Best cars for students
Your first taste of freedom away from home will be that bit sweeter if you have your own wheels. These are the top used student cars for tight budgets
If you’re moving away from home to go to university, you’ll probably be getting your first experience of proper freedom. But depending on where you’re studying, that might not be much fun without a way to get around. The best student cars will give you dependable, affordable wheels and maybe a touch of style as well.
Many students heading to university choose to bring a car with them to keep at their halls of residence or outside their shabby uni flat with a dodgy boiler. Going to uni is an expensive business these days, so if you are looking to get a car to bring with you on your studies, the budget is likely to be tight.
That’s why all of the cars we’re covering here can be comfortably bought for under £3,000. None will be particularly expensive to run, either.
Student cars: what to look for
There are several things to consider to keep the running costs of your student car down.
Insurance is always a big factor for young drivers, and features like black boxes, and the option to limit your annual mileage, can help to reduce the bills.
Hopefully you’ll have at least a year of driving experience under your belt and perhaps a year or two’s no-claims bonus (some insurers also give a no-claims discount for being a named driver), giving you a bit more flexibility than if choosing your first-ever car.
Once a year, every car over three years old needs an MoT. This annual test sees a mechanic check that the car is still roadworthy. To get the best peace of mind when buying a new car, it’s always best to aim for a car with as close to 12 months of its MoT remaining as possible - and if not, use this as a negotiating tool to get some money off before you buy.
Our MoT checker tool can help here. Type in the car’s registration, and it’ll say exactly when the MoT is due to expire. It’ll even tell you if the car has failed in previous tests (all the way back to 2005 for cars tested in England, Scotland and Wales - but not Northern Ireland), and why. It’s normal for cars to occasionally fail the MoT because of blown light bulbs, old windscreen wipers and worn tyres, but any cars which appear to have a history of rust and corrosion are probably best avoided, as big bills could present themselves at a later date.
Still, you can do all the research possible, buy a car with a reputation for great reliability, and still suffer problems. For that reason, shop around for a good breakdown service for some extra peace of mind.
Student cars for a £1,500 budget
£1,500 can get you a solid, reliable car, if you know where to look. These are our top picks…
Renault Clio (2005-2012)
The Renault Clio is one of the more stylish small cars available for under £1,500, but there’s plenty of substance to back up the classy looks. The Clio is decent to drive, comfortable on longer journeys, and the engine range is cheap to fuel, too. A facelifted model (introduced in 2009) is available for this kind of cash, and the sporty-looking Dynamique trim is well within reach. This gets alloy wheels, front fog lights, air conditioning and even a built-in TomTom sat nav on some versions.
The Clio Mk3 comes as a three or five-door, and there's even an estate version if you're really concerned about getting all your clobber to and from campus each term. This price bracket can even get you a hugely economical Clio dCi diesel, if you're planning on taking up a placement at a far-flung uni well away from home.
Toyota Aygo (2005-2014)
We've picked the Aygo here, but you can just as easily select its Citroen C1 or Peugeot 107 siblings, as all three are built in the same factory and use the same punchy 1.0-litre three-cylinder engine under the bonnet. This was developed by Toyota, so there should be no concerns with its reliability, either.
Toyota offered a number of special editions of Aygo, called Blue, Black and Platinum, among others, and these offer additional kit that makes them tempting. All cars feature an aux-in socket, so you can plug in a smartphone or MP3 player and have all your music playing over the speakers. All cars offer a great drive in the city, although longer trips are a bit of a chore. At least that small-capacity engine means road tax is cheap.
Mazda 2 (2007-2014)
A small car that's good to drive will help boost a new driver's confidence, and not many cars are better than the Mazda 2 in that regard. This generation features a platform that's shared with the equally fun Ford Fiesta, but the fact the 2 is built in Japan might help give more confidence that it'll last.
There are sharp looks, and a decent amount of space inside, while a 1.3-litre petrol engine is offered, which is eager to rev and make the most of the Mazda 2's fun handling. You can find a clean example with a reasonably low mileage at this price point, and many versions with air conditioning are available, too.
Student cars for a £2,000 budget
For £2,000 a student car with a touch of style is not out of the question...
MINI (2006-2013)
It's a small car that a lot of people aspire to, and a budget of £2,000 will get you behind the wheel of a MINI One three-door that’s less than 10 years old and with fewer than 100,000 miles on the clock. Not only will you get the popular retro looks, but the One is an affordable car to run, with low insurance costs and pretty economical engines. Don't expect to be able to carry many friends - the back seat only holds two people, and small ones at that - but fun handling and decent comfort mean it’s great for just one or two.
