Looking for a diesel car......

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
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Sat 31 Mar 2007 15:23
Looking for a diesel car...... - matt79
I am currently looking for a family size diesel car for around £3 - £3.5k. Its got to be reliable (approx 80 mile round trip commute) & relativley modern & comfortable. I am thinking along the lines of a Mondeo TDCI but can any one recommend anything else?
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Sat 31 Mar 2007 18:29
Looking for a diesel car...... - craig-pd130
TDCi is a good bet, spacious and a very very good drive, they really are one of the best handling saloons out there.

You can also get a first-generation Skoda Octavia 110bhp for this money, a bit smaller than the Mondeo inside but huge boot, and very robust. The 110 motor is very economical too (an easy 50+ mpg on a run), reliable and well-proven running gear. My dad's had one for 6 years and it's never needed anything apart from 10K services, and has averaged something like 48 - 49 genuine mpg since new.

They can also be remapped to an easy & reliable 130+bhp and 225lb-ft torque for about £200 if you fancy a bit more oomph.

It's possible that the early B5.5 Passats (the just superceded model) will get down to this level too. These are very spacious, have all the toys and a big boot. You'll need to check which motor it has -- the first ones had a 115bhp / 228lb-ft motor, then after a year or so this went up to 130bhp / 210 lb-ft (5-speed box) and 130bhp / 228lb-ft (6-speed box), and there's a 105bhp variant too.

My 6-speed Passat's been great apart from suffering the frozen bolt which holds the front suspension together (very common) -- you're looking at £350 per side if a balljoint fails an MOT. I've averaged a real 47mpg over 55K miles, and on any motorway run will get 50+mpg providing you stay below 90mph.

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Mon 2 Apr 2007 14:28
Looking for a diesel car...... - Martin1981
£3.5k would get you a decent Peugeot 406HDi around 5 years old, with sensible mileage and all the toys. Ride quality is excellent and they are comfortable for long journeys. The PSA HDi engine is also very refined and builds on the qualities of the previous generation 1.9XUD engine, generally reliable and even the 110bhp version returns very good mpg.

Martin
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