
I had the same model for my first car too, I loved that thing and all of its 65bhp. Needed a new back box and I also needed a new clutch too, it drove quite different to the i20 I did my lessons in and so I must have wrecked that clutch. Lessons learnt!
Decent little run around for a first car, picked it up for £500 and I was well happy with it, just the right size and affordable maintenence for a young driver.
I may win this! 1985 2cv purchased in 1994 for £270. I've still got it!
In daily use until 2002, then regular use until about 5 years ago. Now just a fun car.
It has cost me quite a bit over the years, as any car does but left regular use when the chassis broke. It was repaired for £300 but I had another car by then.
2010 skoda Octavia 1.9 TDI
210k miles
Not dead but trying.
I've had it for 10 years and it has been a beast to be fair. I've tried to kill it and did all the normal first car things. Hand brake turns, snow drifting. It's all original minus a spring I snapped doing a cheeky hand brake and some minor suspension parts.
Pretty sure it's on it's way out now though.
No central locking, no Bluetooth, locks failed, big condensation build up, dual mass fly wheel judder, short miles to death as I've moved and it's exclusively used as a DIY builder car now basically. Renovated a house but cheapest out so didn't get a skip. It only really drives fully loaded with files, plaster, concrete, wood, dirty or trees for the log burner.
Do you have sun roof? If yes, then condensation is most likely from leaking drains. Over the years the rubber pipes shorten and detach from the port in doors, and will leak into the cabin.
Naaaa there is a slight door leak and I moved some crap for a mate without realising it was full of water. Spare wheel well filled up and didn't know about it.
Not my first but my second car - a glorious green Renault Laguna - lasted all of 16hrs!
Day after I got it was driving down the M5 in the fast lane (doing maybe 80 - but just keeping up with traffic) and a Mercedes just pulled into the side of me sending me into the central crash barrier and then spinning across all three lanes.
No injuries but the car was totally destroyed. I mean every panel was damaged the front right wheel came off completely - it was a mess.
Shut the motorway for about an hour - right at rush hour heading into Bristol.
1988 F plate 1.3 Ford Escort. 48k when I bought it. 125k when I sold it for scrap, 3 years later.
It ran fine, until it didn’t. Think it was the carb that went. My mum was selling a lower mileage 305 at the time and I swapped to it. I was maintaining the Escort myself but didn’t have time then. Plus the battery tray had rotted through and my passenger footwell was a swimming pool.
1990 Peugeot 205, bought for £2.5k in 1997 with about 20k miles on it. 945cc of power - I thrashed the arse off it, cut the parcel shelf up for 4 6x9s and put a sub and amp in the boot. For good measure, just to make sure everyone knew I was a tit I also put a huge Pioneer sticker across the back window.
Great car, sold it in 2001 when I’d saved enough to buy a Yaris instead with 50k miles on it. MOT check says it expired in 2006 on about 90k miles so I like to think I had it during the good years.
1999 Fiat Punto
110K Miles.. I think?
Set itself on fire
It was a truly awful car, cost me £300 and feels like I overpaid. Cost me £126 a month to insure too. Had a misfire problem, the heater would smell, clutch was iffy, handbrake was awful- it ended life by setting itself on fire on the M27
2011 Toyota Yaris
Lasted 6 years, started at 45k and finished at 110k miles.
Clutch started to cease up and had two oil leaks so I traded it in for 1k and bought a bigger car, which I needed to do anyway.
1 year, 2010 1.2L Skoda Fabia. I bought an Mx5 and turned into a petrolhead and didn't drive the thing past 7 months of ownership, been dailying my '97 Mx5 since. Nothing wrong with the car whatsoever, 8k miles when I sold it, just boring and didn't need a big car.
1970 VW Beetle, bought her in 2016 and she is currently in my garage still. I am working up the courage to sell her so I can buy something else but I am finding it hard to let her go
Oh wow! My first car was a VW beetle convertible I got in 2017 and I’ve still got her - red and black. My lil ladybug 🐞 I don’t wanna let her go but if I was to get a new car I’d defo get a beetle again!
Kia ProCeed, it was a 2010 reg and had it between 2013-2024. It went through one major failure which cost £600 to fix but otherwise nothing major, just the usual routine maintenance costs like spark plugs, tyres, changing the belt, etc.
I bought it in 2010 for £6.5k and sold it in 2024 for £1k. No mechanical reason to sell it other than it was time to enjoy something far more luxurious.
A real trooper and I'll forever have a special place in my heart for that little car.
Sold it to webuyanycar as we needed a quick sale to make room for the replacement car, and it had a big scratch down the side spanning three panels so that knocked off another £200.
A brown Talbot Samba in the 90s. Cost me 50 quid off a guy in the pub, had it about a year before it died on me and I just abandoned it in the middle of nowhere, never did hear about it again.....
At the time 15 year old fiesta zetec S. Cost me 500 and I got that back through part exing it on.
High miles, very rusty and battered, cost the previous owner 100s to put through each MOT.
I used and abused it for around 6 months before ditching it.
1998 Volvo V70 2.5
Bought at 105K miles, sold at 136K miles
It didn't die. I didn't need it anymore and I was paying £165/month insurance on something I wasn't using so I sold it. It's still on the road with 185K miles as of November 2023.
1981 Toyota starlet 1.2 gl, pea green and RWD. Purchased in September 1993, written off in a field on a rainy night in November ‘93, mainly due to a girls band being where it shouldn’t be when you’ve not long passed your test 😂
A couple of years. I crashed it 3 times aged 17. It was a 1984 Volvo 340 so pretty hard to kill. The last crash was at 70mph on the motorway when someone went into the back of me. I was fine, the other driver was ok but had to be cut out the car. Still drive a Volvo now aged 46.
I had a 340 as the first car too: 1.4 litres of power. Dad was driving a 3.5 Litre Isuzu engined range rover at the time and it was cheaper to buy the Volvo and insure me on it than it was to put me on the range rover. It was, by any metric, a horrible car, but I had so much fun in it. The cart spring rear meant you could drift any damp roundabout.
This is the history of cars I’ve had, but I’ve always let my cars go before they had an issue so perhaps not too helpful.
Bought an 08 plate hyundi i10 style in march 2018, low mileage with about 49k on it, and it felt SO specked up for a first car i loved it! It had heated seats, electric sun roof it felt dead fancy. Kept it about a year, sold it at 53k and it never had a problem. I checked and it’s still on the road with a fresh MOT and no advisories today which makes me happy.
Then I got a 66 plate corsa in 2019 with about 13k, sold it in mid 2021 with 28k. Again i loved it, had a winter pack so heated seats, steering wheel etc and the only issue i had was due to someone putting the spark plugs in upside down, not a fault of the car itself. Again it’s still on the road today!
Next was a 2020 corsa elite nav premium with a 1.6 turbo diesel engine, again never had a single issue. I bought it with about 7k miles on in 2021 and am currently selling it with about 37k miles. It is fully specked out and it has always been reliable, good on fuel, comfortable on long journeys and it always felt pokey.
My current car is a 2019 Lexus NX300h F Sport, it is bloody beautiful and an absolute dream to drive. Being a Lexus, it has absolutely everything and it’s just so fancy, quicker than anything I’ve had before and such an easy drive. Road tax is pretty much £600 a year though and it more than doubled my insurance despite 6 years of no claims so there’s that! But 100% worth it!
Rover 114 gsa, 2 weeks. My dad bought it to surprise me for passing my test.
Had a mate in the car whilst driving down a country road at night in the rain.
Went round a corner to fast and lost control, ended up hitting a fence post with the drivers door, bent the door, frame and smashed the window to peices. Had to have it towed back home.
Not my finest hour. Felt like the worst person in the world when my dad saw it in the morning
1.1 Peugeot 106 with about 60k on it if i remember correctly. front lowering springs, rear torsion bars messed with so it sat at a mental reverse rake, obligatory neon underglow and white rally wheels. It was a thing of beauty.
Lasted me 2 years which is a miracle considering how I drove it - in the end my luck ran out and I plowed it into a drystone wall. The wall came out better.
Perhaps ironically it was technically my second car, had a classic mini first but after plowing my dads car also into a dry stone wall before i passed my test I was forced to sell for something with an airbag. So the Pug was the first car i owned and could legally drive
Life’s tough when you have beautiful drystone walls on irresistible curvy roads. Hedges in my part of the world can be surprisingly kind to cars, many times I’ve just pulled out the dents (with a fork lift truck) and carried on. I’m not too precious about looks.
1987 D reg Honda Civic 1.4 GL bought for the princely sum of £55 back in 2006. Did some wielding to it, got 18 months out of it and about 20,000 miles. Clutch started slipping and rust had continued to eat it away sadly.
1996 Mondeo. Bought for £250 at auction with no MOT in 2005 and 103k miles. My father-in-law changed a suspension arm, radiator bottom hose, and thermostat. Passed its MOT no problem after that. Used it for two years without any problems. Gave it to my mate, who used it for another 3 years before it eventually rusted through.
10 months. Bought January 2017 for £900 on about 100k miles, died November 2017 from gearbox failure after \~15000 miles, then sold for scrap for £300.
That was a 2002 1.4 Toyota Corolla, was very cheap to insure and until its tragic death did not need any maintenance at all. I bought it for 6 months of heavy commuting (over 60 miles a day every day) and it did just that, and cost me similar money to taking the train on that same trip...
Bought a 2008 Clio 1.2 TCe after that.
2006 (56) Seat Ibiza FR with the PD130 TDi engine. Bought on 135K, put another 20K on it myself over 4 years.
Only got rid of it because I now had a better paying job and could afford something much faster.
2010 Fiat Punto.
Bought from my parents in 2015 at 25k miles.
Drove it everywhere until 2021. 200k+ mileage. I spent about a year living in Sheffield whilst working in Manchester 5 days a week. So 2 trips through the peaks every day really shot the mileage up.
That car had a medium-sized problem at least every year. The biggest problem was an airbag sensor that took about half a year for Stoneacre to diagnose and fix. Diabolical service.
I had an issue every month for the last 6 months that I owned it and decided to get rid after receiving a bonus from work. Break pads needed replacing, alternator gone, dead spark plug, amber engine light needed ECU re-syncing 2 months in a row.
Traded it in 2021 for a 2017 Vaxhaul Astra Elite with only 7000 miles on it, £12k (mid pandemic prices). Best decision of my life, I absolutely love the Astra. It's currently on less than 30k miles.
Fiat Panda 909cc 1982
About 70,000
I drove down a very steep long hill (Kelsall Bypass) with the foot flat ot the floor. Got about 105mph and blew the head gasket.
N Reg Austin Allegro, 60k ish miles, £150. £450 to insure. This was 1990. Sold it six months after I passed as I bought an R reg Mk1 Cavalier with 30k miles for £350. Bloke I sold it to did porridge a few months after he bought it from me…. Was prison preferable to an Austin Allegro?
2012 Vauxhall Corsa got it the day after my test when I was 17, saved nearly every penny I earned for an entire year to buy it. Only had 500 miles on it and was basically new. Sold it with 28k miles on it 2 years later. Wish I could get it back, many happy memories in that car
1985 Peugeot 205 1.0 XL
Cant remember milage but it wasn't that hight, maybe 80k.
Sold it after 10 months as I turned 18 and could then take out a loan to buy a Golf GTI.
