Commuter Car - 25k

[TW]Fox;16149902 said:
I graduated last year - but I worked for a period of time for an organisation on my placement meaning a round trip of 86 miles a day.
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Ahh I see. I do about that daily at the moment :(
 
Toyota Avensis is what my money would go on given your budget and needs.

The higher range T4 and TSpirit models come well equipped and the diesel engines are very good for fuel economy and brilliant for munching the miles.

To drive the car is about as dull as it gets but hey, were not exactly after a track car here are we ;)
 
Whatabout something like a C class, say C270 CDi ? I have no idea if these are well built or not but they are within budget, are very comfortable and have good autoboxes.
 
Morba said:
Ahh I see. I do about that daily at the moment :(
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I hated it and that was despite the fact all the costs were covered by my employer. If I had to actually pay for it myself I'd have hated it even more.

It makes car reliability critical - car problem? You simply cannot get to work. You begin to be unable to afford to have a car thats anything less than utterly reliabile, which ageing prestige cars just are not.

Now I work 4 miles from my house. If my car breaks, who cares?
 
Definitely, that's where I have a small bonus, my boss lives up the road and does the same journey, so I can go with him when needed :)
 
Accord CDTi. Very reliable (well according to Warranty Direct), will easy achieve 40+. Had a look at one the other day, more than adequate interior that should last for a long time.
 
sorry its taken me so long to reply.

Just an FYI, over the last 5 years I have had in this order, 330ci, Audi TT and Mini GP with the commute being done in the TT and the GP..

But as the GP is now gone, I am looking for something to take its place..

But instead of a nightmare ride / reliability I want something that is dependable and doesnt cost the world to run.

My concern with a 7 year S class over a 3/4 year Honda / Ford is purely reliability, if its off the road I cant go to work..

As for work, I average about 55-60 hours a week purely in the office. With an additional 2.5 hours a day in the car, so it must be comfortable.

I had a look at an Avensis today, but the salesman said they have a 10k service interval (surely not???)..

Next route is looking at Honda Accord / 2.2 Civic.. I have spent the last week in one (one of my clients in Honda) and it was rather nice to munch the commute.

Oh should mention, 35 miles each way is A roads...

Cheers for the advice though, its obvious the experience pays dividends in my research :)_
 
[TW]Fox;16150112 said:
You, yourself, don't drive an S Class for example....
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Well, I don't do that commute any more - I changed jobs and relocated from beautiful Bristol to nasty Nottingham.

[TW]Fox;16150112 said:
he wants something 'cheap to run' and you are suggesting 7 year old S Class Mercs. In an ideal world it would be great to do your 25k in an S Class Merc but few people have the luxury of being afford that.
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That's why I've given him the choice. If he's wants more luxo and is willing to risk the greater cost, its definitely worth considering especially given the intergalactic mileage that he's going to be doing. But as I said in my first post the best solution to this situation is actually the E60 525d/530d.

The BMW is going to be comparable / possibly slightly higher in cost compared to the humdrum metal and its going to offer a better, more comfortable, solution. If the costs are slightly higher its not going to be so high as to make a material difference to his decision making and its going to be offset by the hassles that are going to be avoided.

If he spends £8k on say a Mondeo TDCi, puts 100k on it over the next 3 years, he going to incur all the hassles and costs of all the component problems associated with it. Clutch/DMF, injectors, EGRs, sensors, diesel pump, idle problems, trips to useless Ford dealers etc. That's not going to be cheap. Then he has to take a huge depreciation hit. You've had a Mondeo. How much is a 7 year old 150k Mondeo likely to be worth?

The BMW in comparison is engineered and built at a higher level. It's not as if its going to blow up half way down the motorway. As you've pointed out already, reliablity and having a working car is quite critical. And the depreciation curve on the E60 will be much less severe than the more common Mondeo. I think there will still be good demand for the E60 in 3 years time (helped by its sharp and modern looks) which is only going to help its residuals.

You throw all that into the mix, along with the greater build quality, engineering, comfort, reduced vibration and noise supression, and no way is it an easy choice of Mondeo/Vectra/Octavia etc. If it were me, I'd pick the BMW without even blinking.

If cost really is a major issue, he shouldn't be buying another car at all. He should just convert whatever he drives at the moment to LPG.

