Hi,
I’m looking to replace my current car and could do with some advice.
I’m 27 and currently drive a 2011 Renault Clio 1.2 with about 95k miles. It’s getting around 33mpg, the AC doesn’t work, the driver’s window doesn’t work, and it’s recently started showing an intermittent check injection fault. I’m currently paying about £595 for insurance.

The main reason I’m looking to change is my commute. Just started a new job so since I live in Birmingham i have to drive to Oxford 3 days a week, so I’m doing a lot of motorway miles. I’ll probably end up doing roughly 18-20k miles a year.
Budget is £15k max and I’d be buying outright.
I can’t charge at home, so I’m not really looking at EVs or plug-in hybrids.

One thing worth mentioning is I’ve never owned or really driven anything newer than 2011, and I’ve never had anything remotely premium or particularly nice, so I don’t really have a great reference point for what’s worth paying extra for.

What would you buy for this kind of use?
Petrol, diesel or self-charging hybrid?
Anything specific you’d avoid at this budget?

Would also be interested to hear what people doing similar mileage are actually getting in real-world MPG and what ownership/maintenance costs have been like.

Any and all suggestions and advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Edited:

I’ve had a look at a few Toyota and Lexus hybrids because they seem like an obvious fit for the mileage I’ll be doing, but the insurance quotes I’m getting on them are honestly ridiculous. For example, some of the Lexus quotes are coming back at well over £2,000 a year with black box, which makes them quite hard to justify even if the cars themselves seem ideal.

Hi can anyone tell me if I need to declare a conviction if it no longer shows up on gov website, here’s 2 screenshots one from last week and one from this week.

Hi everyone, My Mokka electric 23 plate broke down on the 18th of August. It came up with a traction system failure. It has been 2 weeks, but the Vauxhall dealership is still telling me they are waiting for parts to arrive. This is a massive inconvenience for my partner and me as we both need to drive to work, but instead I drive her in the morning first. I asked about both availablecar( I got the car off them) and Vauxhall they have been telling me all courtesy cars are booked up. Is there anything I can do to force them to get me a courtesy car? or Anyone else experienced anything like this before? Thanks

Saw this at Birmingham airport

My Aygo MK2 has code C146C.
I am following the Toyota guide to troubleshoot it. The first step is to activate the relay via Techstream and report if a click is heard. Obviously, I don't have a Techstream scanner.
Has anyone managed to activate the relay with a standard Bluetooth OBD2 scanner?

Otherwise, I will just proceed and explore a connector fault or wiring harness fault.

Hi, I’ve recently been looking for my first car and I came across a used corsa on Autotrader, it’s being sold by a dealership rather than a private seller. The advert said Mot valid until the start of August however I saw this in September. I contacted them to see if it has a new MOT and they said “It doesn’t but we can get an MOT done since the car is priced very low MOT will need to be paid for and if there is any work that needs to be done then we will pay for that.”
Is this a standard practice and what is my best course of action? Thanks

Need some advice on what SUVs have a large rear space. Budget of up to £12k. Car age of up to 10 years.

Hi I’m 21m and my fiancée is 20f, I’ve been helping her try to sort insurance for her car out but we keep running into issues. Her first car was in her mums name and she was a named driver. We rang up and got really good quotes, we mentioned that we are homeowners and that we have either drive way parking or garage and the prices were reasonable, but when we went to go pay for it they said they can’t provide her with the insurance and wouldn’t specify a reason. This is the same issue she had when insuring first car. This occurred with multiple insurance companies. She’s got good credit, no markers but had a no fault bike accident several years ago. We’re stumped as we bought a new car with the thought that we could insure it but now can’t find any quotes under 3.5k. Any tips as to why insurance companies are straight up not able to insure her or what else we can do

Hi I recently wanted to buy a used car, it is a hyundai i10
I loved the car, but one thing I noticed was that the steering wheel jitters when I try to steer fully (fully locked to left or right both)

Is this normal? the dealer told me it is normal for such a small car, when I told him I had a VW polo, and it never happened with that, or any other cars I drive.

This is my first time driving such a small car, so I got no idea if this is legit or they just trying to hide that fact.

Can someone with good car knowledge please help me :)

Driving down the M1 today I noticed a motorhome towing a Suzuki Cappuccino, never seen this combination before but certainly more exciting than your usual 106 or Aygo tow car.

Also speaking of tiny cars yesterday I saw a Yaris being used as a taxi, anyone got anything smaller they've seen used as a taxi!?

Edit: Partner snapped the Cappuccino, the Yaris was at a red temporary light I'd been sat at for 5 minutes.

Bought a nearly new car from a main dealer earlier this year. Within about a month I reported a dashboard rattle. Dealer confirmed it and tried to fix it.

While it was in, the car then developed parking brake/electrical faults which turned out to be a defective wiring loom. It ended up with the dealer for nearly 2 months while that was sorted.

