Car for Son
 

My eldest has just got a job in Immingham, which means a daily round trip of either 108 miles via the M180 or 87 miles using the Humber Bridge and paying the toll. He's currently got an 05 1.4 Ztec Fiesta which is doing ~40mpg if he's lucky, so we've decided he should purchase something else which will return 60+mpg (real world). He'll also be visiting Hull now and again, but I think the majority of his time will be on the South Bank to start with.

Budget is up to ~£6k including trade in of current car which is probably worth £1k.

He's not in to cars and will quite happily sit at 60mph on the motorway, so getting a decent mpg return is a real possibility, his only criteria being it's not black and he can get his bike in the back.

Idea's so far are:

Fiesta
Corsa's
Peugeot 208

The current search I'm using on autotrader is £0 road tax and fuel = diesel + max price

If anybody has any real world feedback on MPG in the 70's and 80's and any cars to avoid or recommend, that would be great. We've got until early September to sort it, as that is when he starts.

Thanks

-
Q

If you can find one within your budget, a 1.0 ecoboost fiesta (99 bhp version). I average around the 50mpg figure with town driving and have got it up to 58 mpg on the motorway, but that's at 70, so 60 would prob be a bit higher. £0 road tax, cheap to insure and run. If you can stretch to it, get 'titanium' spec, comes with Sony stereo, digi climate control, nicer alloys etc.

Mrs has a Ztec S 125 Ecoboost thingymajig. It's returning mid 40's mpg and goes above 50 on a run. Might take a look as you say, some are just within price range.

Citroen C1/Toyota Aygo/Peugeot 107 (mechanically, they're identical cars) will all return 60 mpg on a 60-mph-average run... with ease. £20 a year to tax, insurance group 1 or 2, and totally reliable. In terms of hassle-free, budget motoring, it really doesn't get any better. Plus, he'll be able to pick up a decent, clean, low-mileage example for much less than £6k.

Hyundai i10 for my lad.....fuel seems to last forever compared with an sti

I have driven Citroen C1 and Hyundai i10 as work pool cars and both good and frugal. Citroen C1 or Peugeot/ Toyota same car clones would be my best bet as they weigh next to nothing. When the clutch packed up in one I could push it to the curb practically with one finger.
Nevertheless, why trade in a reasonable car returning 40 ish mpg then spend £5000 extra for a slightly more frugal one? £5k is a lot of fuel!

Agree with the above, about spending £5k on a car that will probably be worth a grand in a couple of years due to the mileage... man after my own heart... but if you really have to I'd go for a MK4 Golf diesel... pick up a decent one for well under £3k and will do 60mpg all day long... also capable of big miles with out too many problems.

:thumb: Don't get the 1.25 car nfused wth the 1.0 ecoboost bud, they are very different beasts. The NA 1.25 is relatively ancient and certainly higher revving than the 1.0 turbo ecoboost. Much more low down grunt with the ecoboost and the gearing is a lot longer in 3/4/5. At 70, the car is sat at 2.5k rpm, which in my opinion, for a 3 pot 1.0, is superb. Nice and quiet too!

Think he meant the car is the Zetec S 125bhp ecoboost 1.0 - i have the same car and get 45mpg on my 7 mile commute :)

This makes a lot of sense to me.

In the interest of self-preservation, I'll take it that he meant the 1.25 :lol1::lol1:
:facepalm:

Mind you. Looks like there are plenty of good nick Citroen C1's around for £1500-£2000 on auto trader with the £20 road tax. You can get a surprising amount of gear in them too with the back seats down.

Hi,
if you need any help with insurance at all for any vehicle he's looking at then please feel free to drop me a line.
Regards,
Dan.

Thanks for the pointers people.

Take on-board the comment about why bother changing in the first place, but sometimes, people just want a new/newer car.

i had a skoda courtesy car - fabia was stupidly good on mpg for a petrol

then they lent me the citigo thing, it was kinda sporty yet tiny, think it was a 1.0! went well, drove nice and did great mpg

I see you popping up on all the car forums Dan! I suppose it's not a bad way of drumming up business! ;)

Avoid diesels like the plague!

Especially since he's going to sit at 60-70 on motorways. The EGR valve will choke itself, the DPF won't regenerate and will choke itself to death, and he/you will be left with a big bill....for some greeny and liberal politicians mistakes!

Small petrol is the way.

Avoid the citroen c1 toyota aygo or peugeot 107, theyre all the same car and theyre all sh1te, ive mot'd loads of them, the last one was at 20k and the waterpump was leaking and the clutch was shagged. They're thrown together and utter crap. Get a golf bluemotion or a merc blueefficiency etc.

And there's me thinking that motorways are the best place for oil burners and driving them around town is what kills them? I drive 20 miles each way to York most days, typically sitting at ~60mph, except in the villages and then a bit of start stop as I hit the outskirts of York, and touch wood, I've never had a problem and I've never had the light come on.

For the same car, I've seen forum posts of people having issues, but they all tend to be urban driving and thus the engine never gets properly warmed up.

You are right and he is quite very wrong;

DPFs do not regen due to one of three issues;

underlying engine/system fault (almost always the main issues)

excessive CITY driving below 20mph (I.e London)

Persistently driving with less than 20litres of fuel in the tank (usually the cheapskates that put in £5 at the pump are guilty of this).

EGR faults are related to specific design on the vehicle, combustion cleanliness combined with oil breather system (a engine producing more soot and breathing oil heavily be it via breathers or turbo will be more likely to have problems.

EGR is worst at idle and at very light throttle; hence again cars that do city usually driving suffer worse, along with sedate drivers (40mph everywhere brigade; Karma :lol1: ) Unless it's one that suffers a inherent design issue.

Vehicles with over complicated EGR valves/coolers are prone to valve/position sensor failure. Some are very reliable and last the life of the car, others are terrible. Remember that most Petrol engine also have EGR, and some are also prone to failure just like diesels.

The only small petrols I'd consider for heavy motorway work is the 1.4tsi VAGs and 1.0ecoboost however both have plenty of documented issues as they are very stressed engines. Look at Ford and VAG forums to back this up. Correct oil and servicing is critical in these ( 507.00 oil for VAG and 0w-20 Ford specific for Ford changed every 12mnths/12k no later). They both have zero tolerance to running with low coolant levels; worse than Subarus! Cooked/wrecked ecoboosts are popping up everywhere at the moment.