Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50

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Tue 27 May 2025 14:25
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - Whiffle

Afternoon all.

Whilst I do like my Volvo V50, my circumstances have changed and I am thinking of getting a replacement.

1. My son is much older, now, and we do not need a big boot for prams etc.

2. My wife recently passed her test and is feeling too nervous to drive the Volvo.

3. I am finding that the cost of running the Volvo is getting a bit noticeable now, when it comes to servicing, parts tax etc.

I would love to get something like a Honda Jazz and was wondering whether this was a good idea (or perhaps any alternatives).

The vast majority of driving is non-motorway and I personally only do about 8,000 miles per year. Perhaps, with my wife driving, this might jump up to 10,000 but certainly no more.

Out of interest, I asked ChatGPT what it thought (purely from a financial point of view). It reckons that even if I only got £1,000.00 for my Volvo and spent £5,000.00 on a Jazz, I would break even within two years and would be saving myself £1,500.00, per year, after that.

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Tue 27 May 2025 15:31
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - Orb>>.

At £5000 a Jazz is going to be almost banger territory.

Youngrovergirl normally uses the Venga we have but although nervous at first is quite happy to drive the Korando.

Beware of swapping one problem for another.

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Tue 27 May 2025 16:12
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - Adampr

is £5k your budget?

I'm surprised the Volvo is expensive to service. Are you taking it to a Volvo dealer? It's a Ford Focus under the skin so shouldn't be too bad.

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Tue 27 May 2025 17:55
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - badbusdriver

£5k, assuming that is your budget, isn't that much these days. In the case of the Jazz, that may just about be enough to squeeze into an early 3rd gen car (2015 on), but most will be 2nd gen cars. Same would be the case for the equally reliable but less practical and spacious Yaris. So think i'd be reluctant to change from a car you know and which is (presumably) reliable (as Adampr says, Focus under the skin, but i believe the 1.8 is actually a Mazda engine) to something which, on paper, should be reliable but may not actually be if subject to many years of neglect.

Re servicing costs, (again) as Adampr says, shouldn't really be that much. They are fundamentally reliable and with the Focus underpinnings, there is no reason why that should be excessive unless there are problems?.

Re your wife being nervous to drive the V50, it isn't actually that big a car, (slightly) shorter than a Focus estate and way smaller than the gigantic SUV's which most seem to want. Surely a short period of acclimatisation will have her overcome any reservations about it?. Maybe a reverse camera might also help?

If you really feel you need to change, as well as the Jazz (and Yaris), consider (just to be clear, petrol only in all cases) the Mazda 2 (very reliable, but not much interior space), Hyundai i20 and ix20, Kia Rio and Venga, Ford B-Max (only the 1.4 petrol, steer clear of the 1.0 Ecoboost), and the Nissan Note.

But you may well need to sift through a lot of tat and travel far and wide before finding a good 'un. So be prepared for this, especially if you live somewhere with a fairly low population density. Check the MOT history of any potential purchase before going to see it for indications of how well or otherwise it has been looked after.

Edited by badbusdriver on 27/05/2025 at 17:56

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Tue 27 May 2025 23:34
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - SLO76
If you have a driveway and room for a home charger you could spend a bit more £7,500-£9,000 and buy a nice 40kwh Nissan Leaf. It will cost buttons to run when charged on cheap off-peak lekky and with few moving parts servicing and general maintenance costs are very low. They’re generally very reliable too. You could get a cheaper Mk I if you want to stay under £5,000, but the 24kwh is very limited range wise (60-80 miles) and the bigger 30kwh Mk I suffers more from degradation than other variants for some reason.

These make for excellent cheap to run cars for those who rarely venture far from home. The 40kwh can do longer runs with public charging easily enough, we used ours to cover several hundred miles in a day a few times. It’s just a little more time consuming, though not much as you’d typically stop for a tea and a pee every few hours anyway. Plug it in for 30/40 mins and away you go again.
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Wed 28 May 2025 12:40
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - Whiffle

Thanks everyone - really appreciate your comments.

I am now mindful just to keep the Volvo..

I hadn't quite appreciated how expensive used cars are, currently - when I was looking for the Volvo (which is about ten years ago), you could pick up perfectly usable cars for a couple of grand but it seems that those days are long gone.

Edited by Whiffle on 28/05/2025 at 13:14

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Wed 28 May 2025 16:30
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - John F

...I am now mindful just to keep the Volvo..

Very wise. Your wife will udoubtedly gain confidence as your presumably old V50 is neither large nor apparently valuable. Like (sadly) so many enquirers here, you mention neither age nor mileage. I assume it has almost stopped depreciating if 'we buy anyoldheap' will give you only a k for it. Personally, I would eschew regular expensive 'services' and just change the oil every 10,000 miles. The annual MoT will keep it safe. That's what I did for the life of Mrs F's Ford Focus estate (a very similar car) which did 160,000 miles and 21yrs before the rust finished it off. Why anyone would want to swap such a practical car for a 'small Japanese' thing puzzles me immensely.

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Wed 28 May 2025 17:49
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - badbusdriver

Like (sadly) so many enquirers here, you mention neither age nor mileage. I assume it has almost stopped depreciating

That would be a fair assumption seeing as the youngest V50 will be circa 18 years old!. It was in production from 2004-2012 and was the estate version of the S40.

The name was used for a fairly short period because the car it replaced was called the V40, and it's replacement, also called the V40, was only available as a 5 door hatchback.

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Wed 28 May 2025 18:50
Volvo V50 1.8 Petrol - Small Japanese Car to replace Volvo V50 - SLO76

Thanks everyone - really appreciate your comments.

I am now mindful just to keep the Volvo..

I hadn't quite appreciated how expensive used cars are, currently - when I was looking for the Volvo (which is about ten years ago), you could pick up perfectly usable cars for a couple of grand but it seems that those days are long gone.

Wise. The market is daft at the moment. I mentioned a used Leaf as there are bargains to be had there as people are afraid of the unknown, despite them being generally more reliable than an equivalent petrol or diesel. Keep your eyes open for a friend or relative trading something in or giving up driving and looking to sell a decent car., I bought a very decent 13 plate Ford Focus recently for £1100 thanks to dealer only offering a friends dad a grand for it. On the forecourt it would be around £3k plus. Look out for a wee private sale bargain on Gumtree too, but be careful. Dealers are expecting big margins, so a £5k car there is really only a £2-£3k motor with a bit of tyre paint and a valet. The warranties on an older car will be next to worthless anyway so bypass the dealer and go straight to the sellers door face to face.
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