Hello marcus,
You got lucky to manage get some money back from a hit and run and £1,500 sounds like a good value for money. But as you say you cannot buy a similar car for that kind of money.
The prices have gone up during these 8 years. If you add the target 2% inflation to the minimum £4.5K that these 5-6 years old used to cost, it is about £100 per year. So over 8 years that £4.5K became £5.5K if not more.
The best thing you can is to always check the approved used cars first. You then have a price target and you can adjust for buying from a car auction dealer.
https://www.mazdausedcarlocator.co.uk/used-cars/search/?budget-program%5B%5D=pcp&custom%5B3611%5D%5B0%5D=3695&distance%5B%5D=0&finance%5B%5D=price&make%5B%5D=Mazda&order=price&per_page=48It seems that the cheapest they have is £3.8K for a 2010 car with 88K miles.
But if you pay something more, you can buy a 2010 car with 28K miles for £4,850.
The cheapest third generation car is £6K but you need a £1K extra to buy a petrol car.
You should consider a petrol car for your local driving style because you will have all sorts of problems with the diesel car.
There is some kind of scrappage scheme ran by Mazda and every so often you can find ads on Auto Trader from the dealers selling off their show room cars for £15K. This sounds like great value but if you park outside on the road and somebody can write off the car, maybe it is not worthy.
The other thing you should consider is whether you really need a big car like this for not driving a lot. If you go through Auto Trader, you can buy brand new cars from £6,650. You may think that such small car may not be good for you, but until you see it face to face and test drive it, you will not know. Buying a brand new car with 5-7 years warranty and lower running costs, may be a good trade-off against a used car for the same money. You can still buy these brad new cars for £1K-£2K less than the brand new price if you go for a used version and get a 1-2 years old car for around £4K.