Buying a car in UK

What should I look for, and/or anyone want to help me? Its not to be immideatly, as I've not even close to sorted visas, but I'm praying for march, at least.... But I need to know what I can about it, and also about getting insurance when not a UK citizen/resident

MOT and Tax - as much as you can on both. Full service history also if possible. Low mileage. Really good places to look are local papers to the area, www.trade-it.co.uk and www.autotrader.co.uk for adverts. They will generally have a £500 and under and maybe a £1000 and under section.

Insurance - not sure about the UK citizenship stuff by maybe try ringing one of the companys up and asking about it. Some might have something on line about it.

dont ask mynci for pointers he just blows them up

cant help with the car problem but i worked for an insurance company for three years

you'll be able to get the car insured on a u.s lisence
how long are you planing to be over here for

Fair enough, just didn't want to call internationally at the moment. whats MOT? and for that matter whats tax, in context?

An MOT is a yearly test that all cars older than 3 years have to go through to be road legal. It's a basic safety test of all cars. All cars also have to be taxed. You can buy tax for 6 months or for 12 months so the longer the better as you'll save yourself some money.

Have a look at www.dvla.gov.uk for details. They are the driver and vehicle licensing people. They rule the roads.

Dont tell the dealer you are useless with cars, because we have cowboy everything here, builders, plumbers, electriction, mechanics, car dealers, and he will take your for a ride and rip you off

Get clued up and go in sounding like you know what your talking about.

Can you drive a manual or just automatic, auto gearboxes are pretty rare over here especially on older cars.

I can drive a manual, altho as I havn't in six years I figure I'm good for a few stalls again likely (well, except *once* in the past year, and I didn't stall it, but it wasn't the smoothest ride ever known to man....).

Only tip i can give is - dont buy one off of mynci

Why don't you just move to a big town with good public transport? Will save you lots of hassle... in my experience, cheap cars usually cost so much extra for repairs

Well, see, I would be, if all goes well (I'm worried again :/) working in markington, which is a small town in the harrogate area. This would be all fine and dandy except living on site is very expensive and living off site not very likley. Living in Harrogate seems to be expensive besides perhaps not being good in the winter, and really, for what less than it would cost me to live on site I can have a car and run it, if I live somewhere cheap enough.

I've had great luck with cheap cars here, but of course not everyone does.

If anyone knows of a stable thats within two miles of a town which has good public trans tho, let me know!!! (Or is, like york, small enough not to need it!)

Well, if you're looking for a reliable car, get a small Japanese car. A little more expensive than others around its age and mileage etc, but normally cheap-ish on road tax and pretty much sails MOTs every time (Mine does anyway).

I'd do a little research on the public transport nearby when you get the chance before you look for a car.

you are going to get done with the insurance price. i have a british passport but a canadian license. and i'm feeling the pain. you may be able to transfer your license over, i vaguely remember some rule about trading in your license without being tested. but it only applied in the first year of living in the UK. the DVLA site will be your friend. try to get some online insurance quotes to see what the price will be on a foriegn license too. here's some to get you started.

http://www.churchill.com/

http://www.admiral.com/

http://www.swinton.co.uk/

Oooh! Thanks so much! I shall now play with these until they yeild decent things.... or indecent, as the case may be.

Indecent is far more likely regarding insurance in the UK!

not fair.... not fair... not fair....
I have the 2nd car i blew up back now

You can trade your licence over at any time. I lived in the UK for three three years before I traded my South African licence over, but the insurance is a hell of a lot cheeper now, even though I still have to pay more because I'm under 25. So its defenitly worth trading the licence over. You fill out some forms from the post office and pay £40. Two weeks later youll have your uk driving licence come through the post.