Budget £4K 24,000 miles per year

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Thu 11 Aug 2016 11:26
Budget £4K 24,000 miles per year - Tom33worcester
Morning all,

I've recently become a first time father and now need to upgrade the motor. I do a lot of motorway driving, a new born here so room for a pram etc.

I've been looking at a few options such as a focus, octavia etc but thought I'd see what you guys suggest.

The budget is max of £4 in the ideal world however I may be able to squeeze £5k in a couple of months time
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Fri 12 Aug 2016 00:25
Budget £4K 24,000 miles per year - Avant

Condition (and in your case the size of car) matters more than make or model. Try to find something with a service history, and don't be tempted by prestige makes.

I'm reluctant to recommend a diesel that's more than a few years old, as things can go expensively wrong. But I can see that your annual mileage might suggest a diesel. The Focus and Octavia as you suggest are good choices: the 1.9 diesel Octavia is more reliable than the 2.0 of the vintage that you'll be looking at.

But if you can find a good petrol Japanese car for less money than Focuses or Octavias of the same age, go for it. Toyotas in particular seem to soldier on forever.

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Fri 12 Aug 2016 21:58
Budget £4K 24,000 miles per year - phil_z70

A second hand Dacia sandero 1.2 petrol with reasonable miles might be an option, you'd maybe get something approaching 3 year old coming up to the end of it's warranty

Then run it into the ground

Putting 24k a year on any car will really hit any cars depreciation big, in 3 to 4 years time with over 100k the car will be worthless but you would hopefully had your moneys worth out of it

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Sat 13 Aug 2016 08:29
Budget £4K 24,000 miles per year - SLO76
I'd also be wary of a diesel at your price range. There's just too much to go wrong, though the VAG 1.9 unit is a long lived lump, it does come with the troublesome particulate filter in later guises. I'd stick with petrol. Astra, Focus, Octavia and Honda Civic are all good options but condition and history are more important than make and model. The Civic has a huge boot, it's well made, looks different has an excellent chain driven 1800 petrol that gives strong performance and still exceeds 40mpg without much hardship. The 2.2 diesel does over 50mpg, goes very well and avoids a particulate filter but can suffer from problems thanks to the extra complexity. Astra is simple and robust in petrol form and there's a good diesel option in the 1.7 Isuzu engined variant but I'd stay clear of the Fiat engine in the 1.3, 1.9 and 2.0 diesels which are all known for problems. The Focus again is largely trouble free in petrol form, the Yamaha designed 1600 is sweet but no fireball but the 1600 PSA HDI diesel is notorious for turbo failure and it often kills the engine as metal fragments are ingested as a result. Loads of woe to be found online regarding this engine which appears in many Peugeot/Citroen models along with Mini, Ford and Volvo. Above all keep it simple when shopping on a budget and look for full history and longterm previous ownership. If someone's only owned it a matter of months then there's likely to be problems with it.
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