i know i know, this isnt a car site, but i value to opinions of people on here and i know there are plenty of petrol heads on here so here i am, i also CBA with making an account in piston heads or the like. So ill be getting a mortgage this year and after that's all settled and my outgoings have settled down i really want a new (ish) car. Currently Driving my grandads car which he gave me before he died, a 1999 Mitsubishi 1.3L colt with 65k miles, serviced every year of its life, never failed an MOT, garaged and my grandad was the first and only owner. Problem is the MPG is about 38 which isnt awful, but not great and i like to smash the miles on the motorway to do hiking and scrambling in Snowdon, lakes and Scotland which this car doesn't do great at. Sitting at 65mph for 7 hours with the engine going BHAAAAAAAAAAA! aint fun. Tax is £160 a year, not great, not awful. But with that tax and MPG, i feel like something from this decade i could be diving much much nicer at the same or better running costs. I also have good credit, and my insurance is as low as a 29 year old could hope for. Planning on getting a Car bank loan since i have good credit which is nomraly about 3% interest i think, if that fails looks like i can get car finance at about 8%, so looking to spend about 7/8k with repayments of around £150 per month for 4/5 years off top of my head. specs im after: 4 doors, decent MPG, same or better of what i have now, aprox 200hp, 2.0l engine for the pulling power since i will be filling the car full of kit and people for long distances at times. Something with a sporty look and feel. Also dont want repair costs to be though the roof. Nothing french, sorry i cant bring my self to do it, i know they make good cars now but it just isnt going to happen. Saloon, estate or hatch so long i can get everyone's kit in and it has 4 doors as said above. I have been looking at the 2014/15 (2012/13 models are kinda ugly) Volvo V60 R-Design, seems to tick all the boxes but is a grand or two out of budget. I was looking at a Skoda vrs, but for something around 2014, seems slightly out of grasp. I love Japanese cars, but i find there styling from the past few years to be a little to space age for me. Do like Audi S line, seems you can get a lot of car for not a great deal of money with a used audi but boy, if anything breaks i could no afford there replacement parts. My uncle just had to replace a 2012 A4 turbo, cost him £1,500!. Something from 2010 onwards. can go older for something special. I LOVE the toyota GT86, but im not sure i could get 3 dudes kit in it and the 3rd adult. Any other cars i should consider?
AFAIK there will be before long, and there already is for employers with car parks in town (some of whom pass it on to their employees). I've also seen some roads about which have bonus lanes of ULEVs.
You can normally pick ex lease Jag XEs up cheap, if you don;t mind the spectre of it being diesel hanging over you... Some of them have really low tax though [like £30/yr] Skoda Octavia or anything based on that VW chassis. Mondeo Mazda 6 Avoid [imo] - Anything French, anything made by FCA, Anything with BMW on it and Vauxhall.
Yeah iv seen them lanes too, some close to where i live. You have a Volvo Polestar dont you? someone from here thats a mod popped round a few years ago to pick up some bit on USB lol Very nice motor.
I did. Some jackwagon in a van that wasn't paying attention to the road killed it. Well, not actually killed it as in written off, but damaged it significantly that by the time it was fixed (4 months later) and back to me, it just wasn't the same any more and was flogged.
This all chimes exactly with my experiences and word-of-mouth. Nobody's mentioned Mercs, though -are they any good these days? My friend bought one on finance, seems happy with it. Pokey, economical, luxurious, family-friendly.
Mercs are expensive to fix when they go wrong, and from what i gather they go wrong often. Newer ones aren't as bad iirc, but an older one expect to get very friendly with your local mechanic.
The 200hp Level will avoid you getting a significantly better MPG than you have now. For the Skoda Octavia, the VRS (Diesel) , (depending on the age 170-190 hp) should get around the milage you have now. On the motorway a bit less. The Petrol VRS, more like 30MPG on the motorway, and worse in average. The skimpy ones are the 2.0 and 1.6 Diesel models, but they only have 105-150hp. Should get you ~50MPG on the motorway though.
