Sensible tintop required, any advice??

[adamnreeves]

When I purchased my last car I was going to go for a Diesel but was actually discouraged by the dealer. Apparently and this probably is true, if you do not cover over 18K miles per year then the disel works out more to run because a diesel car cost more to purchase, cost more to service and remember it is usually every x miles or x months which ever occurs soonest. As you will not be covering anywhere near these miles I would go for a petrol, have a look round and you can get some very impressive fuel consumption figures. Not looked into myself but what about hybrid?

[JeffC]

sorry  Adam but imho think the dealer was talking a load of b*****k  and must have been  after a sale

using book figures from a new A4 2.0 tdi  and 2.0fsi  petrol as an example.. when new petrol equivelant of the diesel  car is £1100  more expensive straight away    ,  the diesel will do an extra 20mpg so even on 12k per anum its a saving straight away , imo the diesel is an easier car to drive as has more torque , feels quicker, still qualifies for cheap road tax , diesel will go up to 25,000 miles between servicing and icing on the cake both at 3 year old same mileage the diesel books at £1200 more than the petrol but in the real world will be so much more desireable to sell ..  

[slippy]

Morning Jefferey

[JeffC]

gud moaning michael  

[slippy]

Only one more sleep then I am in the good books for eternity

[Martin Keene]

Skoda Octavia 2.0 TDi with a DSG gearbox    

- the boot is massive on the hatchback never mind the estate, it'll cost a huge amount less than the equivalent VW or Audi but uses the same engine and box with 20k service intervals (3 yrs free servicing if you're buying new...) and a lot of trim and other parts too, has the chassis of the Mk5 Golf, the aftersales is better than most (Skoda get a lot of awards for customer service) and you'll get 50mpg easily

how do I know? 'cos I just swapped my horrendously unreliable BMW 330d for one, that's why      

You might be disappointed with the reliability again... I've got a '01 Octavia vRS and it is a superb car. But, it ain't reliable... It's never gone seriously wrong, but there always seems to be a little niggle that just isn't quite right.

I had to put a coolant header tank on it yesterday to stop the coolant alarm going off on cold mornings. Not major, tank cost 15 quid including delivery and 30 mins to change, but it's annoying. And on Friday, for no reason at all it suddenly starting idleing like a bag of spanners... Went away an hour later as quickly as it appeared...

As to the orginal question, I'd go with the Honda. As Rob says total reliability. I had a Civic VTi and put 32k (taking it from 16k to 48k) on it in just over two years and due to it reving to 8,000, ragged the s**t out of it... It had 1 set of front tyres and servicing. It was still on it's orginal brake pads! After a Honda you *will* forget that cars break down...

[brianm]

Interesting stuff chaps, not too much conjecture

Key points that most have picked up, are that 10 year reliability is paramount, but then I've never really had an unreliable car in my life.

Boring ain't a problem, I've owned a 2ltr petrol Vectra for the last 8 years, so I do know boring, but it has cost one cam sensor in all that time, so I also know reliable.

Initial purchase is obviously an issue I didn't mention, and I'm not going to spend a fortune on Audi or VW as a result of that.

The reason that Renault is on the list is that my son and daughter each had a Clio 179? for about 3 years. They were faultless. Daughter now has a Megane hatch 1.5 105hp DCi diesel, 2 years old and owned for a year with no problems yet. And we bought a brand new Clio 85hp DCi for the wife 4 years ago and that has been 100% reliable only sunroof rattles under warranty. BUT I do find all Renaults lightly built, and our experience of high mileage company Lagunas put me off somewhat.

Incidentally my son now has the latest Golf GTI turbo that he's not finding too exciting.

I also drove a friend Honda Civic CDTi I think, astonishingly smooth but way too expensive.

As I said this is an exercise in frugality, so the Seat and Skoda range will be looked at along with the Focus.

Thanks to everyone for taking the trouble to offer advice and                    to everyone.

Bri.

Just to add that I think inspite of the low miles that it will still be diesel as I haven't found the service costs excessive for the cars I've been involved with

[samcooke]

QUOTE

Incidentally my son now has the latest Golf GTI turbo that he's not finding too exciting.

Then you must disown him immediately.

It's a glorious thing.

I'm still bitter that my firm wouldn't let me have one.  

[exboeingboy]

I've got a Black Mondeo Titanium 2.2 diesel coming up for sale anytime.  55 reg and 14k on the clock.

Bought it last May about 6 months old  -  really only for picking up supplies for the hotel which we then sold in August.  I've put a hook on it to pick up the new toy (!!!!) next week but it'll be available after that.  Was doing 47.5mpg when we got it  -  bit less now 'cos it's actually quite fun!  PM if you're interested.

[Barry Ashcroft]

Just what I'm getting next week but unfortunatly only the 2.0ltr version but it will be going to superchips real soon  

[brianm]

Still looking the absolute economy route, tried Focus     and Meganne      yesterday,

Will keep looking for a 3  car.

[Mitchamidilly]

I drive a Vectra Elite 130ps (54plate) Estate and cover around 30k miles a year. Our company has a fleet of around a 1000 and everyone I speak to is generally very happy including me. Economy is around 45mpg and I've managed over 50 if you stay below an indicated 70mph. German engineering and you can now get a top spec 06 Elite 150ps with sat nav and less than 10k miles for less than £13k. Not sure about servicing costs etc but the intervals are rediculously long at 30k miles!

[JeffC]

Still looking the absolute economy route, tried Focus     and Meganne      yesterday,

Will keep looking for a 3  car.

If you are into Renaults I will be taking in a Meganne dynamique in the next week or so.. 5dr hatch the one with the big    

in brief its a 2003 1.6 vvt in a bonny looking met. blue colour..upgraded renault 17" alloys ..all the whistles and bells in side (its french ! )  only done 30,000 miles, looks a very nice car but as Ive said I dont like selling the things (French cars  scare me)  so I  am seling it to the trade,  it retails at £6200 trade price  is  £5,000..

If its you match the best trade  bid and its yours,, so far best is £4500  by a local dealer. (he will £5995 it . ) If you like em im pretty sure at that price it represents good value for money..    

[pete g]

fiat multipla

[ChrisG]

If you only do 7k per year then I still can't see that you'll save very much by going with a diesel.

For starters most cars you'll pay up to £1k premium to have a diesel over the equivalent performance petrol, and although you might get 45mpg rather than 30mpg, doing just 7k miles means about 14 tankfuls of diesel per year against 20 tankfuls of petrol, and as diesel fuel is a bit more expensive than petrol you might only save a couple of hundred per year on fuel. Add to this that diesel servicing is generally more expensive than petrol which may add £50-100 to the annual running budget and you're looking at sub £100 annual savings, if that.

Also by keeping it for such a long time you're not even going to benefit from the second hand diesel residuals being higher when you come to sell it (so getting some of the initial investment back), because by the time its 10 years old whether its petrol or diesel its not going to be worth a huge amount even with low mileage, have a look what current P / R reg run-of-the-mill cars are worth now to get an idea.