Thetownend.com

Right, in times of need I foolishly talk to the good people if the town end as I believe all wisdom lies within.  This proves that I am a tool, however I will plough on. 

So who knows about cars.  My 51 plate Toyota has now died.  Engine is knackered.  So Im in the market for a new motor.

I do about 30,000 miles a year of mostly motorway driving, so no point in buying a new car.  Reliability is the key.  Im looking for something that wont break down and cost me in repairs.

I tend to buy cars and run them into the ground after 2 years.  So what Im looking for is something reliable 1.8 to 2 litre.  With about 60k on the clock for about £2.5k. 

So far in the last few years Ive had a Honda (good) a Nissan primera (good but dull drive) a ford escort estate (hideous - as reliable as STFC usually are and cost me about £2k in repairs in 2 years) and the Avensis (pretty good but would have hoped it would last longer.

So TEF'ers, shower me with your wisdom.

 

I'd go with a Ford Focus or a VW Golf. But you'll probably be hard pushed to find one that has done 60k miles and is on at a price of 2.5k.

So bearing that in mind I would say look around for a Vauxhall Astra. Sounds pretty daft and naff but you can pick up one for around that price and they are pretty damn reliable. Mileage shouldn't be too much of a problem as there are probably a fair few floating around.

Got to be a Honda really if you want reliability

German or Jap is the way to go.

Get a diesel if you do alot of miles.

There is nothing more reliable than a Skoda.



FACT!

Good shout actually. Owned by VW so same parts etc but cheaper price.

Some Audi parts as well :nod:

A honda accord would be decent, nice inside, decent on fuel, and the option of either a diesel or vtec engine i believe. Looks good too.

Would never buy another VW after all the problems we have had with her Lupo, the fucking thing has still only done 45,000. Bag of shit

Honda Diesel

Thanks for your advice y'all.

Skoda Fabia vRS...great fun, and excellent on motorways.

Honda Accord CTDi

Avoid Fords, Vauxhalls and anything French!

seconded! i'd love one

shame they look like shit inside, i've been tempted by a vrs but when i sit inside one the cheap interior puts be off. (albeit these are 5/6 years old, i dont know if thats changed since)

I had a brand new A1 (with all the goodies) recently as a hire car and a friend of mine has a vRS that is about a year old. The difference interior wise is not as different as you'd expect - it's cheaper certainly but it doesn't look tacky.

For Sale

1999 Toyota Celica GT (Jap Import) 2 Litre, 3 Door, Grey / Silver, Manual.

MOT 11 Months
Taxed until January

£650 ono

With my old 06 reg, I agree...Sonic suggests they've improved on the new one, which they had to really.  As for the rest of it, spot on.

Mileage?

You mean kilometres...

got a mini countryman to drive for the next couple days.

Its like a Cooper on steroids from what i understand.

235K Kilometres / 146K Miles

11,200 Miles per year since registered.

the countryman is interesting to say the least

Horrid little car...  It's like a bastardisation Germanisation of a British classic.  It signifies all that's wrong with modern motoring.

A Countryman screams to the world you don't give a fuck about how you look or about how a car handles...

Not sure if the original question has been answered, but my two penneth...

Some time back I did quite a bit of research into a car which was

 - diesel
 - cheap to insure and tax
 - reliable
 - good user reviews, via what car, autotrader etc
 - good expert reviews
 - a decent amount of ooomph...

and the winner was.......

a skoda octavia diesel (not the vsr).

If you can get past the stigma and all that...an excellent car by all accounts.

Little? Its huge. :-)
Its not the worse car ive driven, but I wont be sad to see it go tomorrow and get my golf back.

Don't talk to me about cars.

I'm *this* close to taking a lighter and a can of petrol to mine.

If anything, that will probably make the problems worse.

Yeah but the insurance money would come in handy :)

Didn't it have high mileage when you bought it? I Seem to remember it had clocked up a few miles.

Ah, clever.  I sense you may have done this before...

60,000. That's nothing for a diesel.

