Buying Your First Car to Learn to Drive

Buying the Car, Insurance, and Making Sure Your Dream isn't a Disaster

Your first car probably will not look like this!

If you don't already own or have access to one, then passing your test with no professional lessons will not be possible. Beg, borrow, but definitely don't steal one. Time behind the wheel is critical, every opportunity you get to drive should be taken.

Insurance

Before you dash out to buy your dream car it is worth checking what the insurance will be once you have passed. We will look at Learner Driver insurance in a moment. This is a lot cheaper, as you will always have someone in the car monitoring your driving and helping to keep you safe, suggesting that you don't overtake on the outside at the next bend. Once you have passed you will be free to terrorise the roads and as a consequence your insurance is significantly more expensive.

The key is getting familiar with insurance categories, there are 50 in the UK, with a Citroen C1 being in category 1 and an Audi R8 V10 being in 50. Your choice of car will fall into one of these. The cost of insurance is impacted by the size of the engine, the average cost of repairs, how often the vehicles are stolen, to name a few. When my son was looking, a 2007 1.4 Fiesta was £2000 a year to insure, a 1.0 Mini (his dream car) was £3000.

But I haven't passed my test yet, how can I get a quote? Get on to a website such as Money Supermarket, complete the details as if you have just passed your test, depending on age you may need to adjust your birthday to be over 17 as well. Other than that ensure the details are all correct. The quote will not be 100% accurate as once you have passed, time will have passed, and things will have changed, but at least you can be relatively sure you aren't going to be quoted £8000 once you have passed.

Learner driver insurance

The good news is when you are learning to drive your insurance will be cheaper, having someone alongside you to help guide you means the costs are relatively affordable. We found Collingwood Learner Driver Insurance to be one of the cheaper specialist.

Buying a Car

You have your budget, you have figured out what car you can afford to insure, now to find your learner driver vehicle.

There are many places to buy your learner car, but just be careful what you are buying, see below for the final check before handing over your money. Places to shop to name 3 that I have used, Autotrader, Facebook Market Place, Copart Car Auction site. There are many other places to find cars, including your friends, family, and just passing them on the street.

Autotrader - Of the 3 it tends to be the more expensive. People pay for the advert, tend to put in more effort to sell them and therefore want a greater return. It is used a lot by car dealers, but there are private individuals selling cheaper than dealers.

Facebook Market Place - The wild west of car sales, but you can find some gems. Just watch for scams where they want you to hand over money before you have seen the car. Check YouTube for details on scams. Here you will find cheap cars where people put zero effort into trying to sell them.

Copart - You may have seen the videos online of people buying their dream cars for knocked down prices. What they may neglect to mention is, not being able to see the car, the auction fees - which soon add up - and even some cases of the pictures being doctored to hide the bumps & scratches that are all over the car.

Final Check

Make sure you check the car with a site like Car Vertical it takes your vehicle registration number and checks it against a massive database of information. This includes checks in 28 countries, across 900 data sources. The checks include damage, theft and mileage. Here is a car I came close to buying that had been written off twice previously and the owner didn't mention it in the advert.

Ok, the car has been purchased, what next?

Next Step - First Lesson

You have access to a car, you have sorted insurance, you have your provisional license, the next step in passing your test with no driving lessons.

First Learner Lesson

Or let's talk coaching

Coaching a learner driver through to a driving test is a challenging time, using the right language and asking the right questions will help them pass their test with no professional lessons.

Coaching a Learner Driver