Huh. I definitely didn't know there was an association between age and driving a sedan. That's very much not a stereotype in India. Sedans are aspirational, and so are SUVs, though not as much as the States.
Yeah it's really hard to understate the dominance of hatchbacks among young car drivers, which is partly driven by their relatively better fuel consumption, insurance grouping, price etc. than bigger cars of course, but still, perhaps downstream of those factors there is a general cultural association of hatchbacks as young peoples' cars. Not exclusively, older people do drive hatchbacks often too, but virtually every young person drives a hatchback. Saloons/sedans are - at least in my impression, maybe other Brits would disagree - pretty deeply uncool for a young person and associated with balding professionals. Not necessarily a reason not to get one, if you don't care what other people think (and I have no idea how young you are), and it's not like it matters that much, but if you do something to be aware of. Also bear in mind that among some elements of the middle classes 'looking' aspirational is not necessarily a good thing, though again this doesn't really matter and no-one will care about your car much anyway.
Sedans just aren't that popular full stop, as they get outcompeted as family cars by crossovers, estates and SUVs which are more practical, and without either young people or families it doesn't leave a huge market.
A premium I'm willing to accept. I'd call it a deal breaker really. While I did/am learning to drive stick, I consider it a nuisance, even if I'm sure I'd get used to it like everyone else. I likely will be at best ok at driving by the time I'm in the UK, I'm resuming my driving lessons and do actually need to pass them, but even with our questionable roads, I doubt I'd be entirely comfortable. Still have to make do, if I leave with a driving license that earns me 2 years of leeway before I have to apply for a British one, which is much harder to get.
Fair (though I've got to imagine that even if the test is harder driving in Britain is much easier than in India), but bear in mind that if you do the test in Britain in an automatic you will not be allowed to drive a manual under any circumstances, which might be annoying if you ever need to drive a rental car/van/friend's car/whatever.
Overall, if you are looking for an automatic in the £10k range, you will be able to get a considerably lower mileage, more economical, newer car if you do go for a hatchback. For that price you can get a virtually new 2023 Corsa at the moment and you would struggle to get any low-mileage sedan that wasn't old or uneconomical.
HaroldWilson
23d ago
I can't imagine you'll see many comfortable BMWs unless the UK has a very different used car market than the US right now.
There actually are even under 10k BMWs with under 15,000 miles on the market online right now. Autotrader is very good for this sort of searching.
HaroldWilson
23d ago
10-15k is a fair bit higher than you really need to spend to get something decent imo, if 'every penny saved helps'. Hatchbacks tend to provide much better value than other body types, and imo for a relatively young person look better anyway. Saloons are very middle aged. Automatics command a premium too as you doubtless know, and after a while driving a manual it really becomes second nature.
Still, even if you do want an automatic it's hard to beat a Vauxhall Corsa for value - yes it's a hatchback, but all the 2010s ones look good. There are automatic versions with <40k miles for less than 6 grand on autotrader.
If you really do want a saloon, a Volvo S40/60/80 might be decent value and pretty reliable? There are S40s with <30,000 miles in the £5-6k range, a handful of them automatic.
HaroldWilson
28d ago
It really is superb. The range and importance of the interviewees is astonishing. There are good quality versions of every episode on Dailymotion iirc.
HaroldWilson
7d ago
The people who criticised Trump for disrespecting the troops are very much not the same people as those waving Hezbollah flags.
I'm pre-registering a very optimistic prediction. If it was meant to really be act of war/do damage, why was the attack telegraphed in advance? Also, per Fars, only targets identified by government sources so far are bases in the Golan Heights and one in the Negev desert. This matches the pattern of the symbolic post-Soleimani response - remember when people start talking about ballistic missiles that those were used then too. Am I wish-casting? Yes, probably, but I do genuinely think this is probably not going to be disastrous.
Edit: just seen this tweet from the Iranian mission to the UN saying that 'the matter can be deemed concluded'. Thank god, though the danger not passed if some of the missiles/drones do get through and do some real damage.
https://x.com/Iran_UN/status/1779269993043022053
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