~8k car advice for that guy that doesn't know cars! (now 9-9.5k budget)

Thekwango

Thekwango

Thekwango

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looking for some advice from the much more knowledgeable folks on here. I literally know nothing about cars, never been interested (don't hate me please ;)) they are simply a tool to take me from A to B. all my driving has previously been done on cars provided by the company I work for (used to be a family owned outfit) the only car I've had to buy was a Nissan Qashqai - which I bought from the same company for £500!

anyways, I have between £7 & £8k (i'd prefer closer to the 7 as anything left over goes to my pc fund :p) and i'm looking at getting another of these suv/crossover types. some of wants/must haves are;
  • must be 5 door (we have a 3 year old and another little one due soon),
  • low tax if possible
  • relatively economical on fuel - I probably only do about 9k miles a year. mostly back and forth to work (2 miles!) with the occasional longish drive, maybe 3 or 4 times a year I do a ~300 mile round trip
  • sensible maintenance costs (probably more a wish than anything!)
  • parking sensors (preferably a rear camera) are a must as the wife is dynamite at parking
  • maybe, 4WD or AWD (or whatever they call it) - went to the highlands of Scotland tail end of winter last year and got caught out!! - this is more of a hopeful want than a necessity

obviously if I am way out on my 'wants' for the budget you will forgive me, as I say I know nothing about cars and even less about buying them!!

the cars I've looked at thus far (online only at this point) are;

  • Mokka - think I've sussed these are not very well regarded?
  • Chevrolet Trax - I quite like the look of this but I think from my reading it is just a mokka with a different badge?
  • Ford Ecosport
  • Kia Sportage - difficult to get a decent one in budget but I could stretch it a little bit I guess (just have to make the current gpu last me a bit longer!)
  • Peugeot 2008
  • Vauxhall Antara
  • Skoda Yeti - this seems to tick all the boxes but looks damn ugly, might be a tough sell to the wife
  • Ford Kuga
So looking for advice basically on what to get or be looking for, e.g are any of the above to be avoided like the plague?
I appreciate there are probably a few (all!?) of the above that will make any half knowledgeable car aficionado retch but again forgive my stupidity.


many thanks in advance.....
 
Why the emphasis on SUVs?

Just a question, I owned a Mokka and hated it, felt like driving a milk float after coming from a fast Golf, went to a fast Octavia and will never go back to SUVs.

The Skoda Octavia, by the way, is a fantastic family car. Arguably the best family car on the road right now. It's effectively a VW Golf with a proper boot that is suitable for a family with a pushchair.

Just throwing it out there, you might not guess but I'm quite happy with my Octavia.:D:D
 
bloodiedathame said:
Would you consider an electric car?
Click to expand...

Are they within budget?

Also rear parkng sensors and or camera are just aids so you still need your wits about. My brother inlaw takes his as gospel and he’s got a lot of dents and nicks on both his bumpers.

Out of all of those I’d go with the Yeti and make sure you go for petrol with your mileage.
 
I have to echo the "why the suv" question? Your budget isn't huge and with your list of requirements I think you could get more for you money going for a more normal hatch back. The Octavia seems a good suggestion to me.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201711151263762

This will fit both your little ones, and despite being based on a golf has a boot the same size as a mondeo. It makes the car a little bit of a unicorn in that it's a mid size family car with a large size boot. Although lots of SUV's can get close in terms of boot liters you will find lots of it can be based on height and having the massive floor space in the Octavia's boot is perfect for things like prams etc. This one is only £30 to tax and should do 40MPG without too much issue even on short trips. You might find 50+ achievable on longer trips. It's £500 over budget but with a little haggling you might just squeeze this down. Alternatively another option for you would be to have a Mk2 Octavia instead of the MK3. If you go down to a 2011 ish you can get a similiar car ofr £6500, but it wont be quite as refined and might ask just a little more in terms of maintenance due to being older.

In the SUV world you will get tons of nice Jukes at this money, but there really a small car (Based on a micra if i remember correctly). You can get 2012 Qashqai's for £8500 or so so sticking with one of those would seem the best bet.
 
The Octavia is such a great car for the money. I just wish I could have convinced my wife to like them! Way more practical than the Sportage that we went for in the end. I like the Kia, but compared to an Octavia estate the boot is small.
 
Howdy chaps. Thanks muchly for the replies.

Rather than reply to each individually I'll give a general reply to all.

Why an SUV? Ride height position really. I'm a short arse and so is the wife. Having always driven 'normal' cars until the quashqai came along we didn't know what we were missing! We both much prefer the ride height position (if that is the right term)
Re the 4wd - that was more a fantasy if I'm being honest.
All of the cars I listed above I can source locally (Northern Ireland) between 4-7 years old and sub 70k miles which made me think the budget was doable. What should I be looking that makes a 'good example' - should I be looking for cars under a certain age/mileage?
Assuming all the above listed were available to pick from is there any reason to exclude one brand over another?

There's a bit of flex in the budget, probably another grand if I hold of buying for another couple of months if that helps?

Edit: re another quashqai, I'm obviously not averse to the idea just thought I'd see if there was anything different but similar (that me any sense at all?!)
 
