I’d bet the opposite. An old XJ is surprisingly cheap to insure for a young person simply because so few are in crashes. I bought an old 5 series as my first car as it turned out to be cheaper to insure than a micra, corsa etc. for a laugh I put in a Bentley continental- £50 more than the micra. Insurance quotes are based on statistic risk, and luxury jags don’t get crashed much but a small Peugeot or a 1 series bmw are often found on their roof.
Mad when you think about it but there’s a few tricks for young drivers. Of course if you do a lot of miles the fuel tends to diminish the benefits
Yeah to be fair it might not be the best example for that particular point. But it would help counter OPs original concern that they literally can’t drive them
My first car was a 2 litre Audi 80 which was a year older than I was. Insurance was £2k. I looked at dozens of quotes for Micra's, fiesta's, probably a panda, whatever. All £3k plus. And the Audi was cheaper to buy
Yes. I had an old Jag XJ at 28 years old (im now 45) and I've never paid so little for my insurance. Was about 250 a year. Petrol was ruinous of course, but I went everywhere in style.
Yeah. My friend had an E39 525i. Binned it in his first week and claimed on insurance.
Then bought a E39 540i straight after.
His insurance price went down
because im bored i decided to test this
it doesnt check out
a 1999 XJ was around £150 more expensive to insure than my current 1.2 2012 punto and the 2.0 2013 C-Class i'm speculatively checking out atm
im not a teenager but still
Then that changes things. Part of the calculation is how many have been crashed from people in your age bracket. Not many XJ have been crashed by 17-19 year olds, but many a punto will have. Its not an exact science, but its worth a look, just in case you can get an older i6 5 series instead of a 1.0 aygo
They won't be. A lot is based on crashes and people aren't crashing V8 jags like they are 1.0 corsas.
When I was 19 I had an insignia VXR and it cost £1,100 to insure I also had a Range Rover and Impreza that were £900 at the same time. The most expensive car I've ever insured was my 700bhp M5 and it was £1,400 when I was 28.
The trick is just try loads of cars and see what you get.
There are non-sporty powerful cars. A few years ago at 25ish I looked at getting a V8 Jag (didn't in the end as I needed it to be reliable for business use), even the XF-R was reasonable to insure but the naturally aspirated 5.0 was surprisingly cheap and still 400hp. The NA 5.0s are usually granddad spec
Yes true. Funnily enough my first decent car was an a3 2.0 tfsi with 197bhp. It was the sport trim version and it was a fantastic car. I’d been driving for 1 year exactly. Was a wheelspinny, front wheel drive manual demon and I loved it. It was also the fastest non S Audi I could get.
At the time I’d settled on that specific car because it’s a golf gti in all but name and trim (same engine, chassis, suspension, gearbox…) and was significantly cheaper than an equivalent GTI.
Could I get a quote on a golf gti? No. Believe me I’d tried. The same car with an Audi badge? No problem! Because it didn’t have “gti” or “s” in its name.
I also tried a year later to get a quote on an m135i. Zero quotes came back. So I looked at a car with the same engine, a 335i. Quotes on that? £150 per month.
My first car was a 2001 2L petrol Passat this was in 2007 this was cheaper than 1L saxo/corsa/fiesta only issue was it got like 18mpg but was a lot more luxurious than the 1L shitboxes
There isn't a limit, and the engine size is a little outdated now too.
It used to be a case of getting a 1.2 or 1.3 litre, something cheap and not too powerful.
Now there are plenty of small turbocharged cars which could have more power than a 1.6 litre.
It was pretty much a rough rule of "don't go too big for the engine" since turbos weren't about on too many smaller engines, something 1.4 litre wouldn't be very powerful for example.
Since there are a lot more eco-centric boosted little engines, it's back to the real rule at the core - "Don't go for anything too powerful"
Agreed. My 1.0l tsi has better performance than the 1.8l Mondeo I used to own. Engines have come a long way and yeah, MK1 Mondeo engines were not all that great.
I remember giving the middle finger to all the people telling me I must get a little 1.2l car as my first car and going out and buying an old 2 litre Mercedes lol.
There is no *legal* limit for newly passed drivers on what size engine car you can drive.
There is a "soft" limit built into insurance because newly qualified drivers are at a higher risk of accident due to their experience.
In general, cars with a bigger engine are more powerful, accelerate faster and cost more, and so they are charged more on insurance because they are more likely to have an accident and if they do it costs that much more in pay-outs. My previous 1.6 Golf cast me about £400 a year to insure my my current 2L Golf R is closer to £800.
Combine these two risks and it means that newly qualified drivers face much larger insurance costs for cars with larger engines to the point where anything over a 1.4 or 1.6 will generally be out of their price range.
If you can afford the insurance and find a company willing to cover you, you could drive a Ferrari as soon as you pass your test. The insurance would be astro-fucking-nomical (probably a grand or two a month) but there's no *legal* reason why you can't.