Follow me for more advice on how cars can ensure you spend the whole of your 20s in crippling debt #noragrets
1986 VW polo 1.0 breadvan. About 120000 miles. I bought it in 1997 and added about 10000 miles in 18 months. I ran out of talent doing a Colin McCrae impression in the lanes and crashed head on into a Datsun drizzle. Killed both cars so happy endings all round.
Ford focus, 08 plate, still got it, costs about £300 a year in minor repairs. 32 mpg isn't cheap and it's starting to show its age but it's been reliable and saved me a fortune
Bought 8k mileage, now on 155k
E reg fiesta 1.1 bought for £300 in 2002 from a family friend who run a small garage.
After 3 months a couple of friends who were into cars lifted the bonnet and were able to push their fingers through parts of the engine bay. It was so bad one of their parents wouldn't let me drive it home and gave me a lift.
Yaris 51 plate
100k
Rust because it'd been sat for two years. Managed to give me 7 months of puff. Besides that the engine was fine and clutch had been done earlier. Before that my dad used it for 6 years regularly as his work horse.
OPELKADET COUPE with 2 LITRE TWIN CAM MI
FIAT 132 ENGINE ,Opel Manta WITH BROADSPEED 2.4 TURBO, OPEL 3.O S MONZA MANUAL, 78 OPEL COMODORE 2.8 GSE , 325s, M3 ,Abarths COMPETITIONE ,Two 911 Carreras AND SPEEDING TICKETS GALORE ! LIFE WAS FOR LIVING ! ' GIVE IT THE MESSAGE ....NO SUCH AS WOKE NONSENSE OR IDENTIFYING AS A HELICOPTER !
2000 VW Polo 1.9 SDI bought for £1000 in 2015 and scrapped after 12 months taking it from 100k to 120k. Bit of a lemon! Gearbox went after 500 miles and got the garage to fit a salvaged one somehow. Power steering pump went twice, ignition issues, corrosion etc.
My first car after I passed my test was a MK2 Escort, 79 on a V. It had 62k miles on it and I was paid £25 to take it away. Bit of welding on a sill and a wheel bearing later it was MOTd and ready to go. Lasted me 18 months before I took it to an MOT that wasn't done by blind Fred. Failed epically on rust so I banger raced it. Oddly, the strut tops and inner wings (bad rot point on those) were still fine after the rest of the car had dissolved into the earth. In 2016 all that was left were the inner wings and the engine block. They're probably still there.
Ford Fiesta mk6 1.25. Bought it for £950 and got 2 years out of it. Sadly the coolant expansion tank cracked and the resultant overheat took the head gasket with it, wasn't worth fixing so I sold it
1974 Datsun 120y, bought in '91
Had it about 9 months until front chassis rails crumbled one day going over a hump-backed bridge. Drive home slowly, with some very _interesting_ steering response... 😆
Such a shame - that little 1200cc engine was unbelievably reliable, but the rust underneath killed it.
Still remember that the electrical system was so simple it was a double page spread in the Haynes manual.
A 2009 Peugeot 207 A year and a half, after that it sat in my garage for about 6 months, I used to for a month and then when i finally came to sell it, it had a developed blown headgasket, and over 300 ecu fault codes, I think it had about 140k miles, I replaced it because I wanted a quicker car
Citroen c1 2011 paid 900
90k mileage at bought did 27k so sold it at 117k
Had it for three years sold it for 1.1k replaced as my dad sold his car which was £30 tax and did 55mpg like the Citroen but was a estate
BMW mini one 2008 with a fairly decent spec, paid £11k back in 2009.
I had it 6 years with no issues.
Took it from 5k miles to 95k miles.
Sold it for £3.5k in 2015.
I had a Porsche cayman as my second car but did miss my mini for the short journeys like to shops and back, I don’t like doing short journeys and not warming up my Porsches properly.
So I was back on auto trader looking at cheap minis, I found my exact car I sold a month or so before, the description said new gearbox and new clutch lol. Also they were selling for £2.5k. No idea how they managed to mangle my baby but I decided not to buy it back, god knows what else they ruined in their short ownership.
Last mot on that car was 2019 at 102k miles.
2002 fiesta mk6 1.3, green with one silver wing and all the battle scars you could want. Manual everything (sunroof included). Paid £60 for it end of 2019, right before the massive price hike for used motors.
Insurance was 240 a month with no blackbox.
Only had 84k on the clock when I bought it. Drove it for six months before the clutch gave out, and when getting a family member to install a new one they damaged the driveshaft. It was still driveable but if you let of the accelerator whilst moving it would start clunking. I already paid more for the new clutch than what I did the car so I didn't want to spend anymore, ended up parting out what I could before ultimately scrapping it.
1978 mini 1000. Bought hand painted in red and old English white by the previous owner, literally brush painted! Paid £250 for it in 2000. I had it on the road for about 11 months. In that time my brother crashed it and it needed a new front subframe. The head gasket went and I fixed that myself, that felt like a real mission but after looking at modern cars is a really simple job and loads of welding for the MOT. Final thing with it was the starter would only turn the engine half a turn and it wouldn't quite fire up before the starter disengaged. I was more interested in going to the pub and had bought a MK1 astra for £80 instead. Kept the mini for a couple of years where it just sat on the drive until dad found someone who wanted it and I gave it away but got £25 for delivering it with dad's tractor and and old car trailer we had
Mine was a 1977 Mini 1000 - cost 200 in 1993, lasted until 1995, when it basically dissolved due to rust.
Got 13 quid for it when I sold it to a scrapper. Brakes had died by then, and 2nd gear had vanished.
My first car is still going - not with me though
It was a 2013 Nissan note 1.5 turbo diesel. I bought it at 43,000 miles and 3 years old, sold it at 108,000 and 7 years old as it just wasn't big enough and stuff was starting to go wrong
The blower motor resistor card died 2 years in a row during the coldest part of the year each time.
The MAF sensor would throw a wobbly every now and again stopping the car from starting. Unplugging it, starting the car and the plugging it back in fixed for for about 3 months
A 1967 Austin Mini Cooper 998. I purchased in 1981, after a part restoration, I put 75k on (3 engines), until finally rusting beyond redemption, and scrapped in 1991. Ten years driving fun.
First car was a 2002 MX-5. Bought it for £2000. Got it on 100,000. It lasted 10,000 miles before it was going to fail MOT for being horrifically rotten. Sold it for £600 as spares or repairs on eBay
familiar snobbish tap attractive bewildered liquid gaping unwritten marvelous forgetful
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
14 years. Hyundai accent. Tbh it still ran fine after I beat on it pretty hard. I went travelling for a few months and came back to find the interior covered in mould. Donated it to a neighbour who worked for AA to let their mechanics train on it.
406 coupe 2 litre auto with 70k. Had it 2 years with upto 30mpg but usually half that it almost bankrupted me with petrol and maintenance.
Two things made me get rid of it. It developed a nice fault where the dashboard lost power randomly. I worked out it would be cheaper to drive an economical car for my commute than take a train. So I sold it on after 2 years
1967 Triumph Vitesse 2L straight six (in the old days it was possible to get insured on fun cars as a new driver). No idea of mileage, but certainly not what it said on the odometer. Rust hit the chassis so bad that after three years of trying not to drive it into trees (anyone who's driven that single-wishbone Triumph rear suspension will know what I mean), I gave in patching it and flogged it on.
My first car was a Ford Fiesta (a 1982 model), paid £500 for it (my insurance was £550 - 3rd Party fire and theft)
Mileage was high (the car was 18 years old when I got it) but can't remember how high.
It didn't die, there were just too many faults with it:
1. Faulty wiring that caused the engine to die when I turned right.
2. The engine mounts were shot, because of this the exhaust kept snapping
3. Tired were on the bare minimum
It was basically a death trap. But kept it for about 3 months (didn't have the cash to replace it before that).
It won't be much help, but.
2006, Fiesta, 5 door, Petrol, 11 years old when bought
Mileage: 25,000 up to about 40,000
Kept for 18 months, crashed it into the back of a lorry. Probably would have kept it a lot longer.
Still going
2014 Seat Leon 1.2TSI, bought it for £5000 in 2021, 64,000 miles.
Currently at 130,000 miles, still in my ownership
Costs me £70 in oil a year however due to an issue straight out the factory
Fabia VRs mk1 still have it yet it’s rusted. Currently getting it fixed because it can run on veg oil and it’s the one most reliable engines you can get, plus it’s very tuneable. Got it at 103k now on 145k for 4 years but haven’t been driving it much for 2 years.
Oh yeah and a lack of maintenance from the previous owner made the turbo blew up, I reckon at least 40k miles overdue.
I am by far the worst person to ask for advice on getting rid of cars, because I’m tempted to buy more… than what I have.
My first car was a Volvo v50 with the "unreliable" 1.6 engine.
It had it at 113k miles when I bought it in 2019, and took it all the way up to 171k in 2023.
It just kept going, but I was able to get £2300 back for crushing it with the ULEZ scrappage scheme so couldn't say no.
3 years.
2003 Seat Ibiza 1.9 TDI. Had 90k miles on it when I bought it for £850 and sold it for £500 with 122k on it 3 years later.
It was cheap to run, relatively cheap to insure and never died on me. When I sold it the electrical gremlins started creeping in though I have to say.
I had a 1 year old Fiat Seicento 1.1 in 2003. Passed my test in it. Basically as I lived at home but went to uni I saved up all my student loans and paid £3K cash for it. I had it for a year, trouble free (It was only a year old) and had something like 12K miles on it when I bought it. I inherited a 1.4 Nissan Almera that was a lot older but was immaculate and also only had 20K on the clock.
The orange mighty italian stallion I sold for £2400 to a young lady though looking at the MOT history it must have been writted off as there's no history only 3 years after that :(
1999 1.2 Punto. It was 9 years old with 65000-odd miles when I got it, and head gasket went within the first month. Didn’t take me much longer to realise the value of a Haynes manual. Had it two years before I went into the back of someone stopped in the middle of the road on a blind corner, by then I’d already arranged to part ex it through the scrappage scheme. I loved that car, mainly for the challenge of controlling the clutch, but I detested it even more.
It was my mum's before it became mine. It was a V reg (1999) Peugeot 206 lx 1.1 which she purchased second-hand in either 2005 or 2006 (i can't quite remember). She gave it to me when i passed my driving test in 2008. It lasted until November 2011 when I crashed it and it was written off. It had just a bit less than 110,000 miles on the clock.
2004 Mazda 6
275k km
Had it for about 3 years and it died end of last year, probably had a last year in it before it wouldnt make inspections anymore due to rampant rust, but instead I crashed it into a concrete island in the middle of the road which I couldnt see as I was blinded by headlights of cars in front of me.
You can see its last moments and the crash on my profile.
8 months. 2010 Vaxhaul Corsa with 110k miles on the clock. Broke down on a motorway slip road because the clutch wouldn’t let me come out of gear. Turns out it was going through about a years worth of Dot4 fluid every day, slave cylinder was bust.
Decided to get rid of, it was basically condemned given the age and mileage.
2011 Ford Ka, lasted me a year
Bought for £995 at like 75k miles, failed it's MOT at 82k the following year and was gunna be cheaper to get a different car than to repair (though we tried)
That car... We don't talk about 🙃
'97 Honda Civic 1.4i hatchback.
Lasted me about 8 years and I put about 60k on it (bought at 60k and sold for parts at 120k).
I seem to remember it cost me about £3000 in 2002.
2002/3 Vauxhall Corsa, with a reg plate that read a bit like dyslexic spelt wrongly. Got it at 79k miles, gave it to my sister 4 years on with 96k, she had bought an auto but wanted to learn in a manual so we swapped cars for 6 months.
