CHEAP mileage muncher
- Thread starter NoNameNoNumber
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Caporegime
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- 11 Mar 2005
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As others have mentioned a 1.9PD Octavia would be my choice. There are plenty with 200,000+ miles on autotrader for sub 1k, but personally I would spend a bit more given how quickly you will be piling the miles on. Within 2 years you will have added another 100k and there arent many 300,000 mile examples! Something like this should get you a couple of reliable years.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201509056635716
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201509056635716
You don't know how much money the taxi drivers have put into keeping them running though - ultimately any car can go onto 500k miles with enough investment. Most don't because of age.
All cars are a roll of the dice especially at this money. The 1.9 is often heralded around here as the embodiment of reliability bit of course those can go wrong too. There are a few people on the skoda forums with 1.9s which have launched a piston through the side of the block. There are also people with the (totally unreliable if you read too much ocuk) 2.0 at 200k+ with no serious issues. The 1.9 is more robust it seems but the polar viewpoints of the 2 engines is deeply skewed.
If it was me... I'd probably get a £500 Peugeot 406. Nice and comfy and they seem to never die, even if you want them to. The old TD can run on chip fat too. If it breaks just throw it in the bin for £200 scrap and buy another. Plenty around for £500 with low 100s on them but there are lots of mega mile examples around (http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201510017422480)
All cars are a roll of the dice especially at this money. The 1.9 is often heralded around here as the embodiment of reliability bit of course those can go wrong too. There are a few people on the skoda forums with 1.9s which have launched a piston through the side of the block. There are also people with the (totally unreliable if you read too much ocuk) 2.0 at 200k+ with no serious issues. The 1.9 is more robust it seems but the polar viewpoints of the 2 engines is deeply skewed.
If it was me... I'd probably get a £500 Peugeot 406. Nice and comfy and they seem to never die, even if you want them to. The old TD can run on chip fat too. If it breaks just throw it in the bin for £200 scrap and buy another. Plenty around for £500 with low 100s on them but there are lots of mega mile examples around (http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201510017422480)
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Taxi drivers are a tight bunch though. There is a reason you see so many Skodas as taxis, and that is because, ultimately, they are cheap to keep on the road when doing big miles.
I don't disagree with your peugeot post either though. As much as I dislike French cars now, in my youth I had a few, including a 1992 309 diesel running at well over 200k. And that was back around the early 2000's. When that was considered to be big mileage.
And yeas, the chip fat ability also appeals to me. I ran an old Polo SDI on 50% SVO for a year or so, and it ran great. No problems with it at all (I did change out the fuel filter after a few tanks right enough). It was fine, and Veg oil is cheap enough just now (£13 for 20L in some places). It's a good idea for such big mileage. But not in a Polo SDI. It was slow, rattly and small, which didn't make for a good car on the motorways / dual carriageways / any distance at all really.
Of course. But I do see LOADS of them as taxi's, and many with big miles. If they weren't so cheap to keep on the road, there wouldn't be so many as taxis. Of course, there may be some examples that haven't been cheap to keep on the road, same as with any car. But I suspect the majority have been cheap.