450 miles each way - BUS or TRain

Depends where you are in the North-West. Preston is under 9 hours and £162 with the changes. You could get a lot of studying done in 9 hours!

Buy Bobbins Mazda 6 on ebay! You could probably find something more economical but I doubt you would find something more reliable.

The best VAG economy is the non turbo sdi (pre pd) fitted to Polo, Ibiza, Golf, Octavia-

The rotary pumped SDI is not quick-nor is it efficient. You're comparing the consumption of a Superb to city size cars. Put a turbo diesel against an n/a diesel and the turbo engine will get better economy as well as more power. Turboing a direct injection diesel is a no brainer. I don't know why the SDI limped on for as long as it did!

TeeCee is looking at this right, you might do well to look at cars with the wrong badge*, there's one near you could be worth considering, Huyndai Sonata Diesel, (ebay 390445105338) this one is a manual but there are several autos for sale elsewhere too, proper auto box.

The sort of miles you are going to do will rent any vehicle to scrap value in a few years anyway....purely out of interest have a look at ebay 320919871897, same model with 247k miles.

Also consider Kia Magentis Diesel, ebay 290751312249

Hundai/Kia no longer have the wrong badge with their latest designs, whether this will reflect in the value and desirability of their older models i don't know.

Obviously Diesel is a good choice for you given the long distances, but an LPG converted well bought, especially wrongly badged, petrol could be worth considering too, you're bound to be able to find some indy LPG suppliers on you route unless you are intending to travel in the middle of the night, i'm currently paying 69p per litre from an indy.

If you are considering LPG i can point you to a good but very slow website that gives places and (not always up to date) prices of LPG suppliers for the whole country.

Edited by gordonbennet on 30/07/2012 at 11:04

The Mk1 Skoda Superb is available now for banger money with the 1.9PD engine - either power rating would do for your job. As a long distance cruiser it's comfortable, safe and very economical. My PD 130 will achieve a genuine 60 mpg (measured between fill-ups) when left in cruise for long motorway trips at an indicated 70 mph. Around town it averages at around 47 mpg if I don't tow anything.

Never ever buy a 2.0 PD Superb as the oil pump drive fails.

The problem with running an old Korean is the cost of maintenance - pattern parts are not available and the makers know it and so charge accordingly for OE parts.The mark up on spares and servicing subsidises the cars and any older vehicle will need them.

VAG are in the opposite camp - pattern parts all over the place for older models which limits the price of genuine spares. If you search on ebay for "VW spares" there are more items here than for most other makes. Likewise, the competition extends to a group of good Independents which improves the quality and cost of maintenance considerably. Dealers are notoriously poor at providing cost effective servicing of acceptable quality.

659.

Edited by 659FBE on 30/07/2012 at 20:46

Forgot to mention, whatever you shortlist - price up a set of tyres. With that mileage you could be buying a lot of them. Could be a significant cost. I have done about 20k/year (64 mile round trip commute + european holidays) for well over 20years and have been burnt by this in the past.

Both my cars (2003 Skoda Superb 1.9 pd 100 classic and 2001 Skoda Octavia 1.4 16v classic) are poverty spec versions that have higher profile tyres. The Skoda Superb gets about 18k on Bridgestones and 33k on Michelins. The Octavia gets well over 40k on Goodyears.

You will get much less out of super low prifile tyres. Someone at work was replacing tyres on a new Octavia VRS at about 10k - ouch! Could be 8 tyres /year - at nearly £200 each thats £1,600 every year! Compare that to my poverty spec Octavia with a set of high profile tyres every two years at £50 each thats £100 /year.

Edited by Big John on 30/07/2012 at 22:21

Interesting - so many people advise against getting a car with this engine (PD I assume), and yet you - who know a lot about this - had no problems.

Maybe you ensured that the injectors weren't Siemens.

The CR engine was available in the Passat from mid 2008. You can pick up high milers with one owner & FSH sub £5k. I made a point of avoiding the 2l PD. Inj Doc has been lucky ( & being Co cars, probably wasn't worried ), but early ones suffered with oil pump drive failure, which if not caught straight away, results in a new engine & no help from VW. Some go on for ever while others fail sub 40k miles. Coupled with the Siemens injectors that go short circuit, i'd rather forgoe the sleepless nights. I drove down to my sons near Watford yesterday in my 2008 CR Passat with 160k on the clock, 160 miles down the M6/ M1 with the cruise set to 68mph (apart from a few miles of 50mph roadworks ), 5 miles of A roads at each end & returned 68.4mpg on the confuser. A relaxing & quiet drive. If you can't run to the CR go for the 1.9PD engine which was used up to 2005.