I was mistaken. Thought it had clocked 100,000+ miles. Yeah, 60k is nothing nowadays(even for a petrol engined car)

my 52 plate golf has only got 67k miles

To be fair, it's not the engine that has caused me problems. Apart from a duff EGR valve the engine has been pretty much spot on. (Touch wood/fingers crossed/pray to god that I don't breakdown on the way home from work now I've said that).

you will break down mate, just the other day i was saying how well mines done me, Driving home on the M4 the other day, the alternator decides to conk out. Typical

Well that will go nicely with my squealing brakes, clunking suspension and knackered thermostat then.

My thermo went last winter. Fucking freezing until it got changed.

My heaters still work, they just take an age to heat up and don't get red hot like they should. Temperature gauge isn't even moving in this cold weather when it should be sitting at 85. MPG is awful though because the engine is running cold.

I suppose the good thing is they fail open these days instead of stuck closed.

Exactly what happened to mine. Eventually it gets to the point where no heat comes out of the vents though.

Still, inexpensive to fix.

Well it's going in next week for discs, pads & the 'stat so it's not going to be that cheap :(

Can anyone give any feed back on Renault Lagunas?  Ive seen a couple under 40k miles, 5 years old or slightly more, in between 2k and 3k.  Is there any reason why?  Rather than just the prejudice of don't buy french?  Remembering Im going to just do 30k a year for a couple of years and then scrap it.

Its not so much a prejudice of not buying French but just cold hard facts. I had a Laguna, prob the most comfy car i had. Serviced every 10K up until about 90,000 miles when things started going wrong on a regular basis. My mate who runs a garage in Swindon who always looked after the car advised me to get shot and buy Jap. Replaced with a 70,000 Accord which in last 2 years has clocked up an extra 40,000 miles and has been trouble free bar leaking radiator.

Cheers for that reaper.  Doesn't seem to be much around in terms of Hondas or other reliable Japs stuff at the moment.  Oh well, see what comes up after christmas.

You can pick up a mazda 6 for the same price with same mileage on. Id have that over a laguna.

How about a nissan primera?  Fancy a mazda 6 but they're quite scarce for that price.

I'd go along with this. I've had plenty of VWs, Hondas and Toyotas and they've all been great. I'd recommend Volvo but doubt you'd get much for 2.5k.

Avoid anything French.

You can have my Vectra for £2.5k.

Apalling reliablility...particularly on electrics

Do people not find that buying a second car is more expensive in the long run with MOTs, repair bills etc.?  Don't want to sound like a pretentious prick, but I've always bought new - I say bought, my latest car is on Hire Purchase (PCP - rent for three years, then pay off the balance or hand back).  Being a petrolhead and young and carefree, I've been quite happy to devote a larger preportion of my wages to my wheels, but then if you look at the cost of some PCP deals they must compare very favourably to a second hand motor - e.g.: a Renault Twingo - low deposit and about £100 / month.  OK it's a Renault Twingo, but it's new, and you know for three years with almost certainty that you won't break down.

Shirley, by the time you've pushed her through the MOT, replaced that headgasket, sorted the leaking window sill, you might as well have just PCP'ed a car.  I suppose there is the drawback of the financial commitment for three years, but can be done with a lower initial outlay and the costs are a known quantity.  I'm interested as it may be that after 3 yrs I will consider buying my car as my circumstances are soon to change...

I have bought brand new in the past, but now realise that it's a mug's game. Far better to go for a nearly new (eg ex demonstrator) from a dealer, and avoid the huge depreciation as you drive away from the salesman.

Only problems with PCP as I see it are the uncertainty of future income stream to service the commitment, plus the wrangling if you exceed agreed mileage or don't meet the requirements for the condition of the vehicle at the end of the contract.

For me, never any point in getting a new car.  Second hand car Im going to have a look at will come in at about £2.5k.  New would cost about £20k.  Ill do 30k a year on mileage, hopefully it will be reliable (its japanese) and get me through 2 and a half years with a couple of services and not too much on repairs.    No depreciation as Im going to run it into the ground, its £2.5k lost at the end of 2 and a half to 3 years, whereas if I bought new Id be able to sell for maybe £2.5k.  £17.5k loss.

Lets face it, its just different people have different motoring needs and buying new would be senseless for me.

Do you have a mortgage?

I cannot see how buying new is cheaper in the long run, unless of course you buy an absolute heap of shit 2nd hand car which breaks down every ten minutes (like mine). There are lots of 2nd hand cars around that are still under a mileage warranty or a 6 year warranty.