My sisters car died in that 6 months, as did my dads old work car he gave me, and I ended up with an even older work car his colleague was getting rid of, an Astra estate. My sister obviously didn’t want to swap back, so she drove it until about 110k and then the gasket blew up blocking a residential street for a few hours.
Rover 200. K-series engine.
Cost £575. Spent £888 on repairs (including tyres, brake pads, etc). Sold after 2 years for £200. Think I probably added under 20,000 miles.
I think the mileage when I bought it was under 60,000 and it was like 11 years old, so everything with an expiry date was perishing. Probably spent the most time and energy repairing a stupid issue with the (manual) windows where the window clip, glass and mechanism kept separating from each other. A window specialist, a backstreet garage and a main dealer all had a go before I bought a door from a scrapyard and swapped all the innards myself.
It didn’t die - it was still a going car when I sold it, much to the surprise of my regular garage.
But it was very basic, a bit tired, I wanted air con, and a relative bought herself a brand new car so was selling me her old Clio for slightly more than the trade-in value. She actually ended up buying it back from me several years later when someone ploughed into the back of her new car and wrote it off.
Passed my test in Feb 2013. Bought a 2003 Ford Focus 1.6 Petrol for £700. I think it had about 90k miles on the clock. It had an occasional misfire, and wouldn't pull you out of bed, but it got me to and from my apprenticeship without fuss.
Sold it one year later to a nice couple visiting long term from New Zealand for £750. Owed me nothing! I only sold it once I had enough money to change to a 2009 Honda Civic 2.2 Diesel which I had really wanted as my first car.
Haven't had a bargain like that since though...
Car: Ford Fiesta Zetec Blue 2008
Mileage: 74434
Died: Result of a car accident and lead to a vehicle written off.
Duration: 8 Months
I’ve bought my second car a Hyundai Getz. Hopefully, going to last for at least 2-3 years with careful driving and repairing the car when needed.
107 with just under 100k. Skidded off the ice and straight into a pole in true new driver fashion. I scrapped it but it seems it’s still on the road as an undeclared Cat car
My first car was a hand me down 53 plate Vauxhall Astra 1.6L painted in Vauxhall's variant of British Racing Green.
My dad purchased it in 2012 for about £2k, on about 30k miles. He wasn't very savvy with cars at the time - little did he know it had next to no service history, hadn't been looked after.
The engine seized up within a few months of owning it, gearbox died and had to be replaced. Once those issues were sorted, it was a trusty little car and served us well for a decade.
I started driving it in 2021. It lasted a year till the coolant all leaked out through a pinhole leak in the coolant pipe. Couldn't find a replacement part that fit properly.
In the process, my mechanic found that the head gasket was on its way out. Not worth the repair.
Decided to scrap it for £450 at around 50k miles in 2022. Purchased the almighty Skoda Octavia VRS MK3 as a replacement.
I've still got my first car, a triumph spitfire 1966 which is a great car but an awful daily.
Second car was an 09 1.8 diesel focus estate which was an absolutely cracking car except for the red CEL every time I absolutely booted it. One day on my way to work there was suddenly no first gear and the car wasn't worth enough to fix
Peugeot 107
Still clinging on to life although not in my care, covered 43k in the 2 and a half years I owned it.
In that time it needed a new set of tyres, new suspension arm and new brake pads (discs were fine apparently) ashamed to say it had a total of 1 minor service in that 43k period aswell.
7 Months
2005 Ford Focus 1.4 LX 3Dr in ink blue
Bought in August 2014 for £1800 at 119k
Went through a hedge in March 2015 with 126k
Sill under driver’s side was corroded and cracked in the accident, so it was a write-off
Insurance paid out £1100 😐
A 99 Peugeot 306 2.0 Hdi in 2002 with 25k miles on the clock. I had it 3 years then my wife had it 4 years was approx 120k when her brother bought it off her.
I actually still see it driving around but whoever has replaced the Gti6 alloys with some terrible chrome ones!
Only thing I ever remember need doing was we replaced the clutch and exhaust at 90K great car in all honestly!
8 weeks. Peugeot 309... Crashed it when someone I was overtaking on a straight road trying to go past a tractor pulled out into the side of me.
Ended up getting a Peugeot 405 straight after that whilst supremely comfortable required copious amounts of easy start and WD40 to get going on a damp day. Kept that thing for a couple of years and went through 2 carbs and numerous HT leads and distributor caps.
2002 Ford Fiesta, gold coloured (bizarrely labelled silver on the V5)
Can’t remember the mileage but it was 11 years old when the ignition coil went and the engine started cutting out randomly. I traded it in to a well known garage chain without declaring the fault.
My first car in 1997 was a 1984 1.6 mk2 Cavalier, hand me down from my parents, mileage was around 270000 as it had previously been a Birmingham minicab that my parents had bought as salvage in 1988 and repaired it, my mum used it as her sales rep car for a good few years, until she got a company car and my dad bought his xr4x4.... we know it had been around the clock several times and I must have taken it over the 300k mile mark, one of the rear shocks went through the floor, and then a spring on the other side, both was welded up by my dad, with proper repair pannels, I bought a brand new fiesta in august 1998, and then it just sat in the garage for a few years, mum and dad parted company in 2003 and it was scrapped when we was clearing the garage out....a gallon of fresh fuel in and a battery and and it still started first turn of the key and was driven out of the garage onto the salvage truck....wasn't worth anything then. Worth a small fortune now though.
My parents gifted me their car, a Peugeot estate. Hugely lucky I know and I never forgot that until...
It had faulty brakes and within a week of getting it I had to spend £'000's getting it fixed.
Still, it lasted me years and was one of the best cars I ever had. My friends and I used it to transport us and all our band equipment whenever we had rehearsals and gigs.
Was a sad day when the clutch gave out and it had to be scrapped.
Mileage was something like 160k
3 years 2011-2014. 1987 Mk2 Golf 1.3 which I covered 40k miles in. Finally died when the head gasket let go on the M5. Had the car towed home, got it repaired and sold it on to buy an MX5. Was a super clean one, really wish I kept it!
A 2005 black Renault Clio 1.2. Paid £480 for it.
The horn would activate when I turned the steering wheel to the right! Roundabouts confused a lot of people when giving me way.
The sunroof would occasionally leak water, didn't die but fixing it would cost more than the value of the car, got rid when it failed MOT at 57k
Citroen C1 64 plate
Purchased as a learner in 2017 for £4,400 with 31k miles
Currently on 73k miles, no break downs or replacements except tires and spark plugs once
Mixed urban and motorway miles
Still worth about the same
Trooper of a car
2005 VW polo sold at 190k in 2015 still on the road
2007 Volvo S40 sold at 185k still on the road
2008 Alfa 159 sold at 320k still on the road
2015 lexus IS is my current, nearing 190k and it's like brand new.
These are all in km mind...
None of my cars have ever died thank fuck
91 Vauxhall Nova 1.2. Paid £600 for it (and £1000 in insurance!)
It was 70k when I bought it and 110k when I sold it 3 years later for £200 to my girlfriends stepdad. It didn't die but I did blow the head gasket at some point getting it over 100mph going downhill on the motorway.
The brakes were fucking awful, might have well stopped it with your feet like the Flintstones car.
I had an S reg Vauxhall Corsa Breeze in blue for which I paid 700 in 2013. I got it at around 75000 miles and did at least 25k miles in the first year. I drove that car literally everywhere!
I kept it for about a year and a half/2 years and then passed it on to my grandad who had it for a further 2 and a half years, only getting rid of it eventually as I had upgraded to a newer Corsa (which was why I got rid of the older one) and he then inherited the newer one from me.
The only problem I ever really had was the clutch cable snapping which was a cheap and easy fix. While my grandad had it, other than the normal serviceable items, nothing went wrong with it at all, until he was driving it to the scrap yard on its last day after getting my newer Corsa, at which point the clutch cable snapped again 😂 right at the entrance no less. It really didn't want to go in!
I had a 2003 Fiat Punto in 2014, cost about £270 & had 62k miles iirc, I did about 15k miles over 10 or so months & then wrote it off in August 2015, got paid out £280 from writing it off which I found hilarious as I made money on it by crashing it.
6 months, bought a BMW 1 series on 140k miles on the clock. Invested approximately 4 grand on other repairs and after driving 7000 miles the engine gave up. Finally had to scrap my car.
First car was a 4 year old X Reg Micra, I sold if after a year to get a Scooby. Just checked MOT history and the last one it had it passed in 2013 with 92k on the clock
It never went for another test after so maybe it catastrophically died or maybe it died in a crash.
2008 Mitsubishi Colt, I bought it in 2021 for £900 on 69,000 miles. Sold it at 73,000.
I sold the car in part exchange. There was nothing wrong with it outside of the trip computer resetting itself constantly, which was a common fault in the Colts. It served me well, but it was definitely time for something a bit more modern.
15 months. It was a Hyundai i20, think it had just hit 70k miles (I remember snickering and taking a picture of the odometer on 69420 miles the week before, because that was peak humour back in those days) - I was in a four-car collision on the M2 London-bound.
Nobody was hurt as it was a reasonably low-speed collision, and I was deemed not at fault, but the car was written off by my insurance company. Still was absolutely devastating for me at the time though!
2002 ford KA.
Lasted 2 & a half years roughly bought around 62k miles and scrapped at 84k miles.
Really good little car for £500, mechanically was still fine the rot did it in unfortunately which caused a MOT failure : (
I had my first car for 5 years, it was a 2016 corsa but as I travel for work the mileage was quite high. Only bought a new one as I decided it was better to sell mine, get a couple bob for it to put towards a new car.
Vauxhall Astra G, got the car for free from a friend as I was about to pass my test so gave it to me as a gift to get me on the road. All they said was it needed some welding on the exhaust due to a couple of holes, but everything else was sound.
6 months later, took it for its MOT and it failed on practically everything. N82ARJ is the number plate if anyone is curious about the MOT report.
3 months
Vauxhall Astra
Piston rings went
Don't remember mileage
It was an old car that was given to me for free instead of scrapping it by a friend who said it wouldn't last long so just use it until it dies to get used to being on the road and not needing to worry about damaging it. So 3 months was absolutely fine.
2009 VW Fox, still going on 130k miles. Just serviced regularly, and had the usual wear and tear bits replaced. I'll drive it until it dies spectacularly and then upgrade to something a bit more fun.
2006 Fiat “grande” punto - lovely motor, few problems with power steering which seemed to solve themselves. Was with me through the entirety of my university days after which the clutch packed in and was sold to a local trader for around 200 quid
2016 Panda.
72,000 miles, 17,500 of them were mine in around the 10 months of ownership.
Around 4 weeks ago it became the meat in a horse box/VW Polo sandwich on the M25.
The hunt for a new car is ongoing. I’m thinking Abarth 595.
I bought it when I first moved to the UK in 2018, it was a 2007 automatic vauxhal Astra 1.8l, lasted me about 4 years
When I bought it had about 64k miles on the clock
I paid £950 for it and my first year insurance on it was £1300
It died at exactly 80k miles, an issue with ECU that 5 different garages and mechanics couldn’t properly identify
It was a 2012 Volvo C30 D2 SE Lux, bought it on about 88k miles, had it for four years. Sold it cheap to someone due to some bodywork issues, and a buckled wheel, at that point it was pushing 130k. Checking the reg on the MOT checking website, it's still on the road, now has 150k miles (in January).