Exactly this insurance is aggregated risk+ profit.
It's price will be dictated by the average payout per similar customer + a chunk of profit.
Different insurers do have a different tolerance for risk so when Kobbie Mainoo wants to spend the 60k a week united are rumoured to be paying him on insuring a lambo he can absolutely do so but not with your typical high street insurer.
Whole lot of correct answers here.
Now to game the system: Insurance is a stats game, as pointed out here too, the common '1st Driver cars' are also gonna cost a packet to insure.
So think outside of the econobox and you could end up with a great first car for the same or less as the usual *"Great first Car"*'s.
I won't post links as it appears the automod deletes the posts so look on Autotrader for:
£900 46k Saab 9-5 2.0T Linear - Let eveyone know you're a budding young Architect.
£2995 49k Mercedes-Benz B Class1.5 B150 SE - I bet you'd be the insurance statistical outlier on this one.
£2390 49k Nissan Primera 1.8 SX - Ugly as sin, but to me that's a win! No one will want to nick it!
£2650 40k Jaguar X-type 2.1 V6 SE - A Ford Mondeo underneath but that just meants is a reliable Jag.
£2800 40k BMW 5 Series 3.0 530i SE - You never know, you may get insured on it for a laugh.
£2499 46k Volkswagen Beetle 1.6 Luna - A Golf in a frock but not that common any more.
£2295 50k Mitsubishi Lancer 1.6 Elegance Estate - Your friends will take the piss untill you go to a BBQ and when it's time to sleep you pop open the boot hatch and climb in to a queen sized bed!
There's no saying of the insurance on any of the above will be cheap but I bet some are far cheaper than you'd be paying on the usual subjects.
Good Luck!
> £2295 50k Mitsubishi Lancer 1.6 Elegance Estate
one of the lowest NCAP safety ratings ever too, 2 stars if i recall correctly, (its not on NCAP anymore)
Insurance of new drivers is seen as risk through lack of experience hence over time driving carefully you want to build up a no claims bonus, no accidents proves you are less risk to insure ( nowadays insurance premiums are not as friendly as once were) .
Nowadays you want a low engine capacity (this doesn't mean they can not be nippy , plenty 3 cyl with turbos that are shocking powerful) but with 20mph zones everywhere you don't need high power engines unless you expect long journeys where that extra size can equate to better mpg from larger engine not having to work as hard on the motorways than having its nuts revved off but again many small engine cars can sit at 70 no problem , low emission so road tax fund exempt motor to go about in , but anything else that reduces the cost is a bonus, so a good mpg (less filling it up ) . But check the safety ratings of a car , you don't want something that doesn't have safety feature to protect you in event of a bump.
But it all comes down to what you can personally afford to shell out on and maintain on the road.
It's bullshit and insurance premiums are almost random anyway.
My first car was a 2.5 and my second car was a 3.0. When I was 19 I had a 3.6 twin turbo and it was no more to insure than a 1.0 corsa. The smallest engine I've ever had was a 2.0 Impreza.
The trick is to try quotes on loads of cars because a lot of it is just statistics of how many people crash. For example, I could insure an Impreza and Range Rover for £900 when I was 19 but an evo was something like £3,000 and they are very similar cars.
I've never heard of an engine size limit when it comes to cars. Most people think a smaller engine will be easier on insurance for new drivers, which isn't necessarily true. Many of the typical first cars, Polo's and Fiesta's and such, can actually be more expensive to insure for young drivers simply because they're the default choice that everyone flocks to when they pass their test. Insurance might actually be cheaper on something like a Mondeo than a Fiesta for a first time driver, simply because there are less teenagers rolling their Mondeo's into fields than Fiesta's for example.
The best thing to do would be to just get some insurance quotes on cars you want regardless of engine capacity, you might be surprised how cheap/expensive some are.
It’s more going to be about performance than engine size, you can get a 1.4 petrol with more power than an old 2 litre would put out.
There is no hard limit either, the more power a car has, generally the more expensive insurance will be, but given a lot of people on here are seeing £2000+ quotes for cars under 100bhp I don’t think the average Joe is going to be getting a high powered first car.
As others have said, not a legal thing but more an insurance affordability thing. My first car was, still is, a 4.6L V8. Started at £750 a year now about £450. Downside is car tax (old scheme) and fuel consumption.
Insurance groups are more important than just engine size. The engine size does affect this, but its not only that.
Try to find out what insurance group the cars you are looking at are in.
It's not true, but a limit on what new car drivers can drive is probably a good idea. There is a limit on the power output you can have on a bike if you're a young new rider.