At the end of the day, there are different factors at play when choosing a car in these circumstances, and its not just about the car. I think one of the biggest factors has to be lifestyle impact. If his job is driving around delivering Littlewoods catalogues, then its Easy Life. No pressure to rush around because his employer won't want him breaking speed limits and driving is actually to be a break from whatever works he's does during the non-driving time. But he's said the 25k is commuting, so that means, he's going to have be doing the driving on top of his normal work. If he's got a stressful job, the last thing he'll want to be going home in is a noisy Octavia PD130. He really wants to be making the commuting as painless as possible. But at the end of the day, everyone's personal circumstances and lifestyle factors are different. When I was doing my hideous commute, there were times when I was jammed up and going nowhere on the NCR and thinking, "I'm getting really fed up of all this driving", "I really could do with an automatic...", "Hmmm...why didn't they double glaze the windows", "Hmmm....having some of the armchairs from the Saab 9-3 would probably be more comfortale that these seats." For me (and the circumstances that existed for me back then), its a no brainer.
 
Depends on your commute if you would prefer an auto or not.

I drove into Manchester in my final two years at uni. An automatic would have been fantastic as the M61/M60/M602 were all a car park in a morning, and I had he-man left leg at the end of it all.

However just sitting on the motorway with the car in top gear isnt really a pain no matter what.

I would settle for a compromise which would allow you to enjoy the drive when possible and interact with the car rather than just operate it.


My qualifications for commenting on this thread ;):

I do 40k p/a in a Transit Connect Tddi, have done for 3 years.

Prior to this as said above I commuted into Manchester which was 70 miles a day round trip.
 
Dont know what all the whoha is about.. nowt wrong with mondeo/avensis/octavia class cars for long mileage .

Did 60+k in my octavia and nowt broke .. service intervals were massive .. was okish on fuel (pd105) . was comfortable quiet and would sit at 110 all day long .

Yes im sure a Bmw/merc would be a nice place to be but a 1000's of people every day use normal stuff every day for silly miles and find it fine .

While doing some project work i had to use a van instad of my S-max and it was the low of the low (1.4 d kangoo) I did 20k in 5 months .. Now that is the worst 5 months of my life but sometimes you just get on with it . (by the time i finished with it , it was using 2 litres of oil every 500 miles)

I am just about to change job myself and will be buying my own car for it .. trouble is i have no idea what to buy. The plan this year was a M3 but i cant justify 2 cars . But the 40p a mile and shortish mileage could open up a decent choice but i kinda just want summit semi decent with an auto box.

Persil
 
Don't get me wrong I think the E60 is a great car but the sort of model he'd get for £10k is going to be an older higher mileage example. This is fine in theory and just the job for us enthusiasts who accept the fact that it will break, and it will cost money to fix, but when you've got such a huge commute and not bothering to turn up to work today because your 7 year old E60 has broken again isn't going to cut it with the boss, I think he needs something more normal.

Had he said running costs not an issue then I'd be right there with you. But he didn't, so I'm not. Massive older exec diesels are false economy, IMHO.

Just my opinion at the end of the day but given in 2006 I did exactly this - buy a 4 year old BMW which I then ended up commuting in (That was never the plan when I bought it..) - I'd like to think its quite a valid one :)
 
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I would second the Volvo. The S60/V70/S80 all have nice pillowy soft suspension and excellent refinement, unlike rock-hard German cars, which I suspect are designed for perfect German roads, not the lunar surface we get here.

Would say though that the S40 (and probably also V50) have a somewhat harsher ride, perhaps a legacy of them being Focus-based.

Definitely get an automatic. Willingly choosing manual in this day and age is, to my mind, akin to going back to using a starting handle to start the thing.
 
DJ Baz said:
Definitely get an automatic. Willingly choosing manual in this day and age is, to my mind, akin to going back to using a starting handle to start the thing.
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Amen to that. Unless you're racing every day and striving for that extra second a lap, why would you bother.
 
DJ Baz said:
I would second the Volvo. The S60/V70/S80 all have nice pillowy soft suspension and excellent refinement, unlike rock-hard German cars, which I suspect are designed for perfect German roads, not the lunar surface we get here.

Would say though that the S40 (and probably also V50) have a somewhat harsher ride, perhaps a legacy of them being Focus-based.

Definitely get an automatic. Willingly choosing manual in this day and age is, to my mind, akin to going back to using a starting handle to start the thing.
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I would third the Volvo auto. On of the large ones only though. They're literally as comfortable as an old sofa - but can be expensive to fix if they go wrong. That said, they are very reliable.
 
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