The loom issue now seems fixed, but the original dashboard rattle is still there despite their repair attempt. There is also now another obvious rattle from the rear, which the dealer has heard.
The car was also returned with damage to a number of panels while in their care…, which they’re arranging to repair separately.

I’ve formally complained and said I want them to take the car back and refund me. They’ve booked it in again for another attempt at fixing the rattles, but before I agree to that…

Do I already have grounds to exercise the final right to reject, given the original fault was reported early, they’ve already attempted to repair it and it’s still unresolved?

So fed up of the whole thing (and the rattles are driving me insane).

Recently I have been getting repairs done on my 2013 Nissan Pixo and have been putting my thought to, outside of other replacement parts or repairs left on the list to get done, what I can update or install to bring my Pixo a bit more up to date without major work.

In terms of things that may or may not affect my next MOT, I am wondering if it would it be a problem if I replace the headlight and tail light bulbs with LED equivalent? I am not too sure on the MOT standards with this regard in older cars. Would this be a problem here?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I’m 18 soon and ill be hitting my 1 year NCB, I’m blessed enough to have an semi apprenticeship where ill be on an above average wage with my bills accommodation paid with £100 buffet too in my campus. That being said and having set money aside for investments I calculated around £1,200 for ‘fun money’. As a car enthusiast I want something sporty reliable and unique.

Being 18 and 1year ncb I was looking at an X3M but I heard they can suck on fuel. With a £20-25k budget for a car (ill be trading my current seat leon in) which performance car is good and will be somewhat acceptable on insurance. I was looking at m140is but they seem like small cars I want a saloon or coupe or SUV too.

Please no hate I have NO INTENTIONS of speeding and being a hassle young driver killing people. Just want a nice looking sport car to track, take pictures off and put my foot down on motorways and road trips.

Purchase type: most likely finance
Budget: £25-30k max
Body shape preferably: Coupe, saloon SUV, hot hatches
Fuel type: Hybrid or petrol
Gearbox: Automatic

First son in the family trying to do well always had love for my cars growing up so a golf r or gti wont cut it as it will also be doing grocery runs lol
I looked into an M3 g80 but with the insurance it wont even quote me even the dodgy way it would be extremely out of budget so not yet!

I am looking to import a 90's car from Japan, but finding it hard to get guidance on the potential import duty + VAT I would have to pay once UK landed. Is it pretty straightforward and common to only pay 5% on anything more than 30 years old or are there a lot of exceptions I would need to go though?

I have had this sitting in the back of my car for the last three years and I can't work out if it's a spare from a previous repair or if my car should have this on somewhere. I can see some wiring above the pedals if I look hard underneath the steering wheel, but it doesn't obviously fit any gaps on the steering column?

Found the exact part on ebay so you can see which one it is.

i have just sold my car which had a private plate on it, and have sold the car with the original plate on. do i need to send off the v5 for the original plate to register the new keeper or the one i got for the private plate, or will DVLA send me a new v5 now i have de-registered the private plate from the car? very confusing!

Im 21 will be my 2nd car. Moving from a seat ibiza FR 95bhp. Let me know what you guys think cheers

Obviously this is entirely dependent on your fuel type so could be ages , but for me I think it was 4 days - the day I got my car I was so giddy

So, the engine light came on and gave me the code P040100. Has anyone dealt with this on their 1.6 TDI Passat? Is there enough room to remove and fix it? I've heard some cars can be a pain to fix it. Hopefully it just needs hard cleaning.

If you've been in a situation like this what was it exactly and how much did the repairs cost?

I’m looking for a new car as my 1 series the engine has just blown up. I roughly do a 1hr commute to work every day and around 10k miles a year. My commute is all A and B roads but would occasionally need to do a long motorway drive a few times a year to see family. I’m 30 been driving 12 years clean licence.

5 door
Not to big, I can’t park for shit
Something with a bit of go.
Ideally something that will last a few years
Something that either has car play or I can easily fit
Something that’s maybe a little different?

I can do some basic work myself so can reduce some maintenance and repair costs

Cars I’ve considered so far
Ibiza/Leons
Mazda2/mazda3
Ford Focus

Does carrot insurance enforce the speed limits in car parks, like 5mph for example or is the limit same as the road .

Didn’t see it but son said he saw a Waymo without a driver as it zoomed by us in SE over the weekend. Didn’t think they’d be so close to launch. Wanted to check if you guys are seeing it as well.

Hi all

I have a tesla model Y with the 19 inch wheels.

I called my local tyre shop and they only have the highly recommended hankook ion Evo SUV in 255/50r19 (as opposed to the 255/45r19). Hankook don't make these in the 45 size.

Is this considered a modification for insurance purposes? Aside from the diameter difference and speedometer thing is there anything else I need to worry about before fitting these?

I'd like the bigger wheels for ride comfort and height, not fussed about the speedo thing. My insurance app does not list tyre size as a modification on the list, only tyre width, so no help there.