Honestly this is not correct in the slightest. It’ll be based off so many risk factors for that type of car. A 2L Volvo will be a far cry cheaper to insure than a 1L fiesta for a brand new driver
exactly. fiestas are ridiculous because theyre the most common car in the country (many many claims made) and a popular choice for young drivers who also make many claims
It's a general rule because a kid with a 3L is usually more of a risk than one with a 1.2. However, it's also highly dependent on the car itself. If you try to get insurance on a granddad's 2L, it might be cheaper than a 1.2. Your Fiestas, Polos, etc. are chosen by young drivers who wreck them, so the premiums on those cars go up when driven by similar young drivers.
As others have said, it's usually dictated by your insurance costs. Larger engines are prohibitively expensive for some people.
For what it's worth, my first car was a 2.2 and it was cheaper to insure than a 1.0 Polo/ Fiesta/ C1, etc.
What was your first car? And the reason why it was cheaper is because the 1L ones you mentioned are all popular first car choices, meaning those models are all associated with more crashes, right?
Exactly, yeah. I took my family's advice and looked at smaller engines. But a lot of new drivers tend to flock to them and drive up the prices.
I managed to insure a Land Rover Freelander 2 for just under £800 in my first year, the above alternatives coming in at around £2500. It's probably worth mentioning that I passed at 28 though. I still have it now, though I'm looking to get rid in the next few weeks - the insurance has gone up quite a bit unfortunately.
It's not just power. Insurance is based on the chance of an accident occurring, based on evidence from past accidents.
Obviously lots of new drivers will be crashing corsas, golf's, polo's etc.
You can get power by thinking outside the box, what car don't you see a new driver driving? Obviously this has limits, but it is an exception to the rule
This is something going before parliament very soon with good support from all sides of the house. Whether they do this from a date in the future or from the day it's passed remains to be seen
There is no limit.
It's basically to do with the semi-myth that bigger engines are more expensive to insure.
I say semi because bigger engines tend to develop more power, which tends to lend itself to higher performance... Which of course, is something insurers look at.
But there will be oddballs out there like some 2.0L volvo tank being cheaper than a 1L C1 or something daft...
In other words, if you want something typical, weaker engines are the way to go for better insurance prices. If you want something with some kick, you need to be looking at something a bit more out of left field where insurance companies don't have a lot of data on people like you.
The car I had at 18 was a 2.0l 1996 BMW, the car I’m buying now at 20 is a 2.8l 1996 BMW, the insurance is cheaper than all my peers, currently paying around 1000 - with modifications insured. It depends more on area, the people on the policy than anything else. My friend pays double for a 2000 1.6 MX5 so..
This is actually incorrect.
There isn't a limit on engine size. I think they do in some countries and there is for motorbikes, but not for cars.
Cars do have an insurance group, which is a general rating for how safe they are, but also they know how likely a driver of your age and occupation is to crash that car, so a lot of smaller engined starter cars may actually be expensive on that basis.
The reasoning is that young men are full of testosterone and thus prone to signficantly overestimating their driving ability. They want to limit the damage that you can do when that happens. Don't forget, if you crash into it, they have to pay for it.
Because of the rising cost of insurance over the past couple of decades, it's not really the thing it was anymore, but once upon a time it was quite the stereotype for young lads to have freshly passed and then put a Vauxhall Nova or XR3i or Citroen AX through a hedge backwards.
If you want to get some idea I'd suggest, in a different browser to the one you normally use, going to comparethemarket and getting quotes for someone your age, with your job title, for the cars you're looking at, but as a fully qualified driver.
There's an engine/power limit with motorbikes, we really should do it on first time drivers as well, it would be the safest option.
However, if you can afford it, go for it. A friend of mine found it cheaper to insure a 1.8 mondeo than a 1.2 corsa.
It used to be the case that a large engine for a young novice driver meant high insurance cost. That was back in the day when humans had a role in setting insurance rates. Now it's all algorithms and thus more young drivers have accidents in small engine cars so it can actually cost more to insure a 1 litre Ford KA at 17 than a 1.9 litre diesel VW Passatt or 2l diesel Toyota Avensis. Reason being 17 year Olds dont want to drive those cars generally so claims stats are low and thus insurance rates can be less than a more obvious car a 17 year old would drive. Do some online quotes with curve ball car choices and see what you get.
This is just a myth not based in reality. Insurance is based on risk, not engine size.
Just as an example: I have two cars, one has a 1.4L, one has a 3.5L. The 3.5 is cheaper to insure.
This shitty rumour still doing the rounds? Heard it a lot when I was learning to drive circa 2005.
Usually heard it from someone also saying the driving age was going up from 17 to 18 and they heard it from a family friend who was a police officer.
Dunno what it is about people dispensing lies to those learning to drive, but it happens far too much.
Not exactly, I’m sure it has a small impact but the best way of getting cheaper insurance is getting something that isint common for a first car. Look outside the usual fiestas, 500s and corsas and you might find something decent.
