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Welcome to the forum, Bosieberry. I agree with Concrete - add one of the Skodas to the shortlist, depending on how big a car you need. The Octavia is adequate for rear legroom but the luggage area is huge; the Superb is huge in both. Customer surveys show a great many satisfied Skoda owners (including me).
I haven't tried either of your named contenders, although the road tests that I've seen bear out your opinion that the Hyundai is a bit better to drive, the Toyota not very exciting but very dependable.
Do you do at least 15,000 miles a year? If not, consider a petrol engine, which may be cheaper overall and won't have a problem with clogged particulate filters if you drive a lot in town.
Edited by Avant on 22/06/2012 at 00:51
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To continue with my 56 mpg fuel consumption, I do mainly motorway miles, I don't tear around, I read the road and try not to accelerate & brake hard and I cruise at 70 on motorways. The on board computer shows 56 mpg, I calculate every fill up on a spreadsheet and the computer is reasonably accurate. When I fill up and drive around town for 100 or so miles, the computer shows low 40s mpg. On the subject of tyres, the vehicle is leased so I have no say on what tyres are fitted but for front tyres:
The factory fitted Bridgestones lasted 37.5k miles.
The next ones were Michelin Energy, lasted 56k miles
The next ones were made by Dunlop, lasted 41k miles
It is now on Continentals on the front.
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Hi Avant, thanks for the welcome. I do about 10K miles currently; but as the new car would also be used as family car for longer journeys (which at the moment we do in my husband's car) the mileage would go up quite a bit. I don't do a lot of town driving - it's mainly A and B roads to get to the towns (or even just a supermarket!) as we are in a semi-rural location.
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Bosieberry
About 2 years ago we were in the market for a largish estate to replace our C-Max. We looked at most alternatives and drove quite a few. The Toyota Avensis was probably the pick of what we drove but unfortunately all the dealers were so incompetent we were unable to try one with the diesel engine we wanted, the petrol version they were trying to sell us was gutless. The price made our eyes water a bit as well but deals could be found.
The Skoda Octavia was pretty good but there was no way the wife could comfortably drive it due to a lever under the steering column. Too much essential safety kit was extra cash plus although the boot was huge a spare cost extra cash (again), put that in with a raised boot floor and you lost a large bit of that space.
After several weeks of looking we dropped into our local Kia dealer. They had a Ceed SW (their estate version) on the forecourt and it ticked all our boxes plus it was way cheaper than anything else we had looked at. The boot was simply huge (it even had a spare), almost as big as a Mondeo Estate, plus the interior has plenty of space. They lent us one for a couple of hours and we were convinced, the 7 year warranty was nice to have as well.
18,000 miles later we are still convinced we bought the right car. We have had no problems and servicing was reasonably priced. We have the 1.6 CRDi 115 bhp model, performance is great and we have averaged 50 mpg (calculated) since we got the car.
A new Ceed SW is due in September, if you are happy buying a car that is at the end of its life span there are some terrific deals available.
Have a look, you may well be surprised, we were.
PS Hyundai and Kia are basically one company, most components have both logo's on them.
Edited by skidpan on 24/06/2012 at 21:16
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PS Hyundai and Kia are basically one company, most components have both logo's on them.
Because Kia had no funds for new development, all their models (except the Sedona) are now based on the equivalent Hyundai - the outside sheet metal will differ but the platform and everything underneath is the same.
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That's quite useful knowledge isn't it - it's what I thought but good to have it confirmed. It means that customers for new cars have a better chance of finding a dealer near them - Kia or Hyundai, selling much the same car.
Going back to the original question - if the Kia Ceed is similar to the Hyundai i30, it must be smaller than the i40 which is on Bosieberry's shortlist.
Edited by Avant on 24/06/2012 at 23:50
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That's quite useful knowledge isn't it - it's what I thought but good to have it confirmed. It means that customers for new cars have a better chance of finding a dealer near them - Kia or Hyundai, selling much the same car.
Going back to the original question - if the Kia Ceed is similar to the Hyundai i30, it must be smaller than the i40 which is on Bosieberry's shortlist.
The simplest way to view Hyundai and Kia is to think of the VW group, same car with different bodies.
With regards to size the Ceed SW is way bigger than the old i30 (not looked at the new i30, it may be bigger). We looked at both, the old i30 had a luggage capacity of about 430 litres but the Ceed SW has 535 litres plus a huge box under the boot floor that is probably about another 20 litres, as I said its almost as big as a Mondeo Estate and bigger than a Passat and Avensis.
The i40 is just slightly bigger than the Ceed SW at 553 litres but if it does not have any under floor starage its going to be a draw.
Edited by skidpan on 25/06/2012 at 08:54
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Have to say i'm very surprised to read that a 'badge snob' will consider a Hyundai but not a Skoda!