The huge scope of personalisation available to new MINI buyers means that you are spoiled for choice when buying used. A lot of the optional extras buyers choose don't really add much in the way of value when it comes to sell on, so you can pay a few pounds extra to get a well-specced MINI One. Check a car's history carefully, though - if something big needs fixing, you could be presented with a large bill from a main dealer.
Ford Fiesta Mk7 (2009-2018)
Sticking to the £2,000 mark, one or two cars with more modern in-car tech creep within the budget. While smartphone mirroring systems like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are still a little way off, USB connections start to appear alongside the usual Aux and 12 Volt sockets on the kit list in cars like the Ford Fiesta.
Another luxury you might find is sat-nav, although how useful this will be is open to question, as the software will need regularly updating to remain current, which can be a pricey job at a main dealer. And dealers are one reason to go for a Fiesta. While it should prove reliable, if you do have trouble, Ford's 700-plus dealer network means there won't be one too far from your campus. You'll have plenty of fun getting there courtesy of the Fiesta's entertaining handling, too.
Kia Picanto (2011-2017)
As a city car, the Kia Picanto (along with the closely related Hyundai i10) probably isn’t the ideal choice if you live on the south coast and study at St Andrews, or have a similarly arduous trek between home and halls, but it’s otherwise a solid option. It’s one of the best city cars around, and some versions sit as low as insurance group 2, so it shouldn’t break the bank to get covered.
On this budget, it’ll have to be the 1.0-litre, three-cylinder version rather than the more powerful 1.25-litre four-pot. That means just 68bhp and a 0-62mph time of nearly 14 seconds, but in better news, it’s good for almost 70bhp. And, of course, less money spent at the pumps means more to splurge on the SU beer taps.
At 200 litres, the boot is smaller than some rival city cars, but with the rear bench folded, there’s 600 litres to play with, which should be enough for most students transporting a load of washing home to mum.
Student cars for a £3,000 budget
£3,000 is a respectable budget for a small, cheap-to-run car with some great options within range...
Skoda Citigo (2011-2020)
More often than not, the one thing that proves most costly for any young driver is insurance. And if premiums are proving troublesome, then look no further than the Skoda Citigo. That’s because the most basic versions of Skoda’s smallest car fall into the lowest insurance group possible.
But there’s plenty more to recommend the Citigo (and the SEAT Mii and Volkswagen Up, too - save for some styling bits and badges, they’re both identical to the Skoda). It’s tiny on the outside, so it’s great at squeezing through gaps while you’re driving, and into small gaps when parking up. But despite the dinky dimensions, it feels sturdy and reassuring to drive; this is a car that rides smoothly compared to many rivals, and acquits itself fairly well on a motorway, too. The most insurance-friendly model comes with a 59bhp petrol engine, but if the budget allows, we’d stretch to one of the turbocharged units - they cope better than the smallest unit when loaded up with passengers.
Dacia Sandero
There’s a rationale for going as simple as possible with your student car. Fewer features means there’s less to go wrong, and if you end up being the only one in your friendship group with a car, you might spend a lot of time ferrying around mates. These passengers may not care for your car as much as you do, and might occasionally be a bit worse for wear at the end of a long night at the student union bar.
It doesn’t get much simpler than a Dacia Sandero, particularly if you opt for the Access trim, which doesn’t even come with electric windows or a radio as standard. The latter might be going a bit too far, though – we wouldn’t want to deny you some tunes for the long drive home for reading week, so it’s probably worth getting one of the slightly better-equipped grades.
The 1.2-litre engine isn’t exactly powerful with its 74bhp, but it’s frugal and should prove cheap to insure, with some versions sitting as low as group 2.
Volkswagen Polo (2009-2017)
For many, university is a coming-of-age part of their lives, so why not combine it with a really grown-up kind of car? The Volkswagen Polo sits in the same class as a lot of the cars we’ve already spoken about, including the Ford Fiesta, but with a classier badge and a much plusher cabin.
In some ways, we actually prefer the inside of the Mk5 Polo version you can bag on this budget to the modern one. There’s a sense of solidity to it that’s sadly absent from more recent Volkswagens, and it means this older Polo is more than suited for the rigours of student life.
It’s still cheap to insure if you pick the right version, with some 1.2-litre petrol versions sitting as low as group 3. If you’ve chosen to study somewhere far from home, there are several economical diesels available, with the 1.2-litre being the cheapest to cover. There’s a decent-sized boot, too, so you should be able to pack the contents of your halls of residence room into it when finished for summer.
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