WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 26, 2019 11:30:12 GMT
I think I’ve read here of people finding that big, old cars can be surprisingly affordable insurance choices where young drivers are involved.
Boy1, 18, is still a non-driver and has no immediate need to change that. Boy2, 16-and-a-half, is clearly thinking ahead. We had a half-term outing together yesterday, and talked about his ideas of learning to drive and what might make a suitable practice vehicle for the two of them, neither the CLS nor the i3 being really suitable for the purpose. He agrees that experience with manual gearboxes will be useful for a few years yet.
Which is when the conversation turned to my long-held wish for a Saab 900.
✅Manual
✅Petrol engine
✅Crash safe (comparable to a small modern car, anyway)
✅Cheap to own (assuming close to nil depreciation and not too many repairs)
✅Parental fun factor (would have been great for our two-hours-each-way cross-country trip yesterday.)
❓Insurable
❓Potential for electric conversion (bit mad, I know, but it might work)
Significantly, at that point he whipped out his phone (actually, he’s sixteen, so it was presumably already in his hand) and seconds later announced, “Oh yes, that’s fabulous!” His only other opinion on cars concerns the Fiat 500, and this one is the opposite of that, which is encouraging.
So the insurance is the main question. And I suppose the only way is to find a broker and see what might be possible.
I know a couple of regulars here have insured young drivers. What’s the best structure for a policy — young main driver plus parents as named additionals?
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Post by tyrednexited on Oct 26, 2019 11:52:32 GMT
.....adding myself and SWMBO to my son's insurance gave a significant reduction to the premium when he first took out his own insurance. This difference slowly reduced until renewal at 25 more or less zeroes it out.
Maybe not relevant (at least for the existing cars) but if you want a cheap way of giving him extra experience, specialist learner insurance on your own vehicle (an additional policy) can be a cost-effective way of achieving that (though he would have to be accompanied). Took out a couple of months of this on SWMBO's car, and then let him drive us everywhere when he was available.
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Post by Humph on Oct 26, 2019 11:55:27 GMT
For what it's worth, I learned to drive on my father's Volvo 244. Not that big by today's standards but was seen as pretty big then. Upside I guess was that I've never found modern cars "too big".
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 26, 2019 13:09:58 GMT
The 240-series Volvos were as long as a modern E. Not as wide, though, which helps with confidence in traffic, and those flat sides would have made lining up a parking space easier. My Mk3 Escort was similarly square-cornered, which made it a nicer first car than many smaller ones. (Possibly helped that I'd passed my test in a very similar car.)
The 900 is about the length of a modern C, and slimmer and slabbier, as cars were in the olden days. I'd have no worries about a young driver in one from that point of view.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 26, 2019 13:23:30 GMT
.....adding myself and SWMBO to my son's insurance gave a significant reduction to the premium when he first took out his own insurance. This difference slowly reduced until renewal at 25 more or less zeroes it out. That's the kind of thing I was hoping for. Ideally we'd choose something that we, the parents, would get some use out of for fun, and which could then be available to the spawn in vacations - if universities still call them that. Maybe not relevant (at least for the existing cars) but if you want a cheap way of giving him extra experience, specialist learner insurance on your own vehicle (an additional policy) can be a cost-effective way of achieving that (though he would have to be accompanied). Took out a couple of months of this on SWMBO's car, and then let him drive us everywhere when he was available. I'm resigned to them both doing all their pre-test practice in driving school cars, and I doubt either will drive either of our main cars for some years to come. So a third car big enough to make a viable pub taxi has obvious appeal. 🍻 |
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Post by tyrednexited on Oct 26, 2019 13:54:25 GMT
I'm resigned to them both doing all their pre-test practice in driving school cars, and I doubt either will drive either of our main cars for some years to come. So a third car big enough to make a viable pub taxi has obvious appeal. 🍻 ...but if you wanted to place a bet, so to speak, you could at the right point preemptively buy the lad's car, register and insure it in your name, then take out the additional "learner" policy in his name. I'm pretty sure it would be (much) cheaper than adding him as a learner to either of your existing cars (which you probably wouldn't savour anyway), is utterly and entirely legal as long as primarily you used it in the interim (no "fronting" involved here at all), and, given that the learner insurance can be bought and extended largely in monthly chunks, the only issue then is that it isn't valid once he's passed his test, so you would have to sort the insurance at that point by cancelling yours, passing on ownership of the car and re-insuring in his name, or if he would be genuinely not the prime driver from that point (beware "fronting"), adding him as a named driver. One advantage is that he gets (supervised) experience before passing his test in the car he will be using unsupervised afterwards. (Of course, you can't use his services as a pub taxi whilst he's a learner unless a supervising driver remains sober  ) |
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Post by bromptonaut on Oct 27, 2019 9:03:48 GMT
For what it's worth, I learned to drive on my father's Volvo 244. Not that big by today's standards but was seen as pretty big then. Upside I guess was that I've never found modern cars "too big". Daughter did her practice in my Xantia Estate and used it regularly after passing her test. Several of her mates expressed surprise at a petite 18yo happily piloting a large car and placing it accurately in parking spaces. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2019 11:53:00 GMT
Learning in a large car gives you huge confidence. I was driving HGVs around a yard when I was 13, so parking an E-class has no worries for me. Kids only practiced in smaller cars and their abilities at getting a car out of a tight spot are noticeable by their limitations.
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 28, 2019 22:12:58 GMT
Now that I've found a possible, and only slightly spurious, justification for a 900, I can't bloody find one.Ah, no, as you were. There are a few about. Just not as many nice red Turbos as usual - but then maybe this one would do: www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201910103170941 |
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Post by Humph on Oct 29, 2019 13:49:36 GMT
That does look nice, not sure if it's a particularly suitable learner car, but it might scratch your itch while doing so.
I miss Saab. It has left a gap in the market that other brands can't quite fill. There was something inexplicably reassuring about a chap who had a Saab.
I've never had one, and it's too late now I suppose, but I did very much like them.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2019 15:55:06 GMT
I had a Saab. It was a 9000 LPT and was large, spacious, comfortable but very dull and Espadrille hated it. I sold it and discovered a year later the engine had had to be totally rebuilt.
But I could see the attraction of the original 95/96 and 99s; even the updated 900s. They do fill the gap between the flash git Audi/BMW drivers and the steady Jag/Mercs of this world. A huge generalisation I know but I can imagine that Honda would have worked well with Saab in the 80s and 90s.
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Post by Humph on Oct 29, 2019 16:13:18 GMT
Saab drivers, almost certainly only in my imagination, looked like people who were probably actually good at something, rather than people who just wanted to look like they might be.
Feel free to scoff or ignore of course.
😉
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WDB
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Post by WDB on Oct 29, 2019 16:15:49 GMT
There was something inexplicably reassuring about a chap who had a Saab. So it might counterbalance the CLS influence on your opinion of me? 🤠 |
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Post by Humph on Oct 29, 2019 16:20:07 GMT
Oh I've never really judged you on the CLS, it's obviously just your mid-life thing...it's ok, really...😉
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Post by Humph on Oct 29, 2019 16:25:16 GMT
Anyway, come to think, a Saab convertible is just about the only drop top a proper chap can get away with. In polite company. Not sure why.
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