Merc C class '56 I had were very expensive to fix. I had to fix suspension. For £8000, you can easily get a 14/15 Octavia non-VRS. I have a '63 reg Octavia 2.0 diesel DSG, bought for £8800 in 2017. 50 mpg in winter 55 mpg in summer. 60 mpg on long summer trips. So far nothing major has gone wrong. High Beam assist module is broken though But this Octavia is expensive to maintain: £500 timing belt, £180 DSG oil and £200 servicing every 2 years. Dare I suggest Prius or Aruis hybrid? They are supposed to be very economical, excellent reliability and only need regular servicing (timing chain, gearbox maintenance-free) Be sure to buy pre-2017 cars, as that's when the flat £140 tax comes in. Most cars you are looking at is likely to be £30 tax. You mean last decade
On the subject of Octavias, I wonder about the newer 2010s ones, because this is the second time I've heard anecdotally that they are expensive to service and repair. My friend had the 2016 Octavia and said it was a constant nightmare of little electrical/ECU gubbins costing a fortune to investigate and sort. My mother has an '04 Octavia diesel and our mechanic friend keeps telling her "whatever you do, keep that car! The older the better." I.e. less electronic ******** to go wrong. You (OP) say you want something current, but do you really? My mum's '04 Octavia has had zero problems in about 20k miles. It's bulletproof. If you can find a '00s model in good nick, it might do you much better, in total cost of ownership, than a '10s model.
I'm not talking about cost of fixing it. I'm talking about maintenance. It seems certain VAG cars (eg, my Octavia) are built to be constantly serviced: - £200 service every 2 years, 18k miles - £500 timing belt every 5 years (so short!) - £180 DSG oil every 40k miles => +2.6p per mile Whereas my EV: - £40 brake fluid and £15 cabin air filter every 2 years - ...... nothing else => negligible maintenance cost The 56 reg Mercedes C class I had was just: - £250 service every 2 years - no timing belt, no gearbox oil => +1.4p per mile So although my new Octavia does ~55mpg. It actually only cost a fraction cheaper than 45mpg Mercedes when servicing is factored in. Point is, search for a car with less maintenance. It doesn't make sense to buy a car that waste your time and money if there's similar alternatives with less maintenance requirements. The MPG figure is only a small portion of overall running cost.
If you're not bothered about owning the car and you're open-minded about what car you drive, have a look on www.leasing.com at the best value deals. You can specify petrol/diesel, monthly payments, deposits etc - all the usual stuff but the website can list them via best value/lowest overall cost. A colleague of mine got an M140i last year for £299 deposit, £299 a month with 8k miles per year, three year lease. The cost of leasing that car for three years was nearly less than the expected depreciation, except he had a minute deposit and no servicing costs. Now I'm sure you don't want a fuel guzzling monster; however, there are lots of sensible options on there too. At the very least, give it a look over. NB- Best value car on there right now is a new V90 T4 Momentum. Bit more than the £150 per month you're looking at, but when you factor in servicing costs or lack of (deal dependent), the numbers might be closer together than you initially think.
All good info guys thank you. Im looking into a house now that would take me out of the city (a good thing for me) but give me a 40 minute commute from what was 10-15 with good traffic. So my fuel costs are going to double. When i say 200HP, it doesnt have to be that or better, the V60 i was looking at is about 180HP, and a respectable MPG (50+) with the D4. I just want to be able to over take easily and put it in 6th and not have the engine scream at me when im crushing the miles on the motorway for hours going definitely the national speed limit (10/15+) I get the impression volvos are pretty solid, would that be correct? Would love an EV but the used market just isnt competitive enough for ones to be in my price range yet, hopefully the one after this. Interesting talk about skoda's, always seen them as a poor mans audi (which would suit me), but maybe there now getting closer in daily costs. Like i said, i could go older than 2010, it was just if i was spending good money, i didn't want a car that was too old before i bought it. Also in the last 10 years, engines have come on a long way with balancing efficiency and power. But i do get there is a lot more to go wrong, and when they do, its expensive. Money id rather spend on a new GPU. My Old 1999 Mitsubishi Colt just when for the MOT on Friday gone. Got one advisory for a new shock and thats it. garage said £80 fitted. Its such a good little motor.
Upgraded to V60 d4 this month (manual though) and after driving around a bit I'd say 50+mpg is a bit optimistic, maybe with super eco tires and going 90kmh, but at highway speeds (120-130kmh) with medium winter tires I'm struggling to get under 6.8l/100km (~40mpg?). Screaming engine and trouble overtaking seems to be more of a petrol problem, previously had 1.9tdi 85kwh galaxy and that thing would cruise all day at 170kmh no problem, overtaking at lower speeds wast also a big problem, even fully loaded.
I had a Merc C220 CDi wagon previously and struggled to get 50mpg out of it on a motorway run but I've had a pre-owned BMW 320d tourer for nearly 3 years now and over the entire life of the car so far (75k miles), it's averaged 49mpg (including more than 50% urban). On a motorway run at 75mph avg, I'm seeing 58/59mpg without any worries at all. I can push on 65mpg if I drop to 60mph and sit behind the HGVs.
