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[Vamps]

All cars will have injection/ecu etc nowadays to pass emissions test.

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[markey mark]

im having same prob mike my lad wants a car !! probly be a corsa or a punto  

[tmx]

the 1.3 Polo is a Carb engine & VX Nova's

Punto's are really really bad for reliability!

[Lizzie_Zoom]

The Corsa is a good car and only level 2 with insurance

My eldest son has driven and owned Corsa's since 17 years of age. 8-) 8-)

[Welung666]

We got no.2 daughter a 1.1 saxo for her 17th, cheap to insure and she's still using it 2 years on

[mantahatch]

Do not buy a 3 cylinder polo, one missfire and the timing chain stretches and eventually jumps the teeth resulting in a new engine.
Electrician at work had this exact thing happen, and that was a 2002/3 reg polo. It has 3 seperate coils, and yes they fail. common problem.

[nick v6]

ann's civic coupe was a cheap enough car to buy and insure and has not let us down since i cleaned out the throttle body

[Omega man 2]

Nothing is going to be "cheap" to insure at 17, especially on a provisional license.

I realise that

Do what I did, be a complete idiot and buy an omega

Four digit insurance renewal

Seriously though, I did my test in a micra and it was just fine, and cheap enough

[Lazydocker]

TBH Mike most small cars are reasonable. As you said, it's not worth spending too much as most youngsters have a prang of some sort in the early days... Although not normally quite as spectacular as the one you witnessed

I disagree with the comment on the Punto though... As with any car, as long as it's maintained they are reliable enough! I find most small cars lack in "driveability" and feedback but get on with it!

If I were to pick one though I'd probably go for a Corsa.... Although try to steer clear of the 1.0 as a lot of them are 3 pots

[Marks DTM Calib]

No really bad small cars.

The polo is over rated and a pretty shite drive, there not as reliable as the pre 1992 units which had no features (most not even having servo brakes).

The Micra pushrod engine variants suffer bad cam wear at 100K ish miles.

Fiestat still seem to rot the floor pan and sills out (easy to check though)

Corsas, avoid the 3 pot 1.0, its a bit slow.

Small Renaults tend to suffer cluch cable issues which gets worse as the clucth wears down.

[TheBoy]

The little fiats are reliable, and more rustproof that in years gone by, and dirt cheap.

Corsas are a possibility, but newer ones hold price too well, and older ones are pretty naff.

Fiestas, any built in the last 10-12yrs seem to be mechanically reasonable, but watch out for rust.

Rover 200/25, HG problems, particularly bad on 1.4 and 1.8, otherwise robust

clit, seem to be reliable mechanically, luxury electrics such as windows/locking etc will fail on older ones.

Polo, reputation for reliability, but the 2 that colleagues have always seem to be in the garage for something, and parts aren't cheap.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Watch the Fitas.....they suffer head gasket failures almost as often as the K series lumps

[TheBoy]

Watch the Fitas.....they suffer head gasket failures almost as often as the K series lumps

And the diesel ones, certainly that 1.2 (or is it 1.4?) diesel, seems to have ECU issues...

[Marks DTM Calib]

Watch the Fitas.....they suffer head gasket failures almost as often as the K series lumps

And the diesel ones, certainly that 1.2 (or is it 1.4?) diesel, seems to have ECU issues...

Dont seem to be any worse than most others (I suspect they are the same unit!)

[TheBoy]

Watch the Fitas.....they suffer head gasket failures almost as often as the K series lumps

And the diesel ones, certainly that 1.2 (or is it 1.4?) diesel, seems to have ECU issues...

Dont seem to be any worse than most others (I suspect they are the same unit!)

I know of 2 that have gone in (one to dealer, one to independent), been diagnosed with ECU failure, ECU replaced, customer picked up and now working.  Obviously, as you know, it might well have been something else they found when the ECU replacement didn't work...