if u want a golf, but without the golf insurance. look at a seat ibiza. there the same car when u take the bodywork off, and seat's are cheaper to buy/insure aswell
I would work out the cost saving of going diesel carefully. You pay a premium for a second hand diesel and its way more expensive to fill up these days. Work out the purchase price and the mileage multiplied by fuels cost and insurance for a petrol and its diesel equivalent. The petrol may work out cheaper overall. I have a MK4 Golf GT TDI and it's gone from £40 to fill it up to £70+ now. £1.40 for diesel compared to £1.33 for petrol is a big difference.
Nope Well, yeh, but i realise I might regret it. My wallet certainly will. I haven't done the calculations, but driving carefully my dad gets on average 65mpg from the 306 2l HDI, meanwhile my mum, who drives similarly manages a maximum of 45mpg from her 1.3 petrol micra, and I know which I'd rather be driving. I'll admit 65 is optimistic for me, but I'll aim for close to that I thought it was the leon that's the same as the golf, and the ibiza was much smaller? I'll take a look, but the impression I've got is that seats are just as expensive as VWs :/ Edit: OUCH. Cheapest insurance quote for a 2000(w)reg 1.9 TDI Ibiza is £1,985.85 I hate being 20
insurance is a b**ch when your young, my old ibiza was £1400 tpft, but ive just got a saab 9-5 2.0t and thats £1000 fully comp :s it's crazy how insurance works. for example, on my own the ibiza was £1400, but add my girlfriend as a second driver and it went down to £950! oh btw my g/f doesnt even have a driving licence! just a provisional
I may be wrong but I think it has to do with a few things. If you can stick out running a car until your 21 I have heard things get cheaper and after 25 you're sorted. I was able to use motorbike no claims when I passed. Those 3 years no claims made a huge difference, coupled with the fact I didn't pass till 23. diesels are always more to insure than petrol apparently, could you buy a dirt cheap petrol motor, 1l our so and run it for a year, then only need tp or tpft insurance? Also where are you looking for insurance? If it is mainstream companies, try brokers as they have knowledge of companies you may not have heard of that specialise in different things, Young people yoyour vehicle model etc
Sorry to double post but just saw this. I get 28-30 mpg in my ibiza 1.4 petrol (entry level spec) I don't rag it. My mate has a pug 406 from the same year, 2.0 diesel he gets between 55-65mpg Needless to say I too am looking for a diesel, although a 106d may be coming to me in the next couple of weeks. I know diesel is more to buy, but I estimate a tank should last at least twice as long. That means an 80 odd quid saving a month. Get In!
£1300 fully comp on my Golf (I'm 19). Might I suggest putting your parents as named drivers, providing of course they haven't got a bad claim history, as it dropped mine massively. And, being named drivers, they have no obligation to drive the car unlike the policy holder, ie. you.
I was watching a Top Gear Episode where they ran a BMW M3 and a Toyota Prias On their test track and the BMW returned a higher MPG Its the way you drive often enough that gives you a better return on fuel.
Be wary if you're going for a turbo diesel and only doing short trips. The turbo will cake up with crud quicker if you only do short journeys (unless you rev the nads off it regularly). Also, when you've come to a stop, don't do what a lot of people do and switch the ignition off before you actually stop as this can leave oil in the turbo/pipes and cause premature damage in the long term. Leave it to idle for a couple of seconds at least before switching the engine off. Thought about a Micra? I managed to fit a whole single bed in one once (mattress, too!) - just thinking about your need for fitting camping gear in.. they're surprisingly roomy. I'd also suggest a VW Camper, but I think they're out of your budget unless you want to take one on as a project I don't know if you'd find one in your price bracket, but a Seat Ibiza as already mentioned returns good mpg. Depending on the engine, you can end up with 70mpg. I also concur with views already given that Fiestas with a 1.4tdci engine should serve you well.
I forgot that I had a cut in my fuel line when I worked out my MPG, since fixing it, and including that fill up I am up to 38, next one should be up to the 40's I am on a forum of that nature too!
I have a Corolla with the 2ZZGE engine as a run about. It pushes 190bhp standard and mine has about 225-230, with Piper BP285 cams, trd inlet and some other stuff. Previously I had a Civic Type R, similar car, but a lot less comfortable and refined. Anyhow, the Civic would do about 36 when it was standard and the Toyota struggled to do 28. Even when trying really hard and driving by the trip computer. There is no logic between engines.
Well, if anything has convinced me diesel is the right choice, this thread has Kenco, Thanks for the turbo tip... my dad always switches the engine off when the car is rolling, and its still going strong, but I'll keep it in mind. As much as i'd love a camper, I don't want something I'll have to spend a lot of time on as I'm finding it hard enough to keep on top of uni work as it is. My mums got a micra, and while it has managed to take us camping, it was far from comfortable. Its just a bit to small really. Same goes for the fiesta, although if I see a good one advertised i'll take a look. EvilMerc - Unfortunately these prices are already with my mum added as a named driver. Adding my dad made no difference whatsoever. The difference parents make varies a lot between cars; for a 306 2l HDI TPFT was £2600 without my mum named, and £1500 with, whereas adding my mum only made a £100 difference for a 1.1l petrol pug 106. I spent a week in london, now I'm properly looking at cars to buy - with the slight problem that I can hardly find any! Both autotrader and ebay are pulling blanks - if i look at all cars under £2k within 50 miles i get about 4 interesting results, most of which have problems. (ie, nice golf, but 150BHP, so £4.5k insurance). Gumtree has some nice prices, but they disappear fast. There was a 04reg peugeot 307 estate (very small estate) with a 'panoramic' glass roof going for £2k (worth about £4k) that looked pristine. I was going to jump on it, until I read about the 307s terrible reliability... It was gone the next day :/ Going to go round all the car dealers on monday, see it they have anything interesting. I'll let you know if I find anything... not that there will be any deals at dealerships.
So there should be, but there aren't. I've been around half of south wales today looking for a car, and didn't find anything good. Apparently small diesels are in high demand atm, and are fetching quite a premium. (EDIT: And I'm looking at any diesel hatchback here. I haven't even found any fords going cheap!) Ad Trader came up with nothing in my price range, Local papers brought up one 1.4 fiesta which could be interesting. All the cars that actually seem good deals are peugeot 206s... i don't like their looks, and they are too small :/ The one really nice 306 i saw was at the back of one of the more expensive dealers - they'd taken it in as an exchange and refused to even consider selling it to me (unhelpful bas-) as they were going to sell it as trade. Real pain as it looked spotless. One car i found myself surprisingly tempted by was this: I could get it for £350 without MOT, £420 with (would need to give it a proper look over - if it needs work for the MOT they can do it, if it doesn't i can get it cheaper.) It needs some work, mainly cosmetic, which I should have time to do in the next three weeks. The engine is a 1.9 D turbo and ran very smoothly. I was all set on getting a more modern car with alloys before I saw this thing. This looks more appropriate for a student Although it does mean i'm paying more than 3x the cars value in insurance Today put me in a really bad mood
Get that Pug - alloys are loitering all over the ground if you feel the need, but steelies won't get stolen. Cosmetics are worthless if the car underneath is rubbish.
I think me and my dad came to the same conclusion. He's going to give it a proper looking over tomorrow morning and hopefully buy it. Even if it's nonot great it will be worth a lot more after some TLC. I don't know that the car underneath is good, but it seemed solid, and the engine was tidy and ran well, so fingers crossed.