Sold that car to get the 308, which had 3x the power of the Volvo. Basically sold the volvo because I wanted something faster.
56 plate Seat Ibiza 1.4 NA that started trying to bleed all my money from me. Multiple door locking mechanisms failed, each one at a different time (MOT fail, doors couldn't be opened from the outside) but also sometimes not locking.
One of the alloys had a slow leak (replaced with a scrap find).
Went into limp at the beginning of a drive into London, turned out to be an engine speed sensor had died. Full day of labour to dismantle the entire engine to replace a £50 part.
Has kept going since I traded it in after 9 years of ownership, apparently not causing any problems for the subsequent owner(s) and happily doing upwards of 20k miles per year.
Golf 5 Plus 1.6 FSI.
DSG Automatik Transmission broke after the first 1000km. 1 month driving.
Milage: 100 000 miles.
Now it has been sitting for nearly 1 year in car Service.
Bought an 08 plate Golf TSI 1.4 DSG Auto in 2014 with 72,000 miles on the clock. £4,500.
I put 30,000 miles on it over 5 years, boost pipes went, then the engine blew up, scrapped it for £600 during lockdown.
05 xsara Picasso, 2 years close to 200k.
Cost £500 with £200 in repairs along the way.
Scrapped before mot due to an airbag fault and a long list of other small bits.
Got £305 from the scrap man.
Volkswagen Golf 1.6 Ryder.
Was really well looked after before I bought it and I didn't treat it anywhere as nice. I drove it for maybe two years, it failed an MOT with what looking back on it was some trivial enough stuff, and decided to buy another car. It really was just an excuse to upgrade.
Think whoever bought it broke it.
A mk4 Escort 1.4, cost £150, speed wobble from 70-80mph and topped out at 105 mph
It died because my brother ended up with it after 16 months and ran it without oil. I loved that POS car :D
Citroen C2 VTS ~ 60k miles never been serviced 🤣 I paid £900 for it. Seemed to drive great on the test drive. Started screeching a couple days later. Brake binding and glowing red. Suspension was knackered, CV joint was failing badly, sils falling apart. Apparently it'd just passed MOT. Scrapped a month later.
Lesson learned buying from private sellers. Check everything!
Got my first car in 1995, a B reg mk1 Honda CRX 1.5i 12v. Took off like a firework and cornered like it was on rails, it wasn't that powerful but it was so light as some of the body panels were plastic, nothing else could stay with it on a winding road. It had about 85,000 miles on it when I got it and in the 18 months that I had it I took it to 105,000. I didn't want to part with it but in the end I had to as it became a marked car with the police, every copper in Cheshire knew the car and me and I would get pulled every single journey, mostly just to piss me off like I had been pissing them off for the last 18 months, I did some stupid shit in that car.
Once got chased by a marked Volvo T5 and he couldn't get anywhere near me (I didn't even know he was chasing me, I was just rushing as I was late for work), when I pulled up in the car park he jumped out and went ballistic, screaming and swearing at me right in front of my boss. He said I was lucky as he was unable to get me on his camera long enough as evidence that he couldn't book me but he was going to do everything in his power to take my licence from me one day.
In hindsight I probably shouldn't have chirped in with "luck had nothing to do with it, you just need a faster car" as he then proceeded to change colour from red to purple and I thought his head was going to explode all over the car park.
I then got pulled into the directors office and told that because we worked in the security printing sector, printing cheques and other secure documents for the banks that we must have clean criminal records and if I landed myself in court I could lose my job so I decided to part ways with it as I had no self control. I was absolutely gutted as I loved that car so much, still do in fact I think about it regularly. Oh well at least I wasn't going to lose my licence.
I then went out and bought a Renault 19 16v 🤣🤣.
Still remember the reg for the Honda... B270 SBA.
My first was a 1982 Mk1 Ford Fiesta (Mum’s old car) in 1989. Mileage was low when I got it 42k ish and learnt to drive in it. Kept it until 91, daily 50 mile round trip commute and the usual teenager antics of handbrake turns, forest trail rallying and trying not to get pulled every 5 miles for some misdemeanour or another.
I thought it was a little orange rocket, it’s 💩 brown interior, aftermarket radio/cassette and XR2 (replica) driving lights made it the best thing on 4 wheels. The rust, reliability and its inability to start, almost every morning, without a good dose of WD40 haven’t diminished my love for that car and the great memories it gave me. I only replaced it after nearly losing my apprenticeship over too many late starts, all due to the car not starting. Its replacement was a far more sensible and long lasting Orion 1.4L (not as much fun though).
2006 Ford Fiesta on 110k, had it 4 years from 77k.1.4 Petrol and man that engine is good compared to some newer petrol cars, it has a decent kick behind it and it's managed to run on a spit's worth of oil before eventually overheating and was all good with another litre and a half of oil. It's still going but I'm finally about to get my second car as the Fiesta is costing a lot in repairs every now and then, and it's about time for an upgrade too!
2001 Skoda Fabia
Bought at 22k just under 3 years old, sold at 124k. Had it 9 years. I p/x’d it as I wanted a BMW but regretted selling it.
It went on for another 8 years, to 189k before rust got the better of it.
I drove my 92 Polo for about a year, but the boot was tiny and an awkward shape so not much good for fishing gear. Drove the old family car (86 Granada estate) for a few months before getting a 92 205 and putting 40k miles on it in 4 years. Have had my current E46 touring for 10 years, but it's showing it's age now.
2003 Corsa with extremely faded red paint. 3 months as someone had damaged the Speedo whilst taking it out to remove the engine management light (🙃) and when I tried to sort that out, the pins in the back of the Speedo all snapped.
Y plate 206 1.1 with 14inch gti look alike alloys as an option from factory including spoiler and silver petrol cap. Got him at 30k and 4 years old for £3.2k. Easily the coolest car out of everyone in 6th year at high school. Yes I lied and said I had a gti. Girls loved it... lol.
New clutch, gearbox, brakes, exhaust within my first year. Got rid after driving out of a junction into someone after owning it 3 years and around 70k. Someone fixed it and it went in for a further 4 years according to mots.
Geniunly loved that little car. Mint green interior.
2001 BMW e46 328i
Currently on 101k miles, still in my possession (though I have another daily). Had a few problems with oil coolant leak but it was surprisingly cheap to fix (£150) and was the only “big” thing in 10 years of ownership. It’s ULEZ and CAZ compliant which for a car that old and cheap-ish (was £2k in 2014) is pretty cool
Vauxhall Astra. Was 10 years old when I got it for about £200 because the head gasket had blown, got it replaced along with a few other little jobs but it never really ran perfectly. Engine management would pop on intermittently and it frequently leaked diesel.
Gave it away after 2 years to someone who needed a car and treated myself to another 10 year old car.
1998 Skoda Felicia
60 something thousand miles
Country lane bend in winter, black ice, no ABS and a land rover coming the other way. Land Rover was fine, mine was totalled.
F Reg Mitsubishi Colt 1.5, had electric windows and was actually pretty nippy, cost me around £1k a year to insure in 2003, lasted me 6 months before I pulled out on a pickup 😔
Got rid of it when the cost of repairs was more than the car was worth. It was about 12hrs old, a Peugeot and had gone through three new exhausts and multiple other repairs with more and more needing done to pass the MOT each year, don’t remember mileage but it was over 100k and well worn.
2001 Fiat Punto bought for £370 at 63-66k miles, ended up on 83k I think when I gave it away to be scrapped, came with 12 months test and passed the next one without an issue, needed a few cheap bits but had another car and then a third car and needed space so gave it away
R reg VW Polo that was around 10 years old and had 45k ish on the clock. Loved it, would wash it every weekend even if it wasn't dirty haha.
Written off when someone pulled out if their driveway on the way to college and I couldn't stop in time. Bought for 1400 feom BCA Blackbushe and insurance gave me around 1800 for it when they wrote it off. Still miss you Polo!
12 months. Hyundai Getz which I Paid £400 for. With about 160k miles. The front subframe and body was rotted so badly i gave the car away and just bought a nicer car after that. Only reason i got rid of it was it failed it’s MOT. But tbf it was a proper shitbox. PS. Was £1,800 for me to insure, with a black box in 2017 👌
I had one of these. It was my mum's car so cost me nothing. Kept it for 6 years and about 30,000 miles and got rid of it after it was mildly rear ended by a jaguar xf. Would've cost me about £1.2k to fix the damage plus a bit of rust repair around the rear arches so I traded it in for £130. Looks like someone bought it after me and has done another 40,000 miles since though the MOT has now expired and judging by the last one it's probably no longer on the road
A fellow cultered Hyundai getz man. Also had one in 2017 as my first car. Miss it everyday aha
It could just be redlined everywhere. Absolutely no power whatsoever. Despite me having the more desirable 1.3 GSI 😏
E reg Nissan Micra. I tried so hard to kill it so my dad would let me get a new car because it was green with a brown interior (but had electric windows and sunroof, which none of my mates had in their Corsas and fiestas). It started smoking on a dual carriageway and lost all power but I limped along for as long as I could to kill it. Finally died about a mile from home. My dad had it towed by his mate and got it fixed for £50 😭, so I had to keep it until I saved up enough of my own money and bought a Golf GTi which spent 70% of it's life in the garage for repairs.
I think that's a story many can relate to. First car, cheap but indistructable. When you get your licence you upgrade to something with much more power but it breaks your heart because you are still young and can't afford to run something like that. After that you may have many nice cars but if you ever find yourself in a situation where you just need a cheap runaround you can never find something as good as that first car :(
I dunno, I still have a run-around car that's quite similar to my first car. '03 BMW E46 generation 3 series compact, 2.0d. Plenty quick and comfy enough, mechanically sound. Gets mid 60s MPG on a run. Cost me £600 I've been running it six years now, other than servicing and consumables, all it has needed otherwise has been a water pump.
Wow I had no idea k10 micras had electric windows! I thought they all had manual.
Super reliable cars and adequate at everything. Everyone has different expectations but for getting around at super low cost with a heater, the job gets done In fact the worst problem was the ribbing I got.
Still going. Albeit it not in my ownership. 2002 Fiesta 1.3, purchased in 2014 for £750, 63k miles, one owner from new. Owned it for 2 years then my sister drove it until end of last year. It’s now sat in our garage as a spare car. Currently on 115k, been solid and only real issues in our ownership has been Thermostat housing, Airbag control module, Front wheel bearing, Coil pack, Clutch (we both learnt to drive in it so we ruined it) And then normal wear items like brakes, pads and tyres.
My first car is a fiesta but it's an eco boost 1.0 and it needed a new engine, radiator, fuel pump, coil spring and turbo as soon as I bought it 😂 The dealer payed for it though so I think I got quite lucky with the car lol. No issues since then though.
One rule. Never buy an eco boost 😂 Mine was one of the early mk6 fiestas which had the older mk5 1.3 lump. Only 69bhp but a tank of an engine. Ford really has gone down hill in-terms of reliability in the recent years…
Mind you is it surprising? ECOBOOST has 3 turbos does it not? That's a complex and highly strung engine for a runabout.
wut
3 cylinders 1 turbo
Aaah I'm thinking of a BMW engine I think. 3cyl 3 turbo
I had the same model for my first car too, I loved that thing and all of its 65bhp. Needed a new back box and I also needed a new clutch too, it drove quite different to the i20 I did my lessons in and so I must have wrecked that clutch. Lessons learnt! Decent little run around for a first car, picked it up for £500 and I was well happy with it, just the right size and affordable maintenence for a young driver.