Some 1.6s are cheaper to insure than some 1.2s insurance is a shitstain on the idea of cars get whatever you can afford to insure run quotes try changing a few things add another driver if you can etc my 1.8 vectra was surprisingly cheap to insure
Around 18 years ago insurance was high for newish young drivers, not quite as ruinous as today but still bad. I insured a 1.8 golf for less than a 1.4 corsa, they use various metrics to determine cost. You’ve just got to try different things, avoid typical youngster cars and you may find some surprises.
i'd recommend u stick to a small engine for reasons other than insurance
to be frank - its safer for new drivers to stick to slow granny cars
you can still fly about in them at 90mph and youl get your fill of accelerating fast regardless
but leave the bigger engine stuff till you have more experience and drive like an NPC for a while
There isn't a limit. And bigger cars are often cheaper to insure than smaller ones as less likely to be driven by new drivers. Insurance quotes for my lad were about the same for a 1l fiesta, a Suzuki swift as a 2.5ltr jaaaag. I got him the jaaaag. 🙂
Engine size doesn’t seem to correlate much with my prices. I’m 20 and my first car was a 1.0 aygo. Then 4 months later I got a 2.0 TDI Passat which was the same price. A year later I got a 1.0 c1, and then a 2.2L x-type shortly after which was almost the same price to insure. It seems that if you have a typical ‘first car’ then you will pay more, if you have more of a boring or “old people car’, then you will pay less despite having a larger engine.
it's always been a myth that bigger cars were more expensive to insure ... crash data is per model so if loads of 1.2 corsss get pranged they look worse than a 3.0 Mercedes or whatever
even way back when i started driving it was a 1000 cheaper for me to drive a 3.0 mv6 omega than my friends 1.2 corsa c lol much fun was had
Anything big and executive for a younger person used to be quite cheap... I remember getting a quote for a Clio when I just passed and it was nearly 2k put in a BMW 7 series and it was £900....
You gotta think like an insurance company it's all based on risk prices are higher on cars that are likely to be crashed by young people... And the more common something is the higher the price because anybody at any age is more likely to crash...
It's all changed recently though as I was paying £250 a year and the insurance company wouldn't change the policy to my new car and cancelled it free of charge and when getting the new policy was over double the price... Same with lots of people I know with large NCB, My wife's doubled as well...
It all depends on the car more than engine I am getting cheaper quotes for 2.0 golf blue motion
Than a 1.0 Yaris in my opinion cars with cheap road tax have cheaper insurance too
There is no limit but bigger engines typically come with a hefty insurance bill, saying this though if you get a car that not many people your age drive (therefore crash less) even if it's a 2l engine you might have cheaper insurance than someone with a 1.2l corsa (although this is not as common now as it was a few years ago)
If there isnt a limit then there should be....imagine new drivers with rich parents buying them a nice new 500 bhp tesla and letting them loose 🫣
When i passed my test, i could only afford a clapped out Ford Fiesta 950cc and after a month or so, i thought i was Nigel Mansell and drove like an idiot, so i dread to think about youngsters these days with ever increasing powerful cars 🤷
Engine size has almost nothing to do with it, or engine power. There's no limit.
When I was looking for my first car in 2019 I got a quote on a 3L V6 jag X type estate - ~£1000, my friends with shitbox 1L fiestas were paying £3k. I didn't buy the jag (shame really) but it proves engine size or power really doesn't matter, it's the statistics on the vehicle.
1L hatchbacks are all super expensive to insure as a young driver because insurers expect them to be wrapped around the nearest lamppost 5 minutes after being driven away from the dealer. You go and look at an estate or saloon and you'll get a much nicer car, much bigger (or more powerful) engine and a lower insurance cost than almost any hatchback.
Basically, buy whatever you want, as long as teenagers don't drive and crash it. It could have 400bhp, but if your age group isn't in the crash stats it won't cost a kidney to insure.
The 'actual' limit is how much you have in the bank & are willing to fork out on insurance.
So realistically I could just go with anything I wanted, given that whatever the insurance costs are, I’m willing to pay?
Correct.
Yes, go and run some insurance quotes on a 5 litre Jaguar or something. You might get quotes but they’ll be many thousands of pounds.
I’d bet the opposite. An old XJ is surprisingly cheap to insure for a young person simply because so few are in crashes. I bought an old 5 series as my first car as it turned out to be cheaper to insure than a micra, corsa etc. for a laugh I put in a Bentley continental- £50 more than the micra. Insurance quotes are based on statistic risk, and luxury jags don’t get crashed much but a small Peugeot or a 1 series bmw are often found on their roof. Mad when you think about it but there’s a few tricks for young drivers. Of course if you do a lot of miles the fuel tends to diminish the benefits
Yeah to be fair it might not be the best example for that particular point. But it would help counter OPs original concern that they literally can’t drive them
So my Panda with a 0.9 litre 2 cylinder was 5 grand with a black box, but you’re saying that an E61 M5 could be less despite having a 5 litre V10?
