Hi Caroline,

Your budget isn’t huge, but we can work with it. You need to pick a small hatchback with a small engine, no bigger than 1.2 litres, as that will be all you can afford to insure. You could do a lot worse than an early example of the Mk2 Fiat Panda (2003-2012) or a decent Mk5 Ford Fiesta (2002-2008), the latter of which should be easy to fix in the event it goes wrong – as there’s a huge availability of parts for such a popular car. Anything Japanese will be reliable, if not massively exciting; something like a 2007 Daihatsu Sirion or a 2006 Toyota Aygo, for instance, will be in your budget.