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You just missed my Audi A3
Mondeo is fine... cars are for A to B
Looking to canvass the opinions of the hive mind - my car has just failed it's MOT, the repair bill along with the new clutch and DFM it needs, means it's beyond economic repair. I like the idea of bangernomics - I live in London with no off street parking so can't be too precious about a car.
Budget £2000-3000
Annual mileage 5,000
Doors 4/5
Petrol or diesel
Comfortable for 2 adults and 2 adult sized teenagers
Main usage - ferrying above mentioned teenagers around London, with the odd lengthy trip out
Ability to swallow a road bike and kit/inevitable weekend trip to the buiilders merchant essential
Current car 2006 Focus Diesel Estate
My heart's saying Alfa 159 - my head, Ford Mondeo
Anyone have any suggestions of things worth looking at - apart from a leaning towards Alfa, I don't have any particular brand loyalty - then at this price level, I'm not sure it matters
If you've got something to sell - fell free to PM me
cheers
Steve
You just missed my Audi A3
Mondeo is fine... cars are for A to B
Renault Megan estate.....
Volvo v70 estate
Skoda Octavia estate
Passat.... you've guessed it.
I recently bought an E39 530d 85k miles in gentleman's club colors, its fab, obviously cherished, i look for cheaper cars to run for my self and rate this highly, too new and you get too many electronics for me.
Some really nice older cars on ebay, stick your max budget in look for the odd colors and shots taken on driveways and you will find a peach.
Or an MX5 obvs
Lots around
Fab cars
Bullet proof engines
Honda Civic mk8, if you get the ex gt spec you get all the toys too.
Subaru Legacy 3.0r spec B. Job done.
+1, I bought the 1.8S... Great to drive, loads of boot space, magic folding seats, bulletproof and reliable. No cambelt to change (chain driven).Originally Posted by Captain Morgan
This!
Did sell Honda the Accord Stationwagon in the UK? Not the prettiest of them all (reflected in the second hand sale prices) but certainly bullet proof.
They did sell the Accord Estate yes. Great cars but I think they only sold about 4 of them!
At this budget your options are endless so it really depends what is important to you from a car.
Personally I'd stick to petrol at this money as there's less "big" items to go wrong.
If you fancy a 159 then why not?
Get on the relevant Alfa forum & try & find a cherished one & you'll be laughing.
FWIW I have 3 Japanese sports cars which all fall into the £2-5k category so I guess that's what I like.
Your budget is rather high for true Bangernomics - the idea is to spend no more than a grand and then bin it as soon as something breaks - if you have 2-3k invested then the temptation is to pay for more pricey repairs rather than cutting and running.
From recent experience, and as a long-time VW addict, I would say avoid B6 Passat - we had one till recently and they are not aging well. Our 2007 diesel estate cost us a fortune in repairs before we dumped in in favour of a v70.
Thanks all for your suggestions, some food for though there
A 2005 Subaru Legacy 3.0 just finished on ebay for just over £3K - I was tempted to throw in a bid when it was much cheaper
I'm tempted by the Honda Civic - something I'd never considered, but they seem very highly rated (Honest John says 5 stars) and there seems plenty in my budget, so will have to go and check some out.
I'm in the fortunate positiuon of not needing a car to get to work and my wife having one, so can afford to take my time
Just need to arrange scrapping of my current car - looks like the scrappers pay just over £100 in London
I get your point about bangernomics - I've taken a slightly longer term view of this though
I paid £3,300 at auction for an ex-Police car 7 years ago. It had 70,000 miles on it and I've since done another 50,000 - in all that time the only thing I've bought has been tyres, brake discs and pads, along with oil & filters. It now needs nearly £1,500 spending on it, but will probably then only be worth £700-800, so it's now listed on ebay for spares or repair. If it doesn't sell, I'll scrap it - looks like I'll get just over £100 from scrapping it - so approx £450/year plus a very small amount of maintenance. It's the town driving that's killed it - 4-5,000 miles a year shuttling around London - lord knows how many speed bumps it's gone over in that time - must be millions
At that price point I'd put my money into something Japanese/Oriental. I reckon Honda's, Toyota's, Mitsubishi's, Subaru's, Hyundai's etc are as reliable as it gets and usually better VFM than their European competition.
But if you are set on the Alfa or Ford; I'd go for whatever comes up but would avoid the TDCi ford diesel engine as I have heard of lots of reliability issues on those particular diesel engines.
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