Britain's best cheap cars - Dacia vs Hyundai vs MG vs Kia | Autocar

It’s hard to buy a cheap new car these days, isn’t it?

In a time of £40,000 Vauxhall Astras and £50,000 Mini Convertibles, you can count the number of new cars on sale for less than £15,000 on your own two hands.

However, although there aren’t many around, it’s still possible to bag yourself something that’s both cheap and cheerful. We’ve gathered four of our favourites - the MG 3, the Dacia Sandero, the Kia Picanto and the Hyundai i10 - with the aim of finding the best affordable car in Britain.

Join Matt Prior and James Disdale as they take a relaxed look at these low-budget legends.

Autocar, the world's leading motoring magazine and website, delivers industry-leading news, the most in-depth car reviews and opinion from our team of experts. Our presenters include some of the world's top motoring journalists who have unrivalled access to the world's fastest, rarest, most exotic and most exciting cars on some of the world's best roads and race tracks.

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[byrne]

I remember a time when a Dacia sandero started at around £6500 and a Kia picanto started at £5995. And im only 29

[OneTireFire]

The Dacia deserved the win. Good call!

[highlandrab]

15k isn’t cheap
Shows how screwed the situation is that a massive price like that is considered cheap

[Sorted]

Just like to point out the madness of these being cheap cars. List price of a mk2 focus st225 was £17k ish. The price of cars is mental

[Chniba]

Finally a good car video. Unfortunately these are the type of car most people can actually afford to buy outright so very useful and I like the presenters. More of this sort of thing please.

[person.X.]

I had an MG3 as a rental recently and was generally impressed with it as a basic car. It feels very late 90s/early 2000s in a good way. Great visibility and fun to drive. It has the stuff you need and not all the gimmicks that make modern cars so insanely expensive. The negatives were that it has a lot of tyre roar so tiring on the motorway, you cannot dim the screen and display enough which is really annoying at night and it is a bit thirsty on fuel. It is definitely built to a price but does a surprisingly good job overall.

[pankajtayal]

Don't call them cheap cars please . Call them the most affordable cars. Cheap sounds a bit cheap . 😁😁

[anglosaxonmike]

Our Stepway, bought new in 2018 for 11 grand, has been utterly reliable. One wiper blade in 5 years. 😊

[rhysmainwaring]

Great vid - totally agree on small cars being fun. I love my 11 year old 85 bhp Polo runabout - much fun at sensible speeds

[billshoe]

Loved these two. Great banter. Fully agree that affordable cars engineering is far more impressive than something like a Ferrari. That’s why I’m so impressed with Mazda and the MX-5

[travelcampervansandmore]

It would have been nice to have included the Fiat Panda in the test. The base model is less than £15, 000.

[watannen]

Easy win for the Dacia in this one :

- does not matter how good or bad, the MG is a much too old design, needs to be dismissed, period.
- kia/hyundai, mini category, good fun but little room, more vulnerable in a crash, growing old in the tooth now as well.
- dacia, newest, most modern, safest, most capable platform of them all. winner, hands down and by far.

[ThePorkypete]

Dacia badge at the front looks a bit like a Delorean - DMC

[dereklawrence]

Your absolute need to slag off the Mg3 was so apparent. It has shortcomings but handling and steering are not among them. On roundabout’s it is hard to find anything that will keep up with it. Loads of fun round town and in windy country lanes it’s a ball.
Great little car. I’ve had three of them!

[TechBaffle]

Can't get my head around the fact the cheapest cars are around £15, 000
That used to get a family hatchback 😂😂

[mitchreeves]

Britain's best value car is the Dacia Jogger! It's not much more money than the Sandero and you get a hell of a lot more car.

[SuperRedshark]

Great review. Dacia gives you a bigger car AND a turbo to move around the extra weight. So that's the best value in this test.

[IfInDoubt..]

Dad bought a Hello Yellow MG3 Excite brand new in March 2022 for £12, 388. I absolutely love it, yes it's very old school in every way - but to me, having well weighted, hydraulically assisted steering, and an engine thats a joy to rev out to extract the power makes for a very, very entertaining drive.

I find the engine a little odd though, in the way that all the power comes in a sudden lump at around 6, 000 rpm.

I still don't think they deserve the stick they still get.

[longtailgt]

Absolutely fantastic video once again! As much as I like watching expensive supercar road tests, I enjoy even more these long, in-depth tests of affordable family cars. Cause back when I used to read Autocar magazine very regularly (the actual printed magazine, not the digital copy online; I haven't read any print magazine in many years), these were the kind of tests I'd enjoy the most. More of this please, Autocar!

[clanmac]

Sandero Stepway is 15k and probably better able to deal with our third world roads here in the UK.