Recommend me a car to ruin? Commuter Hack

[Scania]

It’s a car not an ornament - and ideal for long journeys.

Keep the Lexus.

/Thread.

 

[Joe T]

Use the Lexus and spend the saving on refurbishing it in the future.

700 miles a week is a lot - doing it in a crap bucket is annoying, doing it in the Lexus will be nice.

This.

 

[adam cool dude]

Anything comfortable at 3k will require work. Worse case scenario is you do the mileage for 1 year and you put another 30k on the car.

 

[ttaskmaster]

I was going to suggest an Octavia, but it seems you can get a newer and better spec'd Passat for this budget

Depends what you're looking for, spec-wise.
I have a mkI Octy myself but in L&K trim, which includes just about every 'optional extra' they had, from alloy wheels to cruise control, full size spare, Climatronic aircon, sunroof, HIDs, leccy windows, heated leccy mirrors, heated seats, leather upholstry, yadda yadda. Gets around 45-ish doing slow commuting and easily 75+ hooning enthusiastically down the motorways. What more could you want?
But pretty much any high HP PD VAG engine would be alright, I should think - No DPF, either. I only love the Škoda because it seems the maintenance is just a little bit easier than other VAGs and equivalent models.

 

[mccarf]

Depends what you're looking for, spec-wise.
I have a mkI Octy myself but in L&K trim, which includes just about every 'optional extra' they had, from alloy wheels to cruise control, full size spare, Climatronic aircon, sunroof, HIDs, leccy windows, heated leccy mirrors, heated seats, leather upholstry, yadda yadda. Gets around 45-ish doing slow commuting and easily 75+ hooning enthusiastically down the motorways. What more could you want?
But pretty much any high HP PD VAG engine would be alright, I should think - No DPF, either. I only love the Škoda because it seems the maintenance is just a little bit easier than other VAGs and equivalent models.

Pretty good shout. Car throttle recently had a series on one of these. He spent a few hundred quid to buy one that had done over 400k and when they opened the engine up they were amazed how well it had worn. Supposedly still should have more hundreds of thousands of miles left in it.

 

[Quartz]

Are you a contractor or otherwise able to expense or charge for the mileage? Because I'm wondering if you could buy or hire a van as a business expense.

 

[tom_nieto]

Are you intending to re-sell the Lexus soon? If yes and you’re worried about it going over 100k and losing money on residual value, sell it now.

If you’re planning to keep it long term, residuals will either be poor due to the age or will start to bounce back anyway because you’ll have looked after it and the rest will have rotted away.

Doing a mega commute in a Lexus GS sounds absolutely ideal. You’d get the whole thing resprayed for £2000.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Pretty good shout. Car throttle recently had a series on one of these. He spent a few hundred quid to buy one that had done over 400k and when they opened the engine up they were amazed how well it had worn. Supposedly still should have more hundreds of thousands of miles left in it.

That was posted on Briskoda, whereupon several owners showed theirs clocked at well over 600k...