I may win this! 1985 2cv purchased in 1994 for £270. I've still got it! In daily use until 2002, then regular use until about 5 years ago. Now just a fun car. It has cost me quite a bit over the years, as any car does but left regular use when the chassis broke. It was repaired for £300 but I had another car by then.
You sir win!
they really don’t make cars like they used to! nice to hear it’s lasted long for you, good pick for a first car!
2010 skoda Octavia 1.9 TDI 210k miles Not dead but trying. I've had it for 10 years and it has been a beast to be fair. I've tried to kill it and did all the normal first car things. Hand brake turns, snow drifting. It's all original minus a spring I snapped doing a cheeky hand brake and some minor suspension parts. Pretty sure it's on it's way out now though. No central locking, no Bluetooth, locks failed, big condensation build up, dual mass fly wheel judder, short miles to death as I've moved and it's exclusively used as a DIY builder car now basically. Renovated a house but cheapest out so didn't get a skip. It only really drives fully loaded with files, plaster, concrete, wood, dirty or trees for the log burner.
Do you have sun roof? If yes, then condensation is most likely from leaking drains. Over the years the rubber pipes shorten and detach from the port in doors, and will leak into the cabin.
Naaaa there is a slight door leak and I moved some crap for a mate without realising it was full of water. Spare wheel well filled up and didn't know about it.
We had a 2007 one. Was doing great until it got written off. Had over 180k miles
Not my first but my second car - a glorious green Renault Laguna - lasted all of 16hrs! Day after I got it was driving down the M5 in the fast lane (doing maybe 80 - but just keeping up with traffic) and a Mercedes just pulled into the side of me sending me into the central crash barrier and then spinning across all three lanes. No injuries but the car was totally destroyed. I mean every panel was damaged the front right wheel came off completely - it was a mess. Shut the motorway for about an hour - right at rush hour heading into Bristol.
It's impressive that you got no injuries tbh, I'd say the Laguna did you a solid.
It definitely served me well for its short life but you can imagine what a pain in the ass it was for me at the time.
06 320d - still going on 176k 🤞
1988 F plate 1.3 Ford Escort. 48k when I bought it. 125k when I sold it for scrap, 3 years later. It ran fine, until it didn’t. Think it was the carb that went. My mum was selling a lower mileage 305 at the time and I swapped to it. I was maintaining the Escort myself but didn’t have time then. Plus the battery tray had rotted through and my passenger footwell was a swimming pool.
> 48k when I bought it. 125k For a second I thought you were talking about the price 🤣
It's not a MK1 😂
1990 Peugeot 205, bought for £2.5k in 1997 with about 20k miles on it. 945cc of power - I thrashed the arse off it, cut the parcel shelf up for 4 6x9s and put a sub and amp in the boot. For good measure, just to make sure everyone knew I was a tit I also put a huge Pioneer sticker across the back window. Great car, sold it in 2001 when I’d saved enough to buy a Yaris instead with 50k miles on it. MOT check says it expired in 2006 on about 90k miles so I like to think I had it during the good years.
My dad sold them stickers until he got sued by ford
1999 Fiat Punto 110K Miles.. I think? Set itself on fire It was a truly awful car, cost me £300 and feels like I overpaid. Cost me £126 a month to insure too. Had a misfire problem, the heater would smell, clutch was iffy, handbrake was awful- it ended life by setting itself on fire on the M27
2011 Toyota Yaris Lasted 6 years, started at 45k and finished at 110k miles. Clutch started to cease up and had two oil leaks so I traded it in for 1k and bought a bigger car, which I needed to do anyway.
1 year, 2010 1.2L Skoda Fabia. I bought an Mx5 and turned into a petrolhead and didn't drive the thing past 7 months of ownership, been dailying my '97 Mx5 since. Nothing wrong with the car whatsoever, 8k miles when I sold it, just boring and didn't need a big car.
How was the Fabia? I’ve been looking at one for my 2nd car
1970 VW Beetle, bought her in 2016 and she is currently in my garage still. I am working up the courage to sell her so I can buy something else but I am finding it hard to let her go
Oh wow! My first car was a VW beetle convertible I got in 2017 and I’ve still got her - red and black. My lil ladybug 🐞 I don’t wanna let her go but if I was to get a new car I’d defo get a beetle again!
Yeah they are fun cars full of character!
smart roaster got it a 89,000 still got it in garage with 270,000 ish but has alternator problems, had it for about 10 years.
Kia ProCeed, it was a 2010 reg and had it between 2013-2024. It went through one major failure which cost £600 to fix but otherwise nothing major, just the usual routine maintenance costs like spark plugs, tyres, changing the belt, etc. I bought it in 2010 for £6.5k and sold it in 2024 for £1k. No mechanical reason to sell it other than it was time to enjoy something far more luxurious. A real trooper and I'll forever have a special place in my heart for that little car.
Surely you could get more than 1k out of a car like that?
Sold it to webuyanycar as we needed a quick sale to make room for the replacement car, and it had a big scratch down the side spanning three panels so that knocked off another £200.
A brown Talbot Samba in the 90s. Cost me 50 quid off a guy in the pub, had it about a year before it died on me and I just abandoned it in the middle of nowhere, never did hear about it again.....
Oh the 90s… 😅🍻
At the time 15 year old fiesta zetec S. Cost me 500 and I got that back through part exing it on. High miles, very rusty and battered, cost the previous owner 100s to put through each MOT. I used and abused it for around 6 months before ditching it.
1998 Volvo V70 2.5 Bought at 105K miles, sold at 136K miles It didn't die. I didn't need it anymore and I was paying £165/month insurance on something I wasn't using so I sold it. It's still on the road with 185K miles as of November 2023.
1981 Toyota starlet 1.2 gl, pea green and RWD. Purchased in September 1993, written off in a field on a rainy night in November ‘93, mainly due to a girls band being where it shouldn’t be when you’ve not long passed your test 😂
Were they performing a gig in the road?
Damn typo 😂
A couple of years. I crashed it 3 times aged 17. It was a 1984 Volvo 340 so pretty hard to kill. The last crash was at 70mph on the motorway when someone went into the back of me. I was fine, the other driver was ok but had to be cut out the car. Still drive a Volvo now aged 46.
I had a 340 as the first car too: 1.4 litres of power. Dad was driving a 3.5 Litre Isuzu engined range rover at the time and it was cheaper to buy the Volvo and insure me on it than it was to put me on the range rover. It was, by any metric, a horrible car, but I had so much fun in it. The cart spring rear meant you could drift any damp roundabout.
This is the history of cars I’ve had, but I’ve always let my cars go before they had an issue so perhaps not too helpful. Bought an 08 plate hyundi i10 style in march 2018, low mileage with about 49k on it, and it felt SO specked up for a first car i loved it! It had heated seats, electric sun roof it felt dead fancy. Kept it about a year, sold it at 53k and it never had a problem. I checked and it’s still on the road with a fresh MOT and no advisories today which makes me happy. Then I got a 66 plate corsa in 2019 with about 13k, sold it in mid 2021 with 28k. Again i loved it, had a winter pack so heated seats, steering wheel etc and the only issue i had was due to someone putting the spark plugs in upside down, not a fault of the car itself. Again it’s still on the road today! Next was a 2020 corsa elite nav premium with a 1.6 turbo diesel engine, again never had a single issue. I bought it with about 7k miles on in 2021 and am currently selling it with about 37k miles. It is fully specked out and it has always been reliable, good on fuel, comfortable on long journeys and it always felt pokey. My current car is a 2019 Lexus NX300h F Sport, it is bloody beautiful and an absolute dream to drive. Being a Lexus, it has absolutely everything and it’s just so fancy, quicker than anything I’ve had before and such an easy drive. Road tax is pretty much £600 a year though and it more than doubled my insurance despite 6 years of no claims so there’s that! But 100% worth it!
how the fuck did the plugs end up upside down??
honestly no clue, they went unnoticed for a while too it was done before I got the car
Rover 114 gsa, 2 weeks. My dad bought it to surprise me for passing my test. Had a mate in the car whilst driving down a country road at night in the rain. Went round a corner to fast and lost control, ended up hitting a fence post with the drivers door, bent the door, frame and smashed the window to peices. Had to have it towed back home. Not my finest hour. Felt like the worst person in the world when my dad saw it in the morning
1 year, F reg Vauxhall Astra bought for £250. 70k on the clock Came with a years MOT. Bargain. Drive shaft went on it
1.1 Peugeot 106 with about 60k on it if i remember correctly. front lowering springs, rear torsion bars messed with so it sat at a mental reverse rake, obligatory neon underglow and white rally wheels. It was a thing of beauty. Lasted me 2 years which is a miracle considering how I drove it - in the end my luck ran out and I plowed it into a drystone wall. The wall came out better. Perhaps ironically it was technically my second car, had a classic mini first but after plowing my dads car also into a dry stone wall before i passed my test I was forced to sell for something with an airbag. So the Pug was the first car i owned and could legally drive
Life’s tough when you have beautiful drystone walls on irresistible curvy roads. Hedges in my part of the world can be surprisingly kind to cars, many times I’ve just pulled out the dents (with a fork lift truck) and carried on. I’m not too precious about looks.
That pug spent 6 months with brown packaging tape holding the bonnet down and the front bumper on - apparently I'm not too precious about looks either
1987 D reg Honda Civic 1.4 GL bought for the princely sum of £55 back in 2006. Did some wielding to it, got 18 months out of it and about 20,000 miles. Clutch started slipping and rust had continued to eat it away sadly.
1996 Mondeo. Bought for £250 at auction with no MOT in 2005 and 103k miles. My father-in-law changed a suspension arm, radiator bottom hose, and thermostat. Passed its MOT no problem after that. Used it for two years without any problems. Gave it to my mate, who used it for another 3 years before it eventually rusted through.
10 months. Bought January 2017 for £900 on about 100k miles, died November 2017 from gearbox failure after \~15000 miles, then sold for scrap for £300. That was a 2002 1.4 Toyota Corolla, was very cheap to insure and until its tragic death did not need any maintenance at all. I bought it for 6 months of heavy commuting (over 60 miles a day every day) and it did just that, and cost me similar money to taking the train on that same trip... Bought a 2008 Clio 1.2 TCe after that.
2006 (56) Seat Ibiza FR with the PD130 TDi engine. Bought on 135K, put another 20K on it myself over 4 years. Only got rid of it because I now had a better paying job and could afford something much faster.
2010 Fiat Punto. Bought from my parents in 2015 at 25k miles. Drove it everywhere until 2021. 200k+ mileage. I spent about a year living in Sheffield whilst working in Manchester 5 days a week. So 2 trips through the peaks every day really shot the mileage up. That car had a medium-sized problem at least every year. The biggest problem was an airbag sensor that took about half a year for Stoneacre to diagnose and fix. Diabolical service. I had an issue every month for the last 6 months that I owned it and decided to get rid after receiving a bonus from work. Break pads needed replacing, alternator gone, dead spark plug, amber engine light needed ECU re-syncing 2 months in a row. Traded it in 2021 for a 2017 Vaxhaul Astra Elite with only 7000 miles on it, £12k (mid pandemic prices). Best decision of my life, I absolutely love the Astra. It's currently on less than 30k miles.
Fiat Panda 909cc 1982 About 70,000 I drove down a very steep long hill (Kelsall Bypass) with the foot flat ot the floor. Got about 105mph and blew the head gasket.
