Even spender

I took delivery of a new Vauxhall Agila 1.2 automatic Design with air conditioning on 3 June 2010. On-the-road price with 1-years VED £12,985, and I paid an extra £199 for 'Supagard' treatment. After nearly 4 months I am dissatisfied with its running costs (and future high road tax of £125pa). With light-footed 50 mph driving, only 42.3 mpg overall. I wish to exchange for a new Citroen Nemo Multispace 1.4HDi 8V 70hp SensoDrive, which has everything needed but of which I was unaware when buying the Agila. Please provide your comments on the Nemo, and advise me the best way to advertise the 4-month old, 2,300 mile immaculate Agila and a realistic asking price for a private sale.

Asked on 19 September 2010 by RB, Abingdon

Answered by Honest John
You tell a sorry tale. You paid a fortune for that Agila, which, with the Suzuki Splash, is a model I generally recommend to anyone seeking a small, upright car with good access, flat folding rear seats and a 4-speed torque converter autobox. £125pa tax and 42.2mpg are insignificant compared to the cost of swapping it for something else. It's now worth about £8,500. On top of which, the Nemo diesel Sensodrive is not a proper automatic. It is an automated manual, and these take some getting used to. (That said, the similar FIAT Qubo 1.3 Multijet Dualogic I tested drove very well.) You will benefit from £30 tax. But I don't think you will average such significantly better mpg to make the expensive swap worthwhile. The official combined mpg figure is 62.8mpg, but unless your motoring is mostly long distance open road you will not get anything like that. And the ride of a Nemo is van-like. Assuming you can get £1,500 off the Nemo, you are still looking at a gap of £3,000 to fund a replacement you might regret.
Dear Honest John,

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