Best £30 and MPG car?

If you are at uni (presumably for at least another two years) then I doubt you will be doing sufficient mileage to justify replacing a car you describe yourself as "40+ mpg and £115 a year tax. Costs me nothing other than the obligatory oil and filter change, air filter change and plugs and leads change. It is cheap as chips".

You could quite easily find yourself spending £1500 to get a car with much higher maintenance costs, yet not even claw back the initial outlay on tax and fuel over that two year period. I would look again once you've graduated and have a clearer picture of what mileage you'll be doing perhaps.
 
Forget the ved, buy the best you can find at this budget - almost - regardless as to what it is within reason.
 
helpimcrap said:
I've got a 2001 Ford Focus 1.4. 40+ mpg and £115 a year tax. Costs me nothing other than the obligatory oil and filter change, air filter change and plugs and leads change.
Click to expand...

So why change it? The only thing that going to achieve substantially more mpg is a diesel and a £1500 potentially could be buying in to a whole heap of problems

helpimcrap said:
It is cheap as chips but MOT in June and anticipating a fail however if I make it past year 1 of university I'll treat myself to a more economical car.
Click to expand...

Even if it does fail, depending on what on, then it's still probably a better option to just fix it. 40mpg is decent enough economy - unless your doing 15,000+ miles a year I doubt your wallet would notice the difference between that and a 50 or 60 mpg car.
 
HangTime said:
If you are at uni (presumably for at least another two years) then I doubt you will be doing sufficient mileage to justify replacing a car you describe yourself as "40+ mpg and £115 a year tax. Costs me nothing other than the obligatory oil and filter change, air filter change and plugs and leads change. It is cheap as chips".

You could quite easily find yourself spending £1500 to get a car with much higher maintenance costs, yet not even claw back the initial outlay on tax and fuel over that two year period. I would look again once you've graduated and have a clearer picture of what mileage you'll be doing perhaps.
Click to expand...

Thanks for everyone's input. The reason I ask is because I'm doing 80mile round trips to university every day. It's £50 a week in fuel and if I could halve that whilst saving £100 a year on V.E.D. means I could have paid the purchase price off with the savings already.
 
helpimcrap said:
Thanks for everyone's input. The reason I ask is because I'm doing 80mile round trips to university every day. It's £50 a week in fuel and if I could halve that whilst saving £100 a year on V.E.D. means I could have paid the purchase price off with the savings already.
Click to expand...

If you'd have said that to begin with, then likely you would have got some different answers. At ~20k miles a year then it's a more significant factor, although 40+mpg still isn't terrible.

Minstadave said:
There isn’t anything for £1500 that is going to halve the fuel cost against a 1.4 Fiesta. Focus
Click to expand...

There's cars out there, in budget that will do it (60mpg+, £30 ved), but whether any of them is really a good idea remains to be seen.

Fiat Panda
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201803124486689
Ford Fiesta
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201803295051400
Nissan Micra
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201803234851203
Citroen C3 (£20 Tax!)
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201803295038276
 
Minstadave said:
You need to achieve 80mpg to halve your fuel cost if your Focus gets above 40mpg. Not going to happen.
Click to expand...

Obviously not going to "halve" fuel costs, but on 20k/annual there is the potential to achieve decent savings:

YEt1vx8.png



http://www.nextgreencar.com/tools/fuel-cost-calculator/
 
Armageus said:
At ~20k miles a year then it's a more significant factor, although 40+mpg still isn't terrible.
Click to expand...

Just to be pedantic, i would expect significantly less mileage. Most universities have maybe 20-25 weeks of tuition a year, at 400 miles/week that would put the OP's mileage in the range of 8k-10k excluding personal use.

If that 80 mile round trip is mostly motorway, then a diesel on that mileage could still be feasible, but if it's mostly through towns then i'd stick with a petrol.
 
You could get something like a 1.4 D4D toyota Yaris, that's £30 VED and will do 65-70mpg.

I had one for about 5 years to do 80 miles a day and just sold it for £400 with 128k on the clock. They're pretty terrible places to do 400 miles a week but it is one of the cheapest and they're very mechanically simple compared to some of the other cars.
 
I looked into this and the panda 1.3 seemed the best. Me and my missus work opposite shifts so the daily car is in use 24/7 or around 15k a year. In the end our ultra reliable Suzuki Ignis Sport (One track rod end in 5 years of ownership) seemed like the best option to keep. Would save about £300 a year in the panda but would obviously get instantly wiped out by a repair whereas the Suzuki has been bullet proof. Also I do not have to drive a gutless diesel.
 
I was thinking about it after working it out.

Is this correct?

CURRENT
Miles Litres Cost per Litre Total L to G conversion Total MPG
400 45 1.199 £53.96 9.911894273 40.35555556

POSSIBLE
Miles Litres Cost per Litre Total L to G conversion Total MPG
400 25 1.219 £30.48 5.50660793 72.64

Saving Weekly: £23.48
Saving Monthly £93.92
Saving 9 Months £845.28
 
as this thread is talking about mpg, is there any site that you can search second hand cars by only urban mpg rather than combined like autotrader.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom