Which Car for a Budget of 3k max?
 

Hi guys,

I'm thinking about getting a second car for commuting to work in as I'm moving house and it's a bit further away. I don't really want to put too many more miles on the Scooby as it's coming up for 90k now.

I'm after something comfortable, reliable and relatively cheap to run (good MPG, low tax etc). What would you recommend please?

You could get a half decent seat Leon diesel for that budget

E90bmw 320d £20 a year road tax and easy 60-70 mpg on motorway 40-50 round town ,140 or 170bhp too so plenty of pull . there's plenty out there under 3k , engines are bullet proof so no worries there either with high miles as long as they been serviced on time.

Preferences, diesel, petrol, 5dr hatch, estate, sports car etc etc

Prius

How many miles commute are we talking?

I don't really have a preference, other than 4/5 doors as I think a 3 door is too impractical for family life. Automatic might be nice for comfort, but then it takes away from the driving experience. I'm just after some thoughts and ideas :)

The BMW could be a good shout, although I'm not sure where you got £20 road tax from!

New mileage is almost 100 mile round trip. I'm currently doing 60 a day in the Scoob, hasn't missed a beat over the 3 years of ownership, but now I'm thinking I'd like to keep it 'relatively' nice.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classifi...l_a_friend_car

My advice: As new as possible, as simple as possible, without intergalactic miles (max 120k)

Anything older than 8 years and you be potentially looking bills for brake pipes, springs, bushes etc. Plus its more time for a previous neglectful owner to skip services or smoke out the clutch in stop go traffic ;)


Personally would not touch a ten year or older BMW unless it has receipts for new brake pipes and suspension bits. Lots of worn out pigs with lipstick out there that have been maintained on a tuppence leaving the next owner facing big bills.


Don't go near one with a N43 (petrol) engine as these engines are utter dogs

And if it has a N47, make sure it has a receipt for a chain and tensioner as it's an engine out job to fix. Same goes for the N42 petrol, but that's at the front, but still a costly repair which they will all require.

M47, M54 M52 etc. are pretty robust though.

Im pretty against diesels now, but for that sort of milage then def something like a volvo, bmw or merc. Only issue is a diesel BMW at that price/age will prob have the crappy N54 engine in it.

Thanks for the good, detailed advice Ali, I'll keep that in mind when doing my research.

Thanks to the others for their inputs :)

Any other suggestions? I was thinking a Volvo because I hear they are very comfortable, but I don't know much about them...

Is your current car a 2005 WRX?

If so, I'd just keep using the Scooby. No disrespect but it's not a special model or ultra low mileage. 500miles a week commuting is not going to tire the car out (unless it's all in stop-start traffic or you drive it like a rally stage). It will easily do another 50k without breaking sweat if you look after it.

Sure you are paying the petrol costs and servicing it more regularly but compare that to the costs and hassle of buying another car, depreciation, tax, insurance, mot, servicing etc, coupled with the fact that any second hand car (especially a 10+ year old cheap one) could have all manner of hidden issues that don't present themselves until a while into ownership and the numbers would never work for me.

I'd rather spend the money on preventative maintenance on the Scoob and enjoy driving it, rather than sinking it into another dull old car.

Yeah you make a good point as well Mr T Pug! I have been thinking that myself, I'm in a bit of a dilemma. Ideally I'd like to get a brand new car, but all the finance deals have pretty restrictive mileage T&Cs and then you're tied in for years and end up only renting cars instead of owning them. What I need to do is win the lottery, but I'd have to buy a ticket first! Sigh.

I was in a similar position when I started having to do 600mile weekly commutes. I did think about getting a diesel barge but knew I would want something interesting to drive also. Which meant 2 cars. The numbers simply didn't stack up. If I had a Classic or an expensive Spec-C or similar then it may have been an option. But a WRX is the daily-driver Scoob, so just use it for what it's designed for. I've done 50k in less than 2 years but the vast majority is M-ways. Sure it needs oil changes and servicing more frequently and I average 28mpg but nothing major has failed and it's past 170k now.

I can't see how running 2 cheap old cars is going to be cheaper or more convenient than just concentrating my efforts and attention on 1. Plus I get to drive a Scoob everyday. I also don't think that a WRX is special enough to just have as a weekend car or a garage queen. So I would either just keep it, enjoy driving it and just spend a little more on preventative maintenance. Or sell it and buy a commuter snotter and a sports car/something interesting for the weekend.

I'v got a e90 320d that's how I know tax is £20 a year unless the tax is different for different models

Your e90 is probably a fresh efficient dynamics one at £20 pa, the op won't get that in a 2.0d with his budget as will be £100+ at least even for a lci

Only if it's an "Efficient Dynamics" model. All other 320d's are £115 Band D. Some are even Band E.

Sorry about that mine is efficient dynamics never realised they are different tax group. I just thought all e90 2ltr diesels wer the same apart from some having different power levels

I loved my WRX but no way would I do 500+ miles a week in one again, even more so with fuel the price it is now... that's like £100+ a week in fuel alone, then an oil change every 10 weeks @ circa £70... that's before anything goes wrong, over £1000 every 10 weeks.