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We have a used Leaf (2015) on PCP, £150/month, £250 to insure, no road tax, 4p per mile, charge it on the drive. Has a rear camera. 80 mile range (24kWh battery).

Might be worth considering something like that? Only down sides are the range (if you wanted to do 150 miles in one hit - you'd need to charge halfway for an hour or so) and it's a hatchback so not huge (pram goes in fine though).
 
Thekwango said:
Edit: re another quashqai, I'm obviously not averse to the idea just thought I'd see if there was anything different but similar (that me any sense at all?!)
Click to expand...

I actually think the quashqai is by far the best of the SUVs for overall value, styling and performance when on a budget. You can get more but you pay more and in your budget you are looking at some of the earlier generations from other brands where the QQ was well established.

The last couple of years has seen some nice options from the other brands but they are only an alternative or a more premium badge but don't really offer anything substantive over the QQ unless you start upping £££.

My money would go on a Mazda CX5 as the best of the bunch in this class before you hit the Audi/Merc/VW premium but you won't get a good spec or engine in budget due to age since launch (effectively 4.5 years)
 
9k a year I would look for a petrol

Toyota Rav4

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201803164636415?price-to=8000&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&fuel-type=Petrol&sort=price-desc&postcode=dt117en&body-type=SUV&advertising-location=at_cars&radius=1500&seller-type=trade&page=2

Honda CR-V - park sensors and camera, nav, pan roof etc

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201711101137673?make=HONDA&sort=price-desc&price-to=8000&fuel-type=Petrol&postcode=dt117en&seller-type=trade&advertising-location=at_cars&body-type=SUV&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&radius=1500&page=1

I would recommend mk1 VW Tiguan but they only did the 1.4TSI twincharged petrol which is notoriously unreliable

KIA Sportage

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201707317896711?sort=price-desc&price-to=8000&postcode=dt117en&advertising-location=at_cars&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly New&onesearchad=New&radius=1500&fuel-type=Petrol&make=KIA&body-type=SUV&seller-type=trade&page=1

This is a mainland list really so maybe look on NI autotrader/equivalent to see what you can get? Filter petrol, max price etc and just sift through them
 
Skoda Yeti would be my choice. But if you can't sell the wife, then the Fords probably are your next best bet.

Try to go for a petrol one though. Your usage will not be great for a diesel with the majority of your use being 2 miles. A diesel engine wont even be warmed up by the time you get there, and the DPF may well not like that at all.
 
A few things to consider:

If your daily commute is 2 miles each way fuel economy is largely a moot point - an engine is unlikely to get anything close to stated mpg figures as it will fail to reach the correct operating temp for peak efficiency. Also as above don't consider a modern diesel, they're generally going to take even longer to warm up and (06 onwards) will have a DPF, this will not do 2 mile round trips regularly without causing potentially expensive issues. Buying AWD because once in a blue moon you may need it is going to negatively impact fuel economy, increase service costs and potential repair bills, why not save yourself a small fortune and buy suitable tyres for a FWD car? They make more of a difference in snow than AWD with all season tyres does anyway.

The Yeti is probably the most logical from what you've listed, residual's are strong and they're decent enough at what they do with an OK dealer network, the Ford's are OK, but in this market i'd suggest other brands make more sense. I personally rate the RAV4's, but I may be biased. I own an old (55) RAV4, its the 2nd i've owned and the 4th in the family. The 3 diesels all cleared 100K (2WD petrol is only on a 16 plate), we've had two unplanned faults in almost 400k, both well out of warranty, on both occasions the dealer approached Toyota for a good will contribution without being prompted and a 40-60% contribution was made. I've never had that kind of service with any VW/Seat/Skoda/Merc/Nissan service desk, they're bad enough to deal with under warranty, also Toyota's fixed price work tends to be reasonable.

I suspect you may be happier in a Duke or Qashqai though, just put suitable winter tyres on it if you go to rural Scotland in the winter.
 
@Avalon I had a nightmare with VW when I owned a Golf. Had an ABS pump failure and they tried to shaft me for £1400. It was a known issue from before they sold me the car.

They then went on to say they would cover the cost of the parts but not labour. I knew then that they were squirming so I continued to press them and they did it all for free. TWICE.

I got the feeling that they are trying to protect their reputation of high quality by not doing recalls and instead pushing it on to the customer who will most likely pat anyway.

Skoda Yeti or Nissan Qashquai are the top choices for affordable SUVs but I'd say both have their quirky looks and so you might just prefer the Ford Kuga styling. I never recommend French or Italian cars. They're fine when new but will hurt you once you start needing to buy parts for repairs. I'd take Hyundai or Kia over Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat any day of the week.

4wd just isn't necessary unless you live out in the sticks. Don't buy diesel for short commutes, it's a false economy.
 
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Skoda are pretty good for service and do well in owner satisfaction surveys, so keep that in mind. The Yeti is a good car. The only thing I don't like about it is the front window styling as it doesn't seem good for visibility.
 
CR-V all day long for that budget. Interior can be a bit plasticy but it's hard wearing. Ours (2008 2.0 EX) hasn't missed a beat in nearly 60k miles (was on 40k when we bought it, 100k now). All we've done is service it and put fuel in it. Oh, an ABS sensor went bad but that was an easy fix.
 
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