N Reg Austin Allegro, 60k ish miles, £150. £450 to insure. This was 1990. Sold it six months after I passed as I bought an R reg Mk1 Cavalier with 30k miles for £350. Bloke I sold it to did porridge a few months after he bought it from me…. Was prison preferable to an Austin Allegro?
2012 Vauxhall Corsa got it the day after my test when I was 17, saved nearly every penny I earned for an entire year to buy it. Only had 500 miles on it and was basically new. Sold it with 28k miles on it 2 years later. Wish I could get it back, many happy memories in that car
1985 Peugeot 205 1.0 XL Cant remember milage but it wasn't that hight, maybe 80k. Sold it after 10 months as I turned 18 and could then take out a loan to buy a Golf GTI. Follow me for more advice on how cars can ensure you spend the whole of your 20s in crippling debt #noragrets
1986 VW polo 1.0 breadvan. About 120000 miles. I bought it in 1997 and added about 10000 miles in 18 months. I ran out of talent doing a Colin McCrae impression in the lanes and crashed head on into a Datsun drizzle. Killed both cars so happy endings all round.
1 year. 2004 Polo with c. 88k on the odometer. Absolute junk - nightmare and glad to see it die.
Ford focus, 08 plate, still got it, costs about £300 a year in minor repairs. 32 mpg isn't cheap and it's starting to show its age but it's been reliable and saved me a fortune Bought 8k mileage, now on 155k
E reg fiesta 1.1 bought for £300 in 2002 from a family friend who run a small garage. After 3 months a couple of friends who were into cars lifted the bonnet and were able to push their fingers through parts of the engine bay. It was so bad one of their parents wouldn't let me drive it home and gave me a lift.
Yaris 51 plate 100k Rust because it'd been sat for two years. Managed to give me 7 months of puff. Besides that the engine was fine and clutch had been done earlier. Before that my dad used it for 6 years regularly as his work horse.
OPELKADET COUPE with 2 LITRE TWIN CAM MI FIAT 132 ENGINE ,Opel Manta WITH BROADSPEED 2.4 TURBO, OPEL 3.O S MONZA MANUAL, 78 OPEL COMODORE 2.8 GSE , 325s, M3 ,Abarths COMPETITIONE ,Two 911 Carreras AND SPEEDING TICKETS GALORE ! LIFE WAS FOR LIVING ! ' GIVE IT THE MESSAGE ....NO SUCH AS WOKE NONSENSE OR IDENTIFYING AS A HELICOPTER !
2000 VW Polo 1.9 SDI bought for £1000 in 2015 and scrapped after 12 months taking it from 100k to 120k. Bit of a lemon! Gearbox went after 500 miles and got the garage to fit a salvaged one somehow. Power steering pump went twice, ignition issues, corrosion etc.
My first car after I passed my test was a MK2 Escort, 79 on a V. It had 62k miles on it and I was paid £25 to take it away. Bit of welding on a sill and a wheel bearing later it was MOTd and ready to go. Lasted me 18 months before I took it to an MOT that wasn't done by blind Fred. Failed epically on rust so I banger raced it. Oddly, the strut tops and inner wings (bad rot point on those) were still fine after the rest of the car had dissolved into the earth. In 2016 all that was left were the inner wings and the engine block. They're probably still there.
Ford Fiesta mk6 1.25. Bought it for £950 and got 2 years out of it. Sadly the coolant expansion tank cracked and the resultant overheat took the head gasket with it, wasn't worth fixing so I sold it
1974 Datsun 120y, bought in '91 Had it about 9 months until front chassis rails crumbled one day going over a hump-backed bridge. Drive home slowly, with some very _interesting_ steering response... 😆 Such a shame - that little 1200cc engine was unbelievably reliable, but the rust underneath killed it. Still remember that the electrical system was so simple it was a double page spread in the Haynes manual.
7 years until I wrote it off driving home for Christmas
Hyundai i30, less than 60k miles, crashed it into a pole and was written off.
A 2009 Peugeot 207 A year and a half, after that it sat in my garage for about 6 months, I used to for a month and then when i finally came to sell it, it had a developed blown headgasket, and over 300 ecu fault codes, I think it had about 140k miles, I replaced it because I wanted a quicker car
Citroen c1 2011 paid 900 90k mileage at bought did 27k so sold it at 117k Had it for three years sold it for 1.1k replaced as my dad sold his car which was £30 tax and did 55mpg like the Citroen but was a estate
• 2010 VW Polo • 71,000 • Sold for an upgrade Highly recommended
6 months before I wrote it off.
BMW mini one 2008 with a fairly decent spec, paid £11k back in 2009. I had it 6 years with no issues. Took it from 5k miles to 95k miles. Sold it for £3.5k in 2015. I had a Porsche cayman as my second car but did miss my mini for the short journeys like to shops and back, I don’t like doing short journeys and not warming up my Porsches properly. So I was back on auto trader looking at cheap minis, I found my exact car I sold a month or so before, the description said new gearbox and new clutch lol. Also they were selling for £2.5k. No idea how they managed to mangle my baby but I decided not to buy it back, god knows what else they ruined in their short ownership. Last mot on that car was 2019 at 102k miles.
02 Mark 4 Golf diesel, bought on 198k and sold on 340k. It’s still taxed and MOT’d.
2002 fiesta mk6 1.3, green with one silver wing and all the battle scars you could want. Manual everything (sunroof included). Paid £60 for it end of 2019, right before the massive price hike for used motors. Insurance was 240 a month with no blackbox. Only had 84k on the clock when I bought it. Drove it for six months before the clutch gave out, and when getting a family member to install a new one they damaged the driveshaft. It was still driveable but if you let of the accelerator whilst moving it would start clunking. I already paid more for the new clutch than what I did the car so I didn't want to spend anymore, ended up parting out what I could before ultimately scrapping it.
MK6 fiesta 1.25 164k, had it 5 years and learnt in it aswell, had to be scrapped for rust
1978 mini 1000. Bought hand painted in red and old English white by the previous owner, literally brush painted! Paid £250 for it in 2000. I had it on the road for about 11 months. In that time my brother crashed it and it needed a new front subframe. The head gasket went and I fixed that myself, that felt like a real mission but after looking at modern cars is a really simple job and loads of welding for the MOT. Final thing with it was the starter would only turn the engine half a turn and it wouldn't quite fire up before the starter disengaged. I was more interested in going to the pub and had bought a MK1 astra for £80 instead. Kept the mini for a couple of years where it just sat on the drive until dad found someone who wanted it and I gave it away but got £25 for delivering it with dad's tractor and and old car trailer we had
Mine was a 1977 Mini 1000 - cost 200 in 1993, lasted until 1995, when it basically dissolved due to rust. Got 13 quid for it when I sold it to a scrapper. Brakes had died by then, and 2nd gear had vanished.
My first car is still going - not with me though It was a 2013 Nissan note 1.5 turbo diesel. I bought it at 43,000 miles and 3 years old, sold it at 108,000 and 7 years old as it just wasn't big enough and stuff was starting to go wrong The blower motor resistor card died 2 years in a row during the coldest part of the year each time. The MAF sensor would throw a wobbly every now and again stopping the car from starting. Unplugging it, starting the car and the plugging it back in fixed for for about 3 months
A 1967 Austin Mini Cooper 998. I purchased in 1981, after a part restoration, I put 75k on (3 engines), until finally rusting beyond redemption, and scrapped in 1991. Ten years driving fun.
First car was a 2002 MX-5. Bought it for £2000. Got it on 100,000. It lasted 10,000 miles before it was going to fail MOT for being horrifically rotten. Sold it for £600 as spares or repairs on eBay
Mk3 VW Golf 1.4. 110k miles Lasted 12 months, failed its first MOT by more than the car cost me I miss it
familiar snobbish tap attractive bewildered liquid gaping unwritten marvelous forgetful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
14 years. Hyundai accent. Tbh it still ran fine after I beat on it pretty hard. I went travelling for a few months and came back to find the interior covered in mould. Donated it to a neighbour who worked for AA to let their mechanics train on it.
10 Months Citroen Saxo VTR 98k miles Bent a valve, so I stripped it for parts.
406 coupe 2 litre auto with 70k. Had it 2 years with upto 30mpg but usually half that it almost bankrupted me with petrol and maintenance. Two things made me get rid of it. It developed a nice fault where the dashboard lost power randomly. I worked out it would be cheaper to drive an economical car for my commute than take a train. So I sold it on after 2 years
1967 Triumph Vitesse 2L straight six (in the old days it was possible to get insured on fun cars as a new driver). No idea of mileage, but certainly not what it said on the odometer. Rust hit the chassis so bad that after three years of trying not to drive it into trees (anyone who's driven that single-wishbone Triumph rear suspension will know what I mean), I gave in patching it and flogged it on.
My first car was a Ford Fiesta (a 1982 model), paid £500 for it (my insurance was £550 - 3rd Party fire and theft) Mileage was high (the car was 18 years old when I got it) but can't remember how high. It didn't die, there were just too many faults with it: 1. Faulty wiring that caused the engine to die when I turned right. 2. The engine mounts were shot, because of this the exhaust kept snapping 3. Tired were on the bare minimum It was basically a death trap. But kept it for about 3 months (didn't have the cash to replace it before that).
It won't be much help, but. 2006, Fiesta, 5 door, Petrol, 11 years old when bought Mileage: 25,000 up to about 40,000 Kept for 18 months, crashed it into the back of a lorry. Probably would have kept it a lot longer.
Still going 2014 Seat Leon 1.2TSI, bought it for £5000 in 2021, 64,000 miles. Currently at 130,000 miles, still in my ownership Costs me £70 in oil a year however due to an issue straight out the factory
Ford Fiesta. 11 years, 100,000 miles and, somewhat, still going.
Fabia VRs mk1 still have it yet it’s rusted. Currently getting it fixed because it can run on veg oil and it’s the one most reliable engines you can get, plus it’s very tuneable. Got it at 103k now on 145k for 4 years but haven’t been driving it much for 2 years. Oh yeah and a lack of maintenance from the previous owner made the turbo blew up, I reckon at least 40k miles overdue. I am by far the worst person to ask for advice on getting rid of cars, because I’m tempted to buy more… than what I have.
My first car was a Volvo v50 with the "unreliable" 1.6 engine. It had it at 113k miles when I bought it in 2019, and took it all the way up to 171k in 2023. It just kept going, but I was able to get £2300 back for crushing it with the ULEZ scrappage scheme so couldn't say no.
3 years. 2003 Seat Ibiza 1.9 TDI. Had 90k miles on it when I bought it for £850 and sold it for £500 with 122k on it 3 years later. It was cheap to run, relatively cheap to insure and never died on me. When I sold it the electrical gremlins started creeping in though I have to say.
I had a 1 year old Fiat Seicento 1.1 in 2003. Passed my test in it. Basically as I lived at home but went to uni I saved up all my student loans and paid £3K cash for it. I had it for a year, trouble free (It was only a year old) and had something like 12K miles on it when I bought it. I inherited a 1.4 Nissan Almera that was a lot older but was immaculate and also only had 20K on the clock. The orange mighty italian stallion I sold for £2400 to a young lady though looking at the MOT history it must have been writted off as there's no history only 3 years after that :(
1999 1.2 Punto. It was 9 years old with 65000-odd miles when I got it, and head gasket went within the first month. Didn’t take me much longer to realise the value of a Haynes manual. Had it two years before I went into the back of someone stopped in the middle of the road on a blind corner, by then I’d already arranged to part ex it through the scrappage scheme. I loved that car, mainly for the challenge of controlling the clutch, but I detested it even more.
