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ethos

ethos

ethos

Soldato
Joined
5 May 2003
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Hi guys! I'm currently driving a mk4 astra 1.7 dti (awesome poweh) which is up for sale. I've got a guy coming to view it on Friday so i'm looking for a new car! Looking to spend around £3000... criteria is:

* Must be fairly economical if driven sensibly
* Decent performance sub 8-9 seconds to 60
* Insurance / upkeep / parts not crazy

I drive around 150 miles a week, most of which are on the dual carrageway. I'm currently paying around £15/20 in diesel per week, will this go up a lot with a petrol car? I'm happy to spend an extra £5-10 a week but some people seem to think it's gonna double my cost.

Car on the list at the mo are:

* Honda civic vti (favourite)
* Golf gti mk3 (yes slowish i know!)
* Xsara vts

Thanks in advance!
 
The MkIII Gti is very economical when not thrashed, my wife used to average 40mpg in her old one. She only get 44mpg in her A3Tdi!
The VTS is going to be more thirsty, I used to average 25mpg in my old 306gti6.
 
You can definately get a reasonable civic VTi for £3k these days. If you're going for a 1.8 VTi and don't spend your whole time thrashing it, the fuel economy isn't too bad.

I get around 270 miles from the average tank (approx £38 worth of petrol, it's quite a small tank), goes up to around 350+ if you're cruising on motorways the whole time, can drop to 180-190 miles if you're all in town. (Lets not mention the 90 miles to a tank when really giving it a proper thrashing). I don't baby my car either, although I don't drive with it on the limiter constantly.

The grin it gives will be worth the extra expense though :)
 
moss said:
If your doing a lot of dual carrageway driving, the 106 wont really be all that great. 75mph is almost 4000rpm and it drinks the juice too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, kinda rules that 106gti out then! :)

Dolph, thanks for the info.. helps a lot. Just really trying to add up how much different running a vti will be compared to my astra. I'm guessing realistically it's gonna be around another £10 a week in petrol which I can deal with... I can see me having a few 90 mile tanks when I first get it tho :p
 
to do a 90mile tank you really have to be going for it, like licence loosing going for it.

The only time I've done it was in the Brecon beacons, and I was really giving the car a good thrashing including touching double the NSL at points and this was through twisty bits, pretty much never dropping out of the VTEC zone. You won't see that even when driving fairly fast normally.

The other thing to consider is that parts and upkeep isn't particularly cheap on a VTi. I go through a set of front tyres in 10K and they aren't especially cheap. Servicing and parts costs for other issues can be expensive as well.
 
What sorta price would I be looking at per corner on the vti? (I really have no idea). Also I doubt i'd get it serviced at a honda garage, so was kinda guessing services wouldn't be a great deal more? I guess it's the parts that make the difference tho, like you stated they aren't cheap.
 
I think I pay around £65 per corner for Bridgestone RE-10's, servicing for me (at the tame honda dealer) comes in at about £100 for a 6000 mile, and £160 for a 12000 which isn't too bad really.

When the car needed new shocks though, Honda wanted £200 per corner, and even independants wanted near enough £100 per corner. Brake pads etc aren't especially cheap either. They aren't extortionate by any means, but they are more expensive than a lot of other cars around.
 
Excellent, those figures really help put it into perspective! Def within my price range by the looks of it.

Just have to hope this guy like my car on Friday...

Anyone know any good forums / places to look for vtis for sale? Ebay / autotrader don't have many on at the moment :)
 
You could try hondarevolutions, although the main thing you may have to do is consider travelling. They aren't a very common car compared to some of the alternatives.

Is it the 1.6 or 1.8 VTi you're looking at. Figures above are for the 1.8 btw :)

Edit: Just discovered you need to be registered on honda revs to be able to see most of the forums these days.... registration is free though.
 
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