I always think about it in terms of running costs, cheap MK4 golf diesel with sub 100k, might cost you a few hundred quid to get it into good shape, but you'll soon recoup that as the fuel bill will be half the price of the scoob, so your first 10 weeks will save you £500 over the scoob... so plenty of cash to play with. ;)

Here you go, family friendly and got leather, well under budget.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classifi...=Diesel&page=3

And this one, which would be my choice a steal at sub £1k, leather, more miles but loads of cash left over to play with, cheeky remap sees close to 200bhp and a million torques, tempted myself on this one.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classifi...ize=1.8&page=2

What does this mean in English, for those of us that don't know the numbers please. :)

+1 For a Leon TDi, Get a 140 sport with no DPF

They are engine codes.

Those engines are fitted across the board depending on the model year, so model designation or engine size (118, 320, 520d etc.) won't tell you which has which engine.

For example 2005 120d has a M47, that's good. 2007 120d has a N47, that's not so good. A e90 320i could have a N43, N45 or N46; N43 should be avoided at all costs.

Best find the car, and check google/Wikipedia to see which engine was fitted in what year as there is too many to list for each model and year BMW.

Alternatively the castrol oil checker website will normally show the engine model code from the reg number: http://applications.castrol.com/oils...en_gb/c/search

In short though BMW 4cylinders engine codes beginning with "N" = be careful some ar ok some have major issues as already mentioned. Codes beginning with "M" are generally solid, usually just swirl flaps and lazy Vanos units to worry about.

Lets assume that fuel costs are double in the Subaru, @ 25k a year, call it £5k in fuel. So a potential saving of £2.5k. True the Subaru would need 4 oil changes compared to 2. But that is less than £200 difference.

So £2.5k is the budget to buy another car, tax it, insure it and MoT. So £2k for the car is realistic. The idea that you can run a £2k car for 25k miles a year and not have to spend any money on parts or labour in that time seems fanciful. I guess you could buy a Diesel Golf for £1500 and get away with just shedding it for the whole year. A set of tyres, battery and some brake pads and that is any savings gone.

The most you are likely to save is £20 a week. But it's not guaranteed.It could easily end up costing you more to run than any fuel savings and that's before you include the time/hassle factor of having to maintain another car. And you are driving 25k miles a year in some dull Euro-box.

As I say, for me, the numbers don't work. Not if I already own a Newage WRX. If I had a low mileage Classic or high-powered track-focused car then I might think differently.

civic cdti ex

Octavia Deisel hatch or estate
Will do 55mpg and engines are caperable of 200k
Real workhorse
That's why so many taxi drivers use them

Well I'd say any car can go wrong or have problems, even more so 2nd hand... I don't think that it matters if it cost 2 grand or 10 grand... experience has taught me that you can actually buy a car for under a grand and get 50k trouble free motoring out of it, it's all about picking the right car and not being fussy about what it is.

Personally I wouldn't run 2 cars, been there, done that and I basically never used the "special" one in the garage because it's just easier to jump in the one on the drive.

I linked a car for under a grand, so theres an extra grand right off the bat, those PD130 engines are well proven to easily do 250k and you'll see quite a few for sale with those sort of miles, I wouldn't want to take a scoob to those miles just for the fuel bill alone.... an it will be worth 2p with anything above 130k on the clock, so your £5k scoob becomes a £1500 scoob in 2yrs which needs to be factored in to your costs... where as a £1k car will just become a £500 car or scrap.

I'm talking from experience here, bangernomics works REALLY well... even more so if you can fix cars yourself, I've done it for over 30yrs, and I'm doing it again now, swapped my Wrx Wagon for a Golf diesel last year and been saving a small fortune... fuel alone, I now put £20/25 every 3 weeks instead of £30 every week... £400 cheaper to insure, tyres and all other service related items are a 3rd of the price or less (brake pads in particular fraction of the cost) I won't add the £500 I save not having to drive back to the UK, as that's personal to me... but it's still a saving... then there's the price difference in the value of the car... which is about £2k in my pocket and £2k+ pa saving even on my tiny miles of around 100 per week.

Put lpg on wrx ,mine drive 7y on it and i will scrap it when engine dies hopefully never:thumb:

Fit the wrx with a LPG conversion, switch it over to petrol at the weekend.

Get the best, lowest-mileage Toyota or Honda your budget will stretch to, and have the satisfaction of saving money on fuel and bills for stuff going wrong now, plus the added bonus of being able to hand the car to your kids to learn to drive in 10/15 years from now when it's still working perfectly :thumb:

With that mileage you are doing I would get a diesel with the lowest mileage you can find for about a grand (something like a late Mk2 Mondeo or Vectra) and do the bangernomics like mentioned above and run it as long as you can.


Out of interest do E90 BMW 3 series rust like the E46's?

You sure you are talking about the right engine? N54 is a 3 litre petrol turbocharged engine which in my opinion is not crappy :wonder: