What's A Good Second Hand Hatchback?

[abrogard]

We need another car while my XY is off the road. Something around $3000. Max, say $5000.

What's a good thing today? Or are they all - as a neighbour said - pretty good today?

Is that price range okay for such a buy?

[Brazen]

Yeah you will get something good for that. Look at Suzuki Swift, Hyundai i20, Toyota Yaris.

I picked up a little 2004 5 speed manual Echo for ducking around in for 2k. Bloody thing only weighs 850kg, it's a hoot.

[.:4:.]

You could probably find an early to mid 2000's corolla in decent shape with that budget. As uninspiring as they are, you seldom here about reliability issues.

[jaydee]

Mazda of course.

[NX74205]

Should be able to get a decent first generation LR Focus for that price. Second generation LS/LT Focus may also be available at the upper end of your budget.

[BradEL]

Mazda 3 or corolla

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by BradEL

Mazda 3 or corolla

If anything like the mazda 6, the 3 should be a reliable car. I've (half, the wifes daily at the time) lived with an 03 6 before and it had no issues at all. It was 8 years old when she got it and the service records showed nothing more then oil and brake pads.

[Sioso]

Agree with the Mazda comments, my wife's had 2 and then we had another as a company car and they have all been faultless.
Clutch just needed to be rebuilt in a 2009 Hyundai i30 1.6CRDi company car with 70,000k's, $5,000! (apparently between $11K and $13K for a new transmission).

[abrogard]

So it looks like Mazda? And maybe Focus?

Thanks guys. I will put all this info before the wife..

[98TLS]

Originally Posted by BradEL

Mazda 3 or corolla

What he said re Corollas,made a living selling them for 5 years and long forgotten how many traded ones ive driven done over 300,000 clicks still running good,sloppy gear stick/steering bushes etc as well the rest of the car good as.

[abrogard]

Sorry, right, Corolla.. I knda fancy that one myself.. familiar with the name... if I like it she won't, you can bet on that...

[98TLS]

Originally Posted by abrogard

Sorry, right, Corolla.. I knda fancy that one myself.. familiar with the name... if I like it she won't, you can bet on that...

Mate your neighbours probably right really ie the big brands ive just no problem recommending Toyotas as ive seen many with huge kms that just keep on keeping on.

[Crazy Dazz]

At that price, you're probably better off looking at something like a Kia.
Mazdas and Corrollas command a high resale, you won't get much for $3k. And keep in mind that if you spend $3k on the car, it probably needs another $3k to make it roadworthy.

May I ask who is going to be driving the car, and for what purposes?
I often find that if you are looking low budget, something like a Falcon is better value for money. But of course if its going to do a lot of driving, the petrol bill will quickly outweigh any savings.

[98TLS]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

At that price, you're probably better off looking at something like a Kia.
Mazdas and Corrollas command a high resale, you won't get much for $3k. And keep in mind that if you spend $3k on the car, it probably needs another $3k to make it roadworthy.

May I ask who is going to be driving the car, and for what purposes?
I often find that if you are looking low budget, something like a Falcon is better value for money. But of course if its going to do a lot of driving, the petrol bill will quickly outweigh any savings.

$3-5K to spend on a second hand hatch,am a Ford bloke through n through but for a fill n/second car to be relied on day in day i wouldnt even consider a Falcon or for that matter a Kia.

[Sabantien]

Before I bought my Falcon I was looking for a small hatch in a slightly higher price range than you're going for.

Focus was the worst thing I drove. It looked 10 years older than it was. The Corolla I had come from was a far better vehicle to drive, and a much more modern cabin.

Fiesta was quite enjoyable to drive. Admittedly my expectations were quite low, but I was pleasantly surprised. At that price you'd be getting something with a numpad on the dash, and I have nfi what it's for.

Personally I like the SX4 and Liana over a Swift, but they should all be pretty good.

I reckon a Corolla would be perfect, but they do tend to be a bit expensive for their age. I know mine was flawless. Until the cricket ball sized hail.

[Crazy Dazz]

Originally Posted by 98TLS

$3-5K to spend on a second hand hatch,am a Ford bloke through n through but for a fill n/second car to be relied on day in day i wouldnt even consider a Falcon or for that matter a Kia.

[mike_nofx]

BF Wagon.

[Crazy Dazz]

If you don't mind the size, $3k will get you a reasonable Barina, Getz, or the equivalent Kia, under 10 years old. Around ~2007
An Accent or Elantra, will be a couple of years older, ~2005. You'll also find Fiestas around there, and a few Focus (Foci?) maybe 2004~2005. The Focus of that era was actually a very good car.
If you want a Corolla for that price, it will be another 5 years older, ~2000, and flogged.

[Lugh]

I'll vote for the Corolla. You will get a very tidy '96 ish 1.8 (ae112) for $3K. I had the Conquest hatch - electric everything, quiet, comfortable and quicker than you think. I got it with 240,000ks on the clock and over the next few years put another 100,000 on it over the next few years. Never any real problems, certainly the most reliable car I've ever owned.
I gave it to a mate of mine when I bought the RTV and it's still going with no issues and over 350,000ks.

[Lugh]

Sorry, that should be Ae102. S'cuse the fat fingers.

[ute83]

Check out the Nissan tiida. I know of two and the owners love them.

[Sprintey]

Had AE90 Hatch back in the day. Very reliable.
Had Echo in 2004 new for 3 years, again nothing went wrong, great build quality and about 6L/100km.

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by abrogard

We need another car while my XY is off the road. Something around $3000. Max, say $5000.

What's a good thing today? Or are they all - as a neighbour said - pretty good today?

Is that price range okay for such a buy?

Im going to go as far as to say the majority recommend something Japanese. The rest us up to you sir.

[abrogard]

yep. and especially the corolla.

i know how good a good old car can be. one time in the past i had to get something cheap and good and a car savvy person told me to look for a datsun 380B, I think it was, something like that.

so i flew in from new guinea and bought the first one I could find in the sydney papers, having no time (or wheels) to go hunting around - drove it up to the Territory and drove it around for the next five years before handing it on.....

and I remember the original VW, too, the beatle.

and I've got an xy (being worked on).

so looks like corolla. I'll encourage the wife to look there...

thanks everyone...

[.:4:.]

Originally Posted by abrogard

yep. and especially the corolla.

i know how good a good old car can be. one time in the past i had to get something cheap and good and a car savvy person told me to look for a datsun 380B, I think it was, something like that.

so i flew in from new guinea and bought the first one I could find in the sydney papers, having no time (or wheels) to go hunting around - drove it up to the Territory and drove it around for the next five years before handing it on.....

and I remember the original VW, too, the beatle.

and I've got an xy (being worked on).

so looks like corolla. I'll encourage the wife to look there...

thanks everyone...

Just try to find one from an elderly seller, they typically are serviced more often then driven, can't go wrong.

[mik]

I would probably pick a toyo as well , we have a driveway full of old toyos and lexus cars and they are generally just built well , i think the ethos of toyota is to build gear to the best of their ability and to make it last as long as possible , not to say they are perfect ........ nothing is , but i reckon they are solid vehicles overall .

[Crazy Dazz]

If all other things were equal, then Toyotas are easily the most reliable small cars.
But because of that they are popular and overpriced.

I suggest you have a look around (I don't actually know where you are based) and see what you can actually buy for your money.
On such a low budget, you are better off keeping an open mind, and looking for a "bargain" something that has been well maintained, and has money recently spent on brakes, cooling, etc, etc.

[malazn mafia]

Toyota Echo. Horrible and plasticky, but will take a thrashing and soldier on. They feel quicker than they really are due to their minimal weight. Handling is actually quite spiritedly too, probably because changing direction in a 700kg package is not exactly hard. Toyota really had their small car game on point from the 90s to the 00s.

[minheim]

Mitsubishi Ce Mirage can be had for less than $3000 and were well built and reliable. However they only came as a 2 door hatchback.

[commodorenutt]

I was just in this situation looking for the best 5-door hatch for $5K for my cousin's wife, and ultimately for his daughter to take over in a year or so.

Limit was $5K. Tonnes of '04-'07 Corollas on Carsales/Gumtree etc. Restrict it to Auto & hatch - that they needed, and all of a sudden 300 results becomes 10.

So we widened it to other makes & models, but the more we looked, the more it pointed back to the reliability of the Corolla, Mazda 3, and Nissan Tiida (or the last pre-Tiida Pulsar).

One Tiida popped up - a deceased estate, but it was gone within 5 minutes of the ad being listed. A few Pulsars looked OK, but not many autos around, and most seemed to have the usual careless young driver battle scars.

Mazda 3 autos just weren't in that $5K budget unless they'd been to the moon & back, or were really trashed manual base models.

So after a couple of weeks considering other models, we ended up back onto Corollas

There was a lot of rubbish ones out there. Starting at $4K for something that looked good, but had done 300+K, and others with low km, but the underside looked like the owner confused them for a landcruiser.

I looked at a couple during the week, and wasn't overly impressed. We narrowed the list to look at 5 on that weekend, and almost gave up hope when each one reminded us how much the photos & ads lie..... Then they found a very tidy one - 8 months rego, power windows, alloys, 170k, perfect paint & trim - for under $5K. The change from $5K paid the transfer & stamp duty, and there's 2 very happy new "owners".

The benefit of the Corolla - timing chains that rarely give trouble (one of the high km cars had guide rattle though). Watch out for some of the GM small cars - they have a belt that needs regular (expensive) changing. I also found all examples - even the high km ones, didn't suffer CV knock like other lower-km brands did.

I wouldn't touch anything korean in that age/price bracket - they may be good cars now, but older ones aren't aging well, although they can be relatively reliable.