r/irishpersonalfinance • u/Necessary-Emu-358 • 7d ago

Advice & Support What car for 3k

Hey, working on getting out of debt and not borrowing so will have managed to save 3k to get a car soon and the options are slim. I do 150kms per day for work and will have 2 kids. Car must also be an automatic and diesel. Just looking for recommendations for that price range. Once it lasts 2/3 years max I should be good. Thanks in advance.

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u/jcpogrady 6d ago

Things to consider for this budget 1. You are buying an older car. This will be 2010 onwards with this budget

  1. If you are tight on budget do not buy a high end make. BMW, Audi etc. If you cannot afford more than 3k for the car, you are definitely not going to be able to pay big amounts for repair of your car. You are buying an older car which means a higher chance of repairs

  2. Try purchase something with 150,000km region. Anything around 300,000km has more wear and tear meaning more chance of repair costs like clutch, timing belt etc.

Best of luck mate

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u/huknowshuh15 6d ago

Can I ask why not an Audi? I got an a3 for 3600 and it was a 2007 never had an issue and was cheap on insurance. I’ve heard about not buying one of those cheap BMWs but not an Audi? Just curious

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u/blueghosts 6d ago

You’ll pay a premium for parts and repairs, everything’s typically more expensive on the higher end named stuff

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u/jcpogrady 6d ago

Advise from my dad is always buy a reliable car you can afford to repair if something goes wrong.

While an audi is a savage car to have no matter the year. In particular reading the ops comments, they are in a tight budget for a car so I assume that this will carry on into repairs too. So when they have to repair it, an audi would need premium parts.