Thats not snobbery, thats just a total lack of car knowledge!
I'd take the Avensis. Toyota's are painfully dull (I used to work in a Toyota dealership!) but the Avensis is a worthy car and a pleasant drive. And that mpg is absolutely achievable without any worries. In fact I once had a customer complain because his car was 'only' managing 54mpg when he had been doing nearer 60mpg apparently. All we could do was point out the car was achieving book figures! He still wasn't happy though!
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That's quite useful knowledge isn't it - it's what I thought but good to have it confirmed. It means that customers for new cars have a better chance of finding a dealer near them - Kia or Hyundai, selling much the same car.
Going back to the original question - if the Kia Ceed is similar to the Hyundai i30, it must be smaller than the i40 which is on Bosieberry's shortlist.
The simplest way to view Hyundai and Kia is to think of the VW group, same car with different bodies.
With regards to size the Ceed SW is way bigger than the old i30 (not looked at the new i30, it may be bigger). We looked at both, the old i30 had a luggage capacity of about 430 litres but the Ceed SW has 535 litres plus a huge box under the boot floor that is probably about another 20 litres, as I said its almost as big as a Mondeo Estate and bigger than a Passat and Avensis.
The i40 is just slightly bigger than the Ceed SW at 553 litres but if it does not have any under floor starage its going to be a draw.
Hyundai and Kia know that competing against each other is pointless but it's not clear, globally, how they intend to align their brands against the competition - nor indeed how they'll align a 3rd brand in their determination to move into the premium sector. They've studied both the VAG structure of brands and the Toyota/Lexus structure but haven't decided, publicly at least, how their own group will be structured.
I've not looked at i30, Ceed and i40 in comparative detail but spacing them at half-size steps rather than competing head-on is an excellent strategy.
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Just had a look at the Kia pricelist for the outgoing SW. The "2" CRDi 115 is £14445 of the road but if you want a few extra toys like 17" wheels, climate instead of A/C, rear privacy glass, reversing sensors etc. the price goes up to £15545. No doubt the dealers would negotiate on those figures to bring them down further.
Thats less than we paid 2 years ago and probably more than £6000 less than the competition.
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Just had a look at the Kia pricelist for the outgoing SW. The "2" CRDi 115 is £14445 of the road but if you want a few extra toys like 17" wheels, climate instead of A/C, rear privacy glass, reversing sensors etc. the price goes up to £15545. No doubt the dealers would negotiate on those figures to bring them down further. Thats less than we paid 2 years ago and probably more than £6000 less than the competition.
We have a Ceed SW CRDi. Done about 16,000 miles in it. Totally reliable and incredibly spacious. Averaged just over 50 mpg so far. Good on long runs especially with the standard cruise control. At the prices quoted above I would buy another on today without hesitation. Complete bargain.
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Whilst checking on something else, I discovered that Hyundai Motor Group is the 4th largest car manufacturer in the world, beaten only by Toyota, Volkswagen and GM in that order.
I didn't realise that Hyundai overtook Ford for car production in 2009 - and all vehicle production in 2010.
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I would go for the Toyota.
I have worked for a Hyundai dealership, and while the cars where and some models sitll are good value, the parts list and servicing costs are some of the highest around.
Also, they have taken their focus away from reliability and put the focus on style and design.
The Hyundai/Kia marque is no longer built as reliably as before, they have added complex systems to the cars.
Say what you want about the old sonata, accent, lantra, matrix, etc - but they where very reliable and straight forward to work on.
The rare occasion they did go wrong, you would need to source the parts from a dealer or ebay USA could sometimes be cheaper.
A small independent parts supplier did spring up at the start of the century selling cheap copy parts, I found them to be just as good, especially for servicable items.
Maybe the parts list was so high because they rarely sold any replacement parts, that was certainly the experience.
To repeat, the old hyundais, while being 'ugly' (subjective) and having no 'soul' (objective), where ultra reliable.
I have seen many a Hyundai Accent 1.3 hit over 150,000 miles. I witnessed many on there original cambelt where thew owner hasnt bothered with the replacement and the belt has finally snapped around 130,000 - 150,000.
In the states, its common for petrol automatic sonatas to hit 250,000 km on the orginal clutch and auto box.
From what I read and the people I speak to, the new generation of Hyundai's have followed the mistakes of Nissan and Toyota (ableit in Toyotas case only for a short while) in putting design ahead of reliability.
Hyundai/Kia need to remember, their original customer base purchased their cars for value and reliability, they will lose them to the soon to arrive chinese manufacturers and Dacia if they are not careful.
The last of the 'good old' Hyundai/Kia's was probably the Rio which was recently replaced.
Uninspiring, but straight forward and reliable.
Welcome to the Chinese and Dacia.
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