What car to choose?

[jryisme]

Hi there,

I'm a new driver who is about to get his driver license in this summer. I don't have so much knowledge or experience on vehicles. Also I don't plan to spend more than 10,000€ on my first car. And I personally prefer hatchback cars.

So here is my packed questions:

1. As a completely new driver, shall I choose a more expensive car? Or do I just choose a cheaper one for practicing and then change it after driving a while?

2. Is there any brand/model you want to recommend?

3. Is there any brand/model I should avoid?

I have no where to get this kind of information suitable for Finland but here. Thank you for you help.

[rinso]

First decide where you need a car for. Then figure out what features the car needs to have.
Look in your wallet what you can afford.
Then ask the question again.

[FinnGuyHelsinki]

One really cannot give a definitive answer; if budget, condition/mileage, size, fuel type, transmission type (if you absolutely want or need an automatic) all check out, any common enough make/model will be fine. Generally a good buy is one that is a few years old (but not much older) if you are planning to keep it longer, that way the initial biggest price drop has already happened and you still get plenty of worry-free use out of it. The cheapest option often is not to get a car at all (the insurance, tires, maintenance,... can easily be a four figure sum annually, so it's not just the purchase price that you're paying), or get a rust-bucket going for a few hundred euros and replace it whenever an issue costing more than getting another one will rise arise. Naturally those options can be quite a bit more troublesome.

[riku2]

i would certainly consider buying one from germany, with 10k euro you can get an older bmw or mercedes and after a few years sell it and have not lost so much as if you'd have bought some cheap model (toyota, honda) in finland and have it drop more money in those years. While you drive it you will also enjoy it more and have more extras than cars sold in finland have.
compare what you get here http://www.mobile.de/ with what you get here http://www.nettiauto.com/. Be sure to adjust for the import tax you'll pay when bringing it to finland (already mentioned elsewhere on this forum).

eg 8k euro in germany will get you a good selection of used bmw - 3 series, 10 years old, 80k km.
10k euro in finland (lets allow 2k for tax) will not find any serious bmw (ok, ones with 500k km on but nothing otherwise)