Help Please - Golf Vs Ibiza

Soldato
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My friend (female) is after a car. She has a max of £5500 to spend. She likes Golfs and Ibiza’s. We have found a Mk4 Golf “Final Edition 1.4 at a Stratstone dealer. She doesn’t care about the engine size and wants something cheap to insure. Heres the link

http://search.autotrader.co.uk/es-uk/www/cars/VOLKSWAGEN+GOLF/Ne-2-4-5-6-7-8-27-44-49-53-61-64-67-103-133-146,N-4294966995-4294967159/advert.action?R=200816308102865&distance=13&postcode=RG40+3HU&channel=CARS&make=VOLKSWAGEN&model=GOLF&min_pr=&max_pr=&max_mileage=

Personally I think it’s a nice car. 2004 registered, has aircon, ABS, CD player etc. MOT’d till December, but the engine is probably the worse engine to put in a Golf. We’re going to test drive it today. I think I can get the price down slightly and get the tax thrown in too.

The only other car she likes is the Seat Ibiza 1.4 Sport. Now for the budget you can get a newer Ibiza with fewer miles. 05 plate Ibiza’s with around 25k on can be had for 5-5.5k.

What do you all reckon? Golf or Ibiza? Are the running costs for the Golf a lot higher?
 
The Golf will be nicer than an Ibiza but you should definitely try and find at least a 1.6. Unless she's 17 years old with 6 points and an accident to her name or something, insurance price difference will be of no consequence
 
The Golf will be nicer than an Ibiza but you should definitely try and find at least a 1.6. Unless she's 17 years old with 6 points and an accident to her name or something, insurance price difference will be of no consequence

No shes 25 but with 0 NCB. There arent many other nice specced golfs for that price in the surrounding area. Im considering the depreciation and resale value too, thinking the Golf will be slightly higher than the Ibiza?
 
57 bhp per tonne

0-60 in about 14 seconds

What a sweet motor.


OP will get that kind of response from a sub forum full of people with performance cars!

I will quote the OP so that everyone can ignore that useless post.

We have found a Mk4 Golf “Final Edition 1.4 at a Stratstone dealer. She doesn’t care about the engine size and wants something cheap to insure

The other side of the coin is that she could get much more for her money if image is not an issue.
 
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I know, but its not for me. She doesnt care about 0-60 times.

Good. But the point I'm making panthro is that it's a dreadfully slow car and even a girl with no ambition for speed will sense that quite quickly, especially when 3 of her mates jump in it and she needs to drop 2 gears to get it up a hill.

The engine is painfully weak.
 
The 1.4 Final Edition is a grp 4 car, and the 1.6 Final Edition is a grp 6 car. So insurance-wise there will be little difference for her.
If you can find a 1.6 in her price range it'll have the ability to move should she need it to. :)

InvG
 
Righto, well have a look on Autotrader and Pistonheads. I was just pointing out that the MK5's are available for £5 as well.

Out of interest, why doesn't she go for a mk4 GTI?
I know she's not interested in performance, but you can get a nicely specced GTI for £5k easily. And due to them being one of the best mk4's (apart from the R32 obviously), they usually come fairly highly specced. With her age and sex, the insurance won't be much at all. For example I can insure a GTI @ 19 with 0ncb for £1300.

Just a thought :)
 
Yep, I already pointed this out to her to make her aware of it. There'll be 3 people in the car on the test drive so she will get a good idea of how it (under) performs. Trouble is, is that I dont want to dictate to her what she can and cant have, plus she wanted a golf initially, but didnt think she could get a nice one (ignoring engine size) in her budget.
 
Righto, well have a look on Autotrader and Pistonheads. I was just pointing out that the MK5's are available for £5 as well.

Out of interest, why doesn't she go for a mk4 GTI?
I know she's not interested in performance, but you can get a nicely specced GTI for £5k easily. And due to them being one of the best mk4's (apart from the R32 obviously), they usually come fairly highly specced. With her age and sex, the insurance won't be much at all. For example I can insure a GTI @ 19 with 0ncb for £1300.

Just a thought :)

What about running costs for the bigger engines, i.e. tax, fuel consumption etc?
 
What do you all reckon? Golf or Ibiza? Are the running costs for the Golf a lot higher?

when somebodys buying criteria is limited to such a small choice, within such a small area

it's really going to come down to whats available at the time

They're practically the same car anyway. So just get the best example of either you can find.
 
What about running costs for the bigger engines, i.e. tax, fuel consumption etc?

Well my 1.6 gets appalling fuel economy, £55 full tank gets me 280 miles.
Some people on the UKMIV's forum have said that when they moved from a 1.6 to the 1.8T they actually noticed better fuel economy.

I don't know about tax, I think I pay £185 per year currently.
 
The problem with the underpowered ones is that you're constantly using full throttle in virtually every gear. There's no torque and no power and mid to long gearing so it's foot to the floor and wait & this destroys fuel economy.
 
Well, Ive explained to her about the engine, she's still not fussed, but Im going to show her some others on the autotrader, like the 2.0 GTI's etc, but we're still going to test drive the 1.4 just to scope it out.
 
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