First car

This little article is for the many youngsters who are about to buy their first car. If you thought the cost of learning to drive was pricey, owning a car is more.

Let’s take a look at what is needed to buy your first car. Money of course but there are other important considerations, insurance, road tax, maintenance, fuel and safety.

We will look at each one. Insurance, if you are 18 and want to drive a sports car as your first car, well for some reason insurance companies are not keen to do business with you and those that are will only do so for vast amounts of money, so vast the insurance will probably cost more than the car itself.

So we won’t bother with insurance then, bad move, it is better to be car less than not insured. If your first car happens to run into another car, your fault or theirs and you are uninsured, the law will find you guilty on many counts, to use a pun ‘Let’s not go down that road’.

We will be practical, look at the insurance group ratings, the lower the rating the lower the insurance, your first car will still be expensive to insure for the first few years but the cost can be spread over a year, knowing the cost will help with your monthly budget.

If you own a four wheel drive tank, road tax license is very expensive, but some of the smaller cars can even be tax free, make sure your first car is in the lowest tax bracket possible. As an aside if you buy a car which is over 25 years old, that is also free of road tax, but don’t even think about it! (Car parts, servicing are much more expensive normally).

Maintenance. Cars even your lovely first car will need a service sometimes, nowadays anything from 10k miles to 20k miles and the cost is much lower for a Nissan Micra than an Aston Martin! Other items to bear in mind are tyres and brakes, they do wear and will need replacing, (I will write at another time about good driving skills that save on wear and tear).

Fuel economy is an essential thing to look into, the more miles you get to the gallon in your first car the better for you, obviously the cheaper the cost. Use the manufacturer’s figures for guidance, they are not infallible but good enough.

And finally safety, the more airbags the better. My advice is don’t buy your first car without it having a steering wheel air bag. Make sure it has its servicing history, this ticks the right box about how the car has been looked after and please, please, please wear your seat belt at all times.

All the best, choose your first car with your head, not your heart.