The biggest issue with cars, besides the ever increasing running costs, is the depreciation. Its a fucking killer.  I have a crappy Subaru forester which I have been contemplating changing for about six years now (cue Grubby with some satirical comment) but every time info the calculations it ends up making me depressed.

The forester is paid for and costs me about £2000 a year to run (fuel, maintenance, tax, insurance, MOT etc).  I have looked at every car going and at the last attempt to buy something was going to go for a Audi Q5 £550 a month then £250 a month on fuel and £1000 a year on insurance and maintenance... £10,000 a year for a car that will spend most of it's life sat doing fuck all...

Instead I am opting for membership to a supercar hire company (http://www.dreamcarhire.com/blackwhite/premium/)- I get the choice of 30 different supercars for 30 days a year which covers all my hi days  and holidays for the same amount and I carry in using the crappy forester for walking the dogs.

If youre going to burn money on a car, burn it on something a little bit special and drive a shit heap for the rest of the year

Make mine a GTR please

Are you psychic?

That's my change in circumstances.  But at the moment I pay rent which per month works out about the same, so the PCP is affordable but does cut down on my spare cash.

@MacPhlea - I like that idea, and certainly there are probably only around 30 days when you actually get to enjoy driving - most of the time I spend sitting behind traffic or navigating treacherous, windy wet roads.  Mind you, at 25 I doubt I'd qualify for Supercar Club!! 

The depreciation is a fucker, but I've yet to have experience (friends, family etc.) of a second hand car that hasn't cost much more than the owner initially thought with repairs and MOT failures.  Granted, that doesn't include the "nearly new" market, but then if you're going to spend all the money on nearly new, it seems to me worthwhile to pay a fraction extra for seats that haven't been farted in.  That said, @Macphlea's post has made me want to go and top myself.

I think 28 is the lower limit for insurance - in 3 years you'll be sorted!

I had an unsavoury motoring conviction five year's to the day, so for most prestige car companies it's another five!!

If you've owned the car since new then you know it's history, but then I guess the fact my first car broke down a week after I collected, and then the engine expired seven year's later after I'd passed it onto my sister sort of undermine's my own argument!  The initial breakdown was only due to a loose battery connector, but still....

if i was, i wouldnt have needed to ask :-)

My first car was a family had me down (which we'd had from new) and my current car was bought brand new.

Both cost me £0 to purchase and both have cost me £0 in repairs.

Easy.

Alright, don't rub it in you smug cunt.

My car has started making some weird noises whilst cruising.

I'm going to drive it into a ditch and set it on fire.

It's the best option.

Ive taken the plunge and bought a car.  £2600 for a 03 reg Mazda with 47k on the clock.  Hopefully that should see me through for at least a couple of years.  Fingers crossed.

Kind of belongs in the car thread.  Great news for the town.

http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9427730.Honda_to_create_500_new_jobs/

I just turn the music up until i cant hear the noise anymore. No noise=no problem

Anyone have any idea how much a battery would be to replace in a V6 Audi A3? (Audi are doing it so I assume it will be a bit more pricy than a 'backstreet' mechanic!)

best part of 100quid i'd say, depending on what sort of battery. I may be wrong.

A battery would be £80ish from a motor factors, so yeah easily £100+ from main dealer.

Cheers guys, so I am anticipating a 150+ euro bill when I collect it tomorrow then.

You sure it's just the battery that's knackered? They don't usually just go flat for no reason, only if the battery is really old.

Wouldn't be surprised if the alternator has packed in too.

Please dont mention "alternators"

I hadn't used the car much over the last few months of autumn as I was sick of the cretinous driving of the French and Belgians and noticed that when I was starting it up (maybe once a week) it was taking a while to turn over. Since I have started to use it more regularly, it seems to be ok.

However the garage phoned and said the battery was low so assume my lack of usage is the reason and nothing more sinister? I hope not as I am driving to Oxfordshire on Friday!

I just did :)


That would explain it. If you'd only used the car sparingly and then when it was used it was only for short journeys then it would gradually lose charge. Shouldn't need a new battery for that though, just an overnight charge. Could've saved yourself a fair wedge.

Thanks for the information!!

Luckily we get paid twice in December so I can just about stretch to the new battery I reckon! :)