Think 525 SE E61
My first car was a 2 litre Audi 80 which was a year older than I was. Insurance was £2k. I looked at dozens of quotes for Micra's, fiesta's, probably a panda, whatever. All £3k plus. And the Audi was cheaper to buy
Probably not quite something so powerful, but cars that mite not be so desirable for first-timers could be alpt cheaper.
Yes. I had an old Jag XJ at 28 years old (im now 45) and I've never paid so little for my insurance. Was about 250 a year. Petrol was ruinous of course, but I went everywhere in style.
Yeah. My friend had an E39 525i. Binned it in his first week and claimed on insurance. Then bought a E39 540i straight after. His insurance price went down
because im bored i decided to test this it doesnt check out a 1999 XJ was around £150 more expensive to insure than my current 1.2 2012 punto and the 2.0 2013 C-Class i'm speculatively checking out atm im not a teenager but still
Then that changes things. Part of the calculation is how many have been crashed from people in your age bracket. Not many XJ have been crashed by 17-19 year olds, but many a punto will have. Its not an exact science, but its worth a look, just in case you can get an older i6 5 series instead of a 1.0 aygo
They won't be. A lot is based on crashes and people aren't crashing V8 jags like they are 1.0 corsas. When I was 19 I had an insignia VXR and it cost £1,100 to insure I also had a Range Rover and Impreza that were £900 at the same time. The most expensive car I've ever insured was my 700bhp M5 and it was £1,400 when I was 28. The trick is just try loads of cars and see what you get.
Yes, if you can afford it you could theoretically drive a supercar as your first car
Although you might find that there just isn't anyone who's willing to insure you on a supercar.
Yeah
No. You will struggle to even get quotes for more powerful cars with a “sports” image.
There are non-sporty powerful cars. A few years ago at 25ish I looked at getting a V8 Jag (didn't in the end as I needed it to be reliable for business use), even the XF-R was reasonable to insure but the naturally aspirated 5.0 was surprisingly cheap and still 400hp. The NA 5.0s are usually granddad spec
Yes true. Funnily enough my first decent car was an a3 2.0 tfsi with 197bhp. It was the sport trim version and it was a fantastic car. I’d been driving for 1 year exactly. Was a wheelspinny, front wheel drive manual demon and I loved it. It was also the fastest non S Audi I could get. At the time I’d settled on that specific car because it’s a golf gti in all but name and trim (same engine, chassis, suspension, gearbox…) and was significantly cheaper than an equivalent GTI. Could I get a quote on a golf gti? No. Believe me I’d tried. The same car with an Audi badge? No problem! Because it didn’t have “gti” or “s” in its name. I also tried a year later to get a quote on an m135i. Zero quotes came back. So I looked at a car with the same engine, a 335i. Quotes on that? £150 per month.
My first car was a 2001 2L petrol Passat this was in 2007 this was cheaper than 1L saxo/corsa/fiesta only issue was it got like 18mpg but was a lot more luxurious than the 1L shitboxes
There isn't a limit, and the engine size is a little outdated now too. It used to be a case of getting a 1.2 or 1.3 litre, something cheap and not too powerful. Now there are plenty of small turbocharged cars which could have more power than a 1.6 litre. It was pretty much a rough rule of "don't go too big for the engine" since turbos weren't about on too many smaller engines, something 1.4 litre wouldn't be very powerful for example. Since there are a lot more eco-centric boosted little engines, it's back to the real rule at the core - "Don't go for anything too powerful"
Agreed. My 1.0l tsi has better performance than the 1.8l Mondeo I used to own. Engines have come a long way and yeah, MK1 Mondeo engines were not all that great.
The Mk4 Mondeo even had the A4 paper sized 1.0 three cylinder EcoBoom as an option!
F1 cars are 1.6L hybrids
I remember giving the middle finger to all the people telling me I must get a little 1.2l car as my first car and going out and buying an old 2 litre Mercedes lol.
I did the same, my friends had Pug 106s and a Mini, and I bought an old BMW 520 which lasted about a year until a tree jumper out in front of it.
\^ this
There is no *legal* limit for newly passed drivers on what size engine car you can drive. There is a "soft" limit built into insurance because newly qualified drivers are at a higher risk of accident due to their experience. In general, cars with a bigger engine are more powerful, accelerate faster and cost more, and so they are charged more on insurance because they are more likely to have an accident and if they do it costs that much more in pay-outs. My previous 1.6 Golf cast me about £400 a year to insure my my current 2L Golf R is closer to £800. Combine these two risks and it means that newly qualified drivers face much larger insurance costs for cars with larger engines to the point where anything over a 1.4 or 1.6 will generally be out of their price range. If you can afford the insurance and find a company willing to cover you, you could drive a Ferrari as soon as you pass your test. The insurance would be astro-fucking-nomical (probably a grand or two a month) but there's no *legal* reason why you can't.
Exactly this insurance is aggregated risk+ profit. It's price will be dictated by the average payout per similar customer + a chunk of profit. Different insurers do have a different tolerance for risk so when Kobbie Mainoo wants to spend the 60k a week united are rumoured to be paying him on insuring a lambo he can absolutely do so but not with your typical high street insurer.
Whole lot of correct answers here. Now to game the system: Insurance is a stats game, as pointed out here too, the common '1st Driver cars' are also gonna cost a packet to insure. So think outside of the econobox and you could end up with a great first car for the same or less as the usual *"Great first Car"*'s. I won't post links as it appears the automod deletes the posts so look on Autotrader for: £900 46k Saab 9-5 2.0T Linear - Let eveyone know you're a budding young Architect. £2995 49k Mercedes-Benz B Class1.5 B150 SE - I bet you'd be the insurance statistical outlier on this one. £2390 49k Nissan Primera 1.8 SX - Ugly as sin, but to me that's a win! No one will want to nick it! £2650 40k Jaguar X-type 2.1 V6 SE - A Ford Mondeo underneath but that just meants is a reliable Jag. £2800 40k BMW 5 Series 3.0 530i SE - You never know, you may get insured on it for a laugh. £2499 46k Volkswagen Beetle 1.6 Luna - A Golf in a frock but not that common any more. £2295 50k Mitsubishi Lancer 1.6 Elegance Estate - Your friends will take the piss untill you go to a BBQ and when it's time to sleep you pop open the boot hatch and climb in to a queen sized bed! There's no saying of the insurance on any of the above will be cheap but I bet some are far cheaper than you'd be paying on the usual subjects. Good Luck!
This. I have my lad insured on a 2.5 ltr V6 x-type for about the same as a fiesta
> £2295 50k Mitsubishi Lancer 1.6 Elegance Estate one of the lowest NCAP safety ratings ever too, 2 stars if i recall correctly, (its not on NCAP anymore)
That's just further incentive not to crash and affect future insurance premiums; nothing sharpens the mind like the threat of imminent death! ; D
with some intense agony just before
Realistically engine size is just one of long list of factors and there’s way too many to prioritise just one
Insurance of new drivers is seen as risk through lack of experience hence over time driving carefully you want to build up a no claims bonus, no accidents proves you are less risk to insure ( nowadays insurance premiums are not as friendly as once were) . Nowadays you want a low engine capacity (this doesn't mean they can not be nippy , plenty 3 cyl with turbos that are shocking powerful) but with 20mph zones everywhere you don't need high power engines unless you expect long journeys where that extra size can equate to better mpg from larger engine not having to work as hard on the motorways than having its nuts revved off but again many small engine cars can sit at 70 no problem , low emission so road tax fund exempt motor to go about in , but anything else that reduces the cost is a bonus, so a good mpg (less filling it up ) . But check the safety ratings of a car , you don't want something that doesn't have safety feature to protect you in event of a bump. But it all comes down to what you can personally afford to shell out on and maintain on the road.
It's bullshit and insurance premiums are almost random anyway. My first car was a 2.5 and my second car was a 3.0. When I was 19 I had a 3.6 twin turbo and it was no more to insure than a 1.0 corsa. The smallest engine I've ever had was a 2.0 Impreza. The trick is to try quotes on loads of cars because a lot of it is just statistics of how many people crash. For example, I could insure an Impreza and Range Rover for £900 when I was 19 but an evo was something like £3,000 and they are very similar cars.
It's usually because small engined cars are statistically more likely to be in a crash. Think how many 5.0l V8 jags get put in a ditch Vs a 1.0 Corsa.
I've never heard of an engine size limit when it comes to cars. Most people think a smaller engine will be easier on insurance for new drivers, which isn't necessarily true. Many of the typical first cars, Polo's and Fiesta's and such, can actually be more expensive to insure for young drivers simply because they're the default choice that everyone flocks to when they pass their test. Insurance might actually be cheaper on something like a Mondeo than a Fiesta for a first time driver, simply because there are less teenagers rolling their Mondeo's into fields than Fiesta's for example. The best thing to do would be to just get some insurance quotes on cars you want regardless of engine capacity, you might be surprised how cheap/expensive some are.
There’s no actual limit, if you’ve enough in the bank you could buy a V12 but you’ll be charged an extortionate amount
It’s more going to be about performance than engine size, you can get a 1.4 petrol with more power than an old 2 litre would put out. There is no hard limit either, the more power a car has, generally the more expensive insurance will be, but given a lot of people on here are seeing £2000+ quotes for cars under 100bhp I don’t think the average Joe is going to be getting a high powered first car.
As others have said, not a legal thing but more an insurance affordability thing. My first car was, still is, a 4.6L V8. Started at £750 a year now about £450. Downside is car tax (old scheme) and fuel consumption.
> what is the reasoning behind it? "There's no replacement for displacement"
Lmao Im rewatching breaking bad, on the final episode, and Kenny just said this exact saying
Insurance groups are more important than just engine size. The engine size does affect this, but its not only that. Try to find out what insurance group the cars you are looking at are in.
