Oh no, got to start driving to work!

RobPot

RobPot

RobPot

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After over seven years of the luxury of walking 7 mins to work, a new job means it looks like I'm going to be driving up to 400 miles per week, mostly on the motorway.

Sadly the MX-5 isn't really the car for the job, so with a budget of £8-10k what would people recommend? At the moment my preferred option seems to be a 1.6 diesel Focus, or would that be a terrible mistake?

Suggestions appreciated (but moving is not something we're considering!).
Cheers.
 
Decent Mk4 Mondeo, pick your engine on if you want a petrol with higher fuel costs but less to go wrong or a diesel with more to go wrong but with smaller fuel bills.
 
well clearly you need to state what running cost you're expecting.. a mondeo would be better than a focus for motorway in my eyes.. but if you don't mind higher running costs a big barge would be a lot better
 
grudas said:
well clearly you need to state what running cost you're expecting..
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I'm not really sure what running costs I should be expecting - certainly Road Fund Licence of £30 per year seems attractive...

Haven't looked at Volvos yet - thanks for that mjt.
 
E30, oh wait.

Hmm can get a good spec Mondeo for that money or maybe something a little different like a Jetta.
 
grudas said:
well clearly you need to state what running cost you're expecting.. a mondeo would be better than a focus for motorway in my eyes.. but if you don't mind higher running costs a big barge would be a lot better
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What if running costs aren't important? Maybe they're not that important, it could be another reason he wants a change.

I know I'd hate to have to do my old commute (circa 250 miles a week) in my gfs MX5, nice car to drive and all, but not a cozy commuting vehicle!
 
Pudney said:
What if running costs aren't important? Maybe they're not that important, it could be another reason he wants a change.

I know I'd hate to have to do my old commute (circa 250 miles a week) in my gfs MX5, nice car to drive and all, but not a cozy commuting vehicle!
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if they were not important he wouldn't be looking at a 1.6 focus :o
 
I have to admit I'm not too clued up on the Focus - last time I looked I was looking for a diesel and the words DMF appeared all the time with an £800 or so fix price tag, so I left them alone.

At this price you could get quite a few cars with the VW TDI 1.9 engine in it; it's a very reliable engine although a bit noisy so for motorway cruising you would definitely want something with the 6 speed gearbox. (My Ibiza TDI 5-speed sits at 2.4k doing 70; that might sound like basically idle in a petrol but when your redline is at 4.8k then it's really not!)
 
Two questions..
Why would you spend £10k on a poxy little diesel hatchback?
Why would you want to do 400 miles a week in a poxy little diesel hatchback?
 
I did a 400 mile a week commute in a MK2 1.6TDCi focus and it was perfect for the job. Cost next to nothing to run, nothing went wrong in the 3 years i owned it but this was however from new so would have been a bit miffed if it did break.. only thing that did 'break' was a stone chip breaking the heated front screen.

Mine was A road dual carriageway and regular twisty A roads so no 80+ on motorways etc
 
I got my year and a half old Honda Insight ES for a shade over £10k. Comfortable, with climate control and cruise control. £10 a year to tax and gets over 60mpg on a 70mph cruise from a petrol engine (fuel economy does drop a lot if you go faster though).

Having said that, you'd probably get better fuel economy from a modern diesel.
 
Duke said:
E30, oh wait.
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I'd recommend a 1980s Vauxhall Chevette, really good value for money in their day and I think Joshy's grandma owned one and he sat in it a couple of times. Just because cars are old doesn't mean they are unreliable or hard to find parts for.
 
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