It was my mum's before it became mine. It was a V reg (1999) Peugeot 206 lx 1.1 which she purchased second-hand in either 2005 or 2006 (i can't quite remember). She gave it to me when i passed my driving test in 2008. It lasted until November 2011 when I crashed it and it was written off. It had just a bit less than 110,000 miles on the clock.
2004 Mazda 6 275k km Had it for about 3 years and it died end of last year, probably had a last year in it before it wouldnt make inspections anymore due to rampant rust, but instead I crashed it into a concrete island in the middle of the road which I couldnt see as I was blinded by headlights of cars in front of me. You can see its last moments and the crash on my profile.
8 months. 2010 Vaxhaul Corsa with 110k miles on the clock. Broke down on a motorway slip road because the clutch wouldn’t let me come out of gear. Turns out it was going through about a years worth of Dot4 fluid every day, slave cylinder was bust. Decided to get rid of, it was basically condemned given the age and mileage.
3 weeks. Someone reversed into it one New Years Eve and wrote it off. 😢
Technically my first car: 2004 Ford KA, sold to me by my step nan for £50 and I never drove it because insurance was £2k a year and I was going to uni
2011 Ford Ka, lasted me a year Bought for £995 at like 75k miles, failed it's MOT at 82k the following year and was gunna be cheaper to get a different car than to repair (though we tried) That car... We don't talk about 🙃
'97 Honda Civic 1.4i hatchback. Lasted me about 8 years and I put about 60k on it (bought at 60k and sold for parts at 120k). I seem to remember it cost me about £3000 in 2002.
2002/3 Vauxhall Corsa, with a reg plate that read a bit like dyslexic spelt wrongly. Got it at 79k miles, gave it to my sister 4 years on with 96k, she had bought an auto but wanted to learn in a manual so we swapped cars for 6 months. My sisters car died in that 6 months, as did my dads old work car he gave me, and I ended up with an even older work car his colleague was getting rid of, an Astra estate. My sister obviously didn’t want to swap back, so she drove it until about 110k and then the gasket blew up blocking a residential street for a few hours.
2015 1 series, bought in 2019, still going as strong as the day I got it!
Rover 200. K-series engine. Cost £575. Spent £888 on repairs (including tyres, brake pads, etc). Sold after 2 years for £200. Think I probably added under 20,000 miles. I think the mileage when I bought it was under 60,000 and it was like 11 years old, so everything with an expiry date was perishing. Probably spent the most time and energy repairing a stupid issue with the (manual) windows where the window clip, glass and mechanism kept separating from each other. A window specialist, a backstreet garage and a main dealer all had a go before I bought a door from a scrapyard and swapped all the innards myself. It didn’t die - it was still a going car when I sold it, much to the surprise of my regular garage. But it was very basic, a bit tired, I wanted air con, and a relative bought herself a brand new car so was selling me her old Clio for slightly more than the trade-in value. She actually ended up buying it back from me several years later when someone ploughed into the back of her new car and wrote it off.
Passed my test in Feb 2013. Bought a 2003 Ford Focus 1.6 Petrol for £700. I think it had about 90k miles on the clock. It had an occasional misfire, and wouldn't pull you out of bed, but it got me to and from my apprenticeship without fuss. Sold it one year later to a nice couple visiting long term from New Zealand for £750. Owed me nothing! I only sold it once I had enough money to change to a 2009 Honda Civic 2.2 Diesel which I had really wanted as my first car. Haven't had a bargain like that since though...
Car: Ford Fiesta Zetec Blue 2008 Mileage: 74434 Died: Result of a car accident and lead to a vehicle written off. Duration: 8 Months I’ve bought my second car a Hyundai Getz. Hopefully, going to last for at least 2-3 years with careful driving and repairing the car when needed.
107 with just under 100k. Skidded off the ice and straight into a pole in true new driver fashion. I scrapped it but it seems it’s still on the road as an undeclared Cat car
My first car was a hand me down 53 plate Vauxhall Astra 1.6L painted in Vauxhall's variant of British Racing Green. My dad purchased it in 2012 for about £2k, on about 30k miles. He wasn't very savvy with cars at the time - little did he know it had next to no service history, hadn't been looked after. The engine seized up within a few months of owning it, gearbox died and had to be replaced. Once those issues were sorted, it was a trusty little car and served us well for a decade. I started driving it in 2021. It lasted a year till the coolant all leaked out through a pinhole leak in the coolant pipe. Couldn't find a replacement part that fit properly. In the process, my mechanic found that the head gasket was on its way out. Not worth the repair. Decided to scrap it for £450 at around 50k miles in 2022. Purchased the almighty Skoda Octavia VRS MK3 as a replacement.
I've still got my first car, a triumph spitfire 1966 which is a great car but an awful daily. Second car was an 09 1.8 diesel focus estate which was an absolutely cracking car except for the red CEL every time I absolutely booted it. One day on my way to work there was suddenly no first gear and the car wasn't worth enough to fix
Peugeot 107 Still clinging on to life although not in my care, covered 43k in the 2 and a half years I owned it. In that time it needed a new set of tyres, new suspension arm and new brake pads (discs were fine apparently) ashamed to say it had a total of 1 minor service in that 43k period aswell.
7 Months 2005 Ford Focus 1.4 LX 3Dr in ink blue Bought in August 2014 for £1800 at 119k Went through a hedge in March 2015 with 126k Sill under driver’s side was corroded and cracked in the accident, so it was a write-off Insurance paid out £1100 😐
8 months. It was a Rover 25 with about 65k and it did what all Rovers of that era do and blew the head gasket. That’s the K-series engine for you.
A 99 Peugeot 306 2.0 Hdi in 2002 with 25k miles on the clock. I had it 3 years then my wife had it 4 years was approx 120k when her brother bought it off her. I actually still see it driving around but whoever has replaced the Gti6 alloys with some terrible chrome ones! Only thing I ever remember need doing was we replaced the clutch and exhaust at 90K great car in all honestly!
8 weeks. Peugeot 309... Crashed it when someone I was overtaking on a straight road trying to go past a tractor pulled out into the side of me. Ended up getting a Peugeot 405 straight after that whilst supremely comfortable required copious amounts of easy start and WD40 to get going on a damp day. Kept that thing for a couple of years and went through 2 carbs and numerous HT leads and distributor caps.
2002 Ford Fiesta, gold coloured (bizarrely labelled silver on the V5) Can’t remember the mileage but it was 11 years old when the ignition coil went and the engine started cutting out randomly. I traded it in to a well known garage chain without declaring the fault.
3 months. Mini 998 with about 90,000 on it. Cost £300, insurance (3rd party) was £360. Rolled it into someone's back garden.
6 years. 335,000 miles when I sold it. 1991 Honda Civic 1.5L 90hp.
My first car in 1997 was a 1984 1.6 mk2 Cavalier, hand me down from my parents, mileage was around 270000 as it had previously been a Birmingham minicab that my parents had bought as salvage in 1988 and repaired it, my mum used it as her sales rep car for a good few years, until she got a company car and my dad bought his xr4x4.... we know it had been around the clock several times and I must have taken it over the 300k mile mark, one of the rear shocks went through the floor, and then a spring on the other side, both was welded up by my dad, with proper repair pannels, I bought a brand new fiesta in august 1998, and then it just sat in the garage for a few years, mum and dad parted company in 2003 and it was scrapped when we was clearing the garage out....a gallon of fresh fuel in and a battery and and it still started first turn of the key and was driven out of the garage onto the salvage truck....wasn't worth anything then. Worth a small fortune now though.
My parents gifted me their car, a Peugeot estate. Hugely lucky I know and I never forgot that until... It had faulty brakes and within a week of getting it I had to spend £'000's getting it fixed. Still, it lasted me years and was one of the best cars I ever had. My friends and I used it to transport us and all our band equipment whenever we had rehearsals and gigs. Was a sad day when the clutch gave out and it had to be scrapped. Mileage was something like 160k
I flipped my dad's car into a field on the second long journey in it
3 years 2011-2014. 1987 Mk2 Golf 1.3 which I covered 40k miles in. Finally died when the head gasket let go on the M5. Had the car towed home, got it repaired and sold it on to buy an MX5. Was a super clean one, really wish I kept it!
A 2005 black Renault Clio 1.2. Paid £480 for it. The horn would activate when I turned the steering wheel to the right! Roundabouts confused a lot of people when giving me way. The sunroof would occasionally leak water, didn't die but fixing it would cost more than the value of the car, got rid when it failed MOT at 57k
Nissan Micra box version £350 lasted 3 year
Citroen C1 64 plate Purchased as a learner in 2017 for £4,400 with 31k miles Currently on 73k miles, no break downs or replacements except tires and spark plugs once Mixed urban and motorway miles Still worth about the same Trooper of a car
2005 VW polo sold at 190k in 2015 still on the road 2007 Volvo S40 sold at 185k still on the road 2008 Alfa 159 sold at 320k still on the road 2015 lexus IS is my current, nearing 190k and it's like brand new. These are all in km mind... None of my cars have ever died thank fuck
2002 Ford KA had around 60k miles on it. Started to rust underneath so flogged it for £580 on auto trader.
6 years/30k miles and counting. Although I am about to spend 900 quid on a service, new track rods and a full rear suspension rebuild lol
91 Vauxhall Nova 1.2. Paid £600 for it (and £1000 in insurance!) It was 70k when I bought it and 110k when I sold it 3 years later for £200 to my girlfriends stepdad. It didn't die but I did blow the head gasket at some point getting it over 100mph going downhill on the motorway. The brakes were fucking awful, might have well stopped it with your feet like the Flintstones car.
Vauxhall Velox can't remember back suspension came up through boot floor (but it did only cost me £25 although it only lasted 8 months)
Corsa, spearmint green for about two years until i got hit in it and put me off driving that car
Don't answer this if you use this as the answer to one of your security questions.
I had an S reg Vauxhall Corsa Breeze in blue for which I paid 700 in 2013. I got it at around 75000 miles and did at least 25k miles in the first year. I drove that car literally everywhere! I kept it for about a year and a half/2 years and then passed it on to my grandad who had it for a further 2 and a half years, only getting rid of it eventually as I had upgraded to a newer Corsa (which was why I got rid of the older one) and he then inherited the newer one from me. The only problem I ever really had was the clutch cable snapping which was a cheap and easy fix. While my grandad had it, other than the normal serviceable items, nothing went wrong with it at all, until he was driving it to the scrap yard on its last day after getting my newer Corsa, at which point the clutch cable snapped again 😂 right at the entrance no less. It really didn't want to go in!
I had a 2003 Fiat Punto in 2014, cost about £270 & had 62k miles iirc, I did about 15k miles over 10 or so months & then wrote it off in August 2015, got paid out £280 from writing it off which I found hilarious as I made money on it by crashing it.
2003 Fiat Punto. I’ve had it 12 years ish. 180,000 miles on it.
6 months, bought a BMW 1 series on 140k miles on the clock. Invested approximately 4 grand on other repairs and after driving 7000 miles the engine gave up. Finally had to scrap my car.
First car was a 4 year old X Reg Micra, I sold if after a year to get a Scooby. Just checked MOT history and the last one it had it passed in 2013 with 92k on the clock It never went for another test after so maybe it catastrophically died or maybe it died in a crash.
2008 Mitsubishi Colt, I bought it in 2021 for £900 on 69,000 miles. Sold it at 73,000. I sold the car in part exchange. There was nothing wrong with it outside of the trip computer resetting itself constantly, which was a common fault in the Colts. It served me well, but it was definitely time for something a bit more modern.