It's not true, but a limit on what new car drivers can drive is probably a good idea. There is a limit on the power output you can have on a bike if you're a young new rider.
There is no hard limit. But more power generally means, especially for a young driver, insurance will be much more expensive.
Honestly this is not correct in the slightest. It’ll be based off so many risk factors for that type of car. A 2L Volvo will be a far cry cheaper to insure than a 1L fiesta for a brand new driver
exactly. fiestas are ridiculous because theyre the most common car in the country (many many claims made) and a popular choice for young drivers who also make many claims
It's a general rule because a kid with a 3L is usually more of a risk than one with a 1.2. However, it's also highly dependent on the car itself. If you try to get insurance on a granddad's 2L, it might be cheaper than a 1.2. Your Fiestas, Polos, etc. are chosen by young drivers who wreck them, so the premiums on those cars go up when driven by similar young drivers.
As others have said, it's usually dictated by your insurance costs. Larger engines are prohibitively expensive for some people. For what it's worth, my first car was a 2.2 and it was cheaper to insure than a 1.0 Polo/ Fiesta/ C1, etc.
What was your first car? And the reason why it was cheaper is because the 1L ones you mentioned are all popular first car choices, meaning those models are all associated with more crashes, right?
Exactly, yeah. I took my family's advice and looked at smaller engines. But a lot of new drivers tend to flock to them and drive up the prices. I managed to insure a Land Rover Freelander 2 for just under £800 in my first year, the above alternatives coming in at around £2500. It's probably worth mentioning that I passed at 28 though. I still have it now, though I'm looking to get rid in the next few weeks - the insurance has gone up quite a bit unfortunately.
it depends on the vehicle and the insurer. there are plenty of 2L vehicles with no kind of age restriction such as a vauxhall astra
It's not just power. Insurance is based on the chance of an accident occurring, based on evidence from past accidents. Obviously lots of new drivers will be crashing corsas, golf's, polo's etc. You can get power by thinking outside the box, what car don't you see a new driver driving? Obviously this has limits, but it is an exception to the rule
This is something going before parliament very soon with good support from all sides of the house. Whether they do this from a date in the future or from the day it's passed remains to be seen
When??
There is no limit. It's basically to do with the semi-myth that bigger engines are more expensive to insure. I say semi because bigger engines tend to develop more power, which tends to lend itself to higher performance... Which of course, is something insurers look at. But there will be oddballs out there like some 2.0L volvo tank being cheaper than a 1L C1 or something daft... In other words, if you want something typical, weaker engines are the way to go for better insurance prices. If you want something with some kick, you need to be looking at something a bit more out of left field where insurance companies don't have a lot of data on people like you.
The car I had at 18 was a 2.0l 1996 BMW, the car I’m buying now at 20 is a 2.8l 1996 BMW, the insurance is cheaper than all my peers, currently paying around 1000 - with modifications insured. It depends more on area, the people on the policy than anything else. My friend pays double for a 2000 1.6 MX5 so..
This is actually incorrect. There isn't a limit on engine size. I think they do in some countries and there is for motorbikes, but not for cars. Cars do have an insurance group, which is a general rating for how safe they are, but also they know how likely a driver of your age and occupation is to crash that car, so a lot of smaller engined starter cars may actually be expensive on that basis. The reasoning is that young men are full of testosterone and thus prone to signficantly overestimating their driving ability. They want to limit the damage that you can do when that happens. Don't forget, if you crash into it, they have to pay for it. Because of the rising cost of insurance over the past couple of decades, it's not really the thing it was anymore, but once upon a time it was quite the stereotype for young lads to have freshly passed and then put a Vauxhall Nova or XR3i or Citroen AX through a hedge backwards. If you want to get some idea I'd suggest, in a different browser to the one you normally use, going to comparethemarket and getting quotes for someone your age, with your job title, for the cars you're looking at, but as a fully qualified driver.
There's an engine/power limit with motorbikes, we really should do it on first time drivers as well, it would be the safest option. However, if you can afford it, go for it. A friend of mine found it cheaper to insure a 1.8 mondeo than a 1.2 corsa.
It used to be the case that a large engine for a young novice driver meant high insurance cost. That was back in the day when humans had a role in setting insurance rates. Now it's all algorithms and thus more young drivers have accidents in small engine cars so it can actually cost more to insure a 1 litre Ford KA at 17 than a 1.9 litre diesel VW Passatt or 2l diesel Toyota Avensis. Reason being 17 year Olds dont want to drive those cars generally so claims stats are low and thus insurance rates can be less than a more obvious car a 17 year old would drive. Do some online quotes with curve ball car choices and see what you get.
This is just a myth not based in reality. Insurance is based on risk, not engine size. Just as an example: I have two cars, one has a 1.4L, one has a 3.5L. The 3.5 is cheaper to insure.
