Audi A4 (B8) or BMW 3 series?

Just to confirm the cvt is a ticking timebomb, my fathers 2004 a4 had a new box at 3 years old, then went again in a big way about 2 years ago. It was rebuilt/repaired this time at an overall cost of about £3k. 2/3 of this was covered under third party warranty - these boxes are terribke make no mistake, conventional auto or even a dsg would be my choice if going for the a4
 
rodenal said:
Just to confirm the cvt is a ticking timebomb, my fathers 2004 a4 had a new box at 3 years old, then went again in a big way about 2 years ago. It was rebuilt/repaired this time at an overall cost of about £3k. 2/3 of this was covered under third party warranty - these boxes are terribke make no mistake, conventional auto or even a dsg would be my choice if going for the a4
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Who was the warranty with?
 
Going from an e46 M3 to a e93 335i to save money is crazy. It won't save you anything. What's the M3 worth?

If I was wanting to save money I'd be looking at something mechanically simpler, more efficient and cheap parts.
 
Tesla said:
Going from an e46 M3 to a e93 335i to save money is crazy. It won't save you anything. What's the M3 worth?

If I was wanting to save money I'd be looking at something mechanically simpler, more efficient and cheap parts.
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While I do agree with this there is a good chance his M3 will start to throw up some larger bill at some point soon which he seems to have avoided up until now.

£40 quid per month for a warranty on the E9x and your all covered.
 
Dr House said:
While I do agree with this there is a good chance his M3 will start to throw up some larger bill at some point soon which he seems to have avoided up until now.

£40 quid per month for a warranty on the E9x and your all covered.
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Absolutely, but the problem is of course it isnt the future costs of his M3 he's trying to reduce its the current costs. Which moving to something like the 335i isn't going to do. He's been very lucky so far and hasn't experienced any of the cost aspects of the M3 that make the 335 a cheaper (yet less capable) alternative.

So if an M3 that hasn't really gone wrong, needed tyres or needed servicing is the cost basis he wishes to reduce from them frankly a 335i isn't going to do it.
 
You know fox, I have been really lucky with all my cars, nothing has gone wrong with any of my cars so they have cost me very little to run. From the sounds of it his M3 is really not costing him much (at the moment) so its going to be hard to move to anything even semi decent and make a big saving on day to day expenses.

Maybe a 1.25 Fiesta would do the job
 
Paras, you're of course right and the M3 will (not could!) throw up some 4-figure bills. As Fox said though, he is trying to reduce current costs of which his M3 looks pretty average. Probably not much different to a 1.8T A4 really!

I've no idea of e46 M3 values so unsure if the sale of it and spending 13-15k on something else would require additional funds? If so I think I'd keep the M3 or go for an entire different approach given the main objective to save money,
 
Thats the thing with cars. Sometimes even the most 'exotic' of cars can cost almost nothing to run. Other times they can cost an absolute fortune. The cost of running a car is an average over time and some people are lucky enough to jump in just after somebody else has paid a load out and jump out just before. What then happens is they go around telling people how cheap the cars are to run...

The OP seems to have had the same luck - such that if an M3 at its current level of cost is a level he wishes to stop down from he's going to need to move away from 300bhp BMW's altogether.
 
Consider a newish Mondeo or Insignia. Great styling these days and no RWD to scare the family. Economical and cheap to repair/maintain.

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2010-Vauxhall-Insignia-VXR-car-walls.jpg
 
As a current 335i owner I echo the sentiments of others in this thread. Based on your current costs you're unlikely to see a significant reduction in costs. Frankly aside from your insurance cost I'd say the rest of your costs are relatively mild for a performance car.
 
Well the plan was to sell the m3 (I suspect id get around 7k at a push): 82 k miles, LSB convertible with hard top. Throw in another 5/6k or so and get something newer which looks ok and to reduce running costs.

Now taking into account personal circumstances- I really dont want to throw more money at the car change. So budget around 7-9k mark.

Taking into account your above comments- I definitely want to save on insurance, something more economical and cheap to repair/maintain. I fully understand there will be a huge performance drop. My previous car before this was a golf mk4 1.4..

Budget- 7-9k (try to stick to lower end of budget)

Car has to have 4 doors and look reasonably good. Open to manual now also.

Im thinking golf mk5/ old a4 (B7)/ any other recommendations?. Id prefer something german vw/ bmw/ audi
 
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