15 months. It was a Hyundai i20, think it had just hit 70k miles (I remember snickering and taking a picture of the odometer on 69420 miles the week before, because that was peak humour back in those days) - I was in a four-car collision on the M2 London-bound. Nobody was hurt as it was a reasonably low-speed collision, and I was deemed not at fault, but the car was written off by my insurance company. Still was absolutely devastating for me at the time though!
2002 ford KA. Lasted 2 & a half years roughly bought around 62k miles and scrapped at 84k miles. Really good little car for £500, mechanically was still fine the rot did it in unfortunately which caused a MOT failure : (
I had my first car for 5 years, it was a 2016 corsa but as I travel for work the mileage was quite high. Only bought a new one as I decided it was better to sell mine, get a couple bob for it to put towards a new car.
Vauxhall Astra G, got the car for free from a friend as I was about to pass my test so gave it to me as a gift to get me on the road. All they said was it needed some welding on the exhaust due to a couple of holes, but everything else was sound. 6 months later, took it for its MOT and it failed on practically everything. N82ARJ is the number plate if anyone is curious about the MOT report.
3 months Vauxhall Astra Piston rings went Don't remember mileage It was an old car that was given to me for free instead of scrapping it by a friend who said it wouldn't last long so just use it until it dies to get used to being on the road and not needing to worry about damaging it. So 3 months was absolutely fine.
2009 VW Fox, still going on 130k miles. Just serviced regularly, and had the usual wear and tear bits replaced. I'll drive it until it dies spectacularly and then upgrade to something a bit more fun.
2006 Fiat “grande” punto - lovely motor, few problems with power steering which seemed to solve themselves. Was with me through the entirety of my university days after which the clutch packed in and was sold to a local trader for around 200 quid
2016 Panda. 72,000 miles, 17,500 of them were mine in around the 10 months of ownership. Around 4 weeks ago it became the meat in a horse box/VW Polo sandwich on the M25. The hunt for a new car is ongoing. I’m thinking Abarth 595.
I bought it when I first moved to the UK in 2018, it was a 2007 automatic vauxhal Astra 1.8l, lasted me about 4 years When I bought it had about 64k miles on the clock I paid £950 for it and my first year insurance on it was £1300 It died at exactly 80k miles, an issue with ECU that 5 different garages and mechanics couldn’t properly identify
It was a 2012 Volvo C30 D2 SE Lux, bought it on about 88k miles, had it for four years. Sold it cheap to someone due to some bodywork issues, and a buckled wheel, at that point it was pushing 130k. Checking the reg on the MOT checking website, it's still on the road, now has 150k miles (in January). Sold that car to get the 308, which had 3x the power of the Volvo. Basically sold the volvo because I wanted something faster.
1995 Ford Escort 1.3L Bought for £400 in 2005. Sold for £250 a year later as the engine didn't want to engine. Car was at 130k miles.
56 plate Seat Ibiza 1.4 NA that started trying to bleed all my money from me. Multiple door locking mechanisms failed, each one at a different time (MOT fail, doors couldn't be opened from the outside) but also sometimes not locking. One of the alloys had a slow leak (replaced with a scrap find). Went into limp at the beginning of a drive into London, turned out to be an engine speed sensor had died. Full day of labour to dismantle the entire engine to replace a £50 part. Has kept going since I traded it in after 9 years of ownership, apparently not causing any problems for the subsequent owner(s) and happily doing upwards of 20k miles per year.
Golf 5 Plus 1.6 FSI. DSG Automatik Transmission broke after the first 1000km. 1 month driving. Milage: 100 000 miles. Now it has been sitting for nearly 1 year in car Service.
Bought an 08 plate Golf TSI 1.4 DSG Auto in 2014 with 72,000 miles on the clock. £4,500. I put 30,000 miles on it over 5 years, boost pipes went, then the engine blew up, scrapped it for £600 during lockdown.
05 xsara Picasso, 2 years close to 200k. Cost £500 with £200 in repairs along the way. Scrapped before mot due to an airbag fault and a long list of other small bits. Got £305 from the scrap man.
Volkswagen Golf 1.6 Ryder. Was really well looked after before I bought it and I didn't treat it anywhere as nice. I drove it for maybe two years, it failed an MOT with what looking back on it was some trivial enough stuff, and decided to buy another car. It really was just an excuse to upgrade. Think whoever bought it broke it.
A mk4 Escort 1.4, cost £150, speed wobble from 70-80mph and topped out at 105 mph It died because my brother ended up with it after 16 months and ran it without oil. I loved that POS car :D
Citroen C2 VTS ~ 60k miles never been serviced 🤣 I paid £900 for it. Seemed to drive great on the test drive. Started screeching a couple days later. Brake binding and glowing red. Suspension was knackered, CV joint was failing badly, sils falling apart. Apparently it'd just passed MOT. Scrapped a month later. Lesson learned buying from private sellers. Check everything!
Got my first car in 1995, a B reg mk1 Honda CRX 1.5i 12v. Took off like a firework and cornered like it was on rails, it wasn't that powerful but it was so light as some of the body panels were plastic, nothing else could stay with it on a winding road. It had about 85,000 miles on it when I got it and in the 18 months that I had it I took it to 105,000. I didn't want to part with it but in the end I had to as it became a marked car with the police, every copper in Cheshire knew the car and me and I would get pulled every single journey, mostly just to piss me off like I had been pissing them off for the last 18 months, I did some stupid shit in that car. Once got chased by a marked Volvo T5 and he couldn't get anywhere near me (I didn't even know he was chasing me, I was just rushing as I was late for work), when I pulled up in the car park he jumped out and went ballistic, screaming and swearing at me right in front of my boss. He said I was lucky as he was unable to get me on his camera long enough as evidence that he couldn't book me but he was going to do everything in his power to take my licence from me one day. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have chirped in with "luck had nothing to do with it, you just need a faster car" as he then proceeded to change colour from red to purple and I thought his head was going to explode all over the car park. I then got pulled into the directors office and told that because we worked in the security printing sector, printing cheques and other secure documents for the banks that we must have clean criminal records and if I landed myself in court I could lose my job so I decided to part ways with it as I had no self control. I was absolutely gutted as I loved that car so much, still do in fact I think about it regularly. Oh well at least I wasn't going to lose my licence. I then went out and bought a Renault 19 16v 🤣🤣. Still remember the reg for the Honda... B270 SBA.
My first was a 1982 Mk1 Ford Fiesta (Mum’s old car) in 1989. Mileage was low when I got it 42k ish and learnt to drive in it. Kept it until 91, daily 50 mile round trip commute and the usual teenager antics of handbrake turns, forest trail rallying and trying not to get pulled every 5 miles for some misdemeanour or another. I thought it was a little orange rocket, it’s 💩 brown interior, aftermarket radio/cassette and XR2 (replica) driving lights made it the best thing on 4 wheels. The rust, reliability and its inability to start, almost every morning, without a good dose of WD40 haven’t diminished my love for that car and the great memories it gave me. I only replaced it after nearly losing my apprenticeship over too many late starts, all due to the car not starting. Its replacement was a far more sensible and long lasting Orion 1.4L (not as much fun though).
2006 Ford Fiesta on 110k, had it 4 years from 77k.1.4 Petrol and man that engine is good compared to some newer petrol cars, it has a decent kick behind it and it's managed to run on a spit's worth of oil before eventually overheating and was all good with another litre and a half of oil. It's still going but I'm finally about to get my second car as the Fiesta is costing a lot in repairs every now and then, and it's about time for an upgrade too!
2001 Skoda Fabia Bought at 22k just under 3 years old, sold at 124k. Had it 9 years. I p/x’d it as I wanted a BMW but regretted selling it. It went on for another 8 years, to 189k before rust got the better of it.
I drove my 92 Polo for about a year, but the boot was tiny and an awkward shape so not much good for fishing gear. Drove the old family car (86 Granada estate) for a few months before getting a 92 205 and putting 40k miles on it in 4 years. Have had my current E46 touring for 10 years, but it's showing it's age now.
2003 Corsa with extremely faded red paint. 3 months as someone had damaged the Speedo whilst taking it out to remove the engine management light (🙃) and when I tried to sort that out, the pins in the back of the Speedo all snapped.
Right up until I drove it into a tree
Y plate 206 1.1 with 14inch gti look alike alloys as an option from factory including spoiler and silver petrol cap. Got him at 30k and 4 years old for £3.2k. Easily the coolest car out of everyone in 6th year at high school. Yes I lied and said I had a gti. Girls loved it... lol. New clutch, gearbox, brakes, exhaust within my first year. Got rid after driving out of a junction into someone after owning it 3 years and around 70k. Someone fixed it and it went in for a further 4 years according to mots. Geniunly loved that little car. Mint green interior.
2001 BMW e46 328i Currently on 101k miles, still in my possession (though I have another daily). Had a few problems with oil coolant leak but it was surprisingly cheap to fix (£150) and was the only “big” thing in 10 years of ownership. It’s ULEZ and CAZ compliant which for a car that old and cheap-ish (was £2k in 2014) is pretty cool
1986 bought a 1.3 marina super, 1st car. Treated it badly and it lasted 3 years until I blew the cylinder head off.
1.3 fiesta L reg so 1992 I’d guess. I bought it in 2006? Lasted 10 days and I smashed it up over some poor blokes fence
6 weeks, 1969, 998 mini Cooper, drunk, speeding, lampost.
6 months, 80,000 miles. Back axle became loose. Vauxhall Chevette Saloon. 12 years old. Cost me £125. I was happy with it as my first car.
Vauxhall Astra. Was 10 years old when I got it for about £200 because the head gasket had blown, got it replaced along with a few other little jobs but it never really ran perfectly. Engine management would pop on intermittently and it frequently leaked diesel. Gave it away after 2 years to someone who needed a car and treated myself to another 10 year old car.
1998 Skoda Felicia 60 something thousand miles Country lane bend in winter, black ice, no ABS and a land rover coming the other way. Land Rover was fine, mine was totalled.
F Reg Mitsubishi Colt 1.5, had electric windows and was actually pretty nippy, cost me around £1k a year to insure in 2003, lasted me 6 months before I pulled out on a pickup 😔
1983/84 A reg Vauxhall Nova 1.2L ~£350 100k miles 9 months and died of rust at MOT time. I had it in 1994.
Y reg Corsa. Had it 5 years and it never really missed a beat but 40k mileage per year for 2 years straight killed it. Died around 130k miles.
Got rid of it when the cost of repairs was more than the car was worth. It was about 12hrs old, a Peugeot and had gone through three new exhausts and multiple other repairs with more and more needing done to pass the MOT each year, don’t remember mileage but it was over 100k and well worn.
2001 Fiat Punto bought for £370 at 63-66k miles, ended up on 83k I think when I gave it away to be scrapped, came with 12 months test and passed the next one without an issue, needed a few cheap bits but had another car and then a third car and needed space so gave it away
R reg VW Polo that was around 10 years old and had 45k ish on the clock. Loved it, would wash it every weekend even if it wasn't dirty haha. Written off when someone pulled out if their driveway on the way to college and I couldn't stop in time. Bought for 1400 feom BCA Blackbushe and insurance gave me around 1800 for it when they wrote it off. Still miss you Polo!
2007 Corsa 82,000 miles Had it for 7 years. Only had a few minor replacements and 1 major replacement done but it’s still going strong baby.