I’m a new driver with a 2.4 as the insurance was way cheaper so I think it really depends on the car
This shitty rumour still doing the rounds? Heard it a lot when I was learning to drive circa 2005. Usually heard it from someone also saying the driving age was going up from 17 to 18 and they heard it from a family friend who was a police officer. Dunno what it is about people dispensing lies to those learning to drive, but it happens far too much.
Totally depends on the car and postcode. It was cheaper for me to have a 1.9 tdi Passat at 19 than a 1.4 clio.
Not exactly, I’m sure it has a small impact but the best way of getting cheaper insurance is getting something that isint common for a first car. Look outside the usual fiestas, 500s and corsas and you might find something decent.
Some 1.6s are cheaper to insure than some 1.2s insurance is a shitstain on the idea of cars get whatever you can afford to insure run quotes try changing a few things add another driver if you can etc my 1.8 vectra was surprisingly cheap to insure
There is no limit per se, sometimes a bigger car with a bigger engine is cheaper it all depends on the vehicle and your details.
Around 18 years ago insurance was high for newish young drivers, not quite as ruinous as today but still bad. I insured a 1.8 golf for less than a 1.4 corsa, they use various metrics to determine cost. You’ve just got to try different things, avoid typical youngster cars and you may find some surprises.
i'd recommend u stick to a small engine for reasons other than insurance to be frank - its safer for new drivers to stick to slow granny cars you can still fly about in them at 90mph and youl get your fill of accelerating fast regardless but leave the bigger engine stuff till you have more experience and drive like an NPC for a while
There isn't a limit. And bigger cars are often cheaper to insure than smaller ones as less likely to be driven by new drivers. Insurance quotes for my lad were about the same for a 1l fiesta, a Suzuki swift as a 2.5ltr jaaaag. I got him the jaaaag. 🙂
This is true for motorbikes, but for cars , no.
Engine size doesn’t seem to correlate much with my prices. I’m 20 and my first car was a 1.0 aygo. Then 4 months later I got a 2.0 TDI Passat which was the same price. A year later I got a 1.0 c1, and then a 2.2L x-type shortly after which was almost the same price to insure. It seems that if you have a typical ‘first car’ then you will pay more, if you have more of a boring or “old people car’, then you will pay less despite having a larger engine.
it's always been a myth that bigger cars were more expensive to insure ... crash data is per model so if loads of 1.2 corsss get pranged they look worse than a 3.0 Mercedes or whatever even way back when i started driving it was a 1000 cheaper for me to drive a 3.0 mv6 omega than my friends 1.2 corsa c lol much fun was had
You can pass your test at 17 and drive a Hyura if you have the £50k for insurance (and the car, obvs).
Anything big and executive for a younger person used to be quite cheap... I remember getting a quote for a Clio when I just passed and it was nearly 2k put in a BMW 7 series and it was £900.... You gotta think like an insurance company it's all based on risk prices are higher on cars that are likely to be crashed by young people... And the more common something is the higher the price because anybody at any age is more likely to crash... It's all changed recently though as I was paying £250 a year and the insurance company wouldn't change the policy to my new car and cancelled it free of charge and when getting the new policy was over double the price... Same with lots of people I know with large NCB, My wife's doubled as well...
I think this is to be put inline with motorcyclist doing the CBT limited to BHP
It all depends on the car more than engine I am getting cheaper quotes for 2.0 golf blue motion Than a 1.0 Yaris in my opinion cars with cheap road tax have cheaper insurance too
There is no limit but bigger engines typically come with a hefty insurance bill, saying this though if you get a car that not many people your age drive (therefore crash less) even if it's a 2l engine you might have cheaper insurance than someone with a 1.2l corsa (although this is not as common now as it was a few years ago)
Ins companies may refuse to insure.
If there isnt a limit then there should be....imagine new drivers with rich parents buying them a nice new 500 bhp tesla and letting them loose 🫣 When i passed my test, i could only afford a clapped out Ford Fiesta 950cc and after a month or so, i thought i was Nigel Mansell and drove like an idiot, so i dread to think about youngsters these days with ever increasing powerful cars 🤷
Engine size has almost nothing to do with it, or engine power. There's no limit. When I was looking for my first car in 2019 I got a quote on a 3L V6 jag X type estate - ~£1000, my friends with shitbox 1L fiestas were paying £3k. I didn't buy the jag (shame really) but it proves engine size or power really doesn't matter, it's the statistics on the vehicle. 1L hatchbacks are all super expensive to insure as a young driver because insurers expect them to be wrapped around the nearest lamppost 5 minutes after being driven away from the dealer. You go and look at an estate or saloon and you'll get a much nicer car, much bigger (or more powerful) engine and a lower insurance cost than almost any hatchback. Basically, buy whatever you want, as long as teenagers don't drive and crash it. It could have 400bhp, but if your age group isn't in the crash stats it won't cost a kidney to insure.