I need your help buying a £3k diesel automatic

Ricochet J

Ricochet J

Ricochet J

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Joined
29 Jun 2004
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I have a new job that's 80 miles away (1.5 hours drive), but I only have to be in the office 2 or 3 days a week. I work from home the other 3 or 2 days.

So that's 80 miles * 2 way trip * 3 days * 52 weeks = 25000 miles. Which is diesel mileage.

At the moment using funds to buy another car is not desirable, but it must be done. My current car is a 2.0L Petrol Megane Coupe, which my wife will keep.

What are your thoughts on a £3k diesel? I'm leaving £1k to the side for potential repairs and potential bills.

Potential Cars
The sensible side of me says buy a 2L diesel automatic 2007/2008 VW Passat or Ford Mondeo

The crazy side to me says buy a 2006 W211 Mercedes E320 CDI 7G Tronic


Now I don't care much if the car I buy has over 100k miles. I'll just keep on top of the service history and in theory, the car should run for a million miles.

Genuinely after any useful opinions. I need the car by June so I have plenty of time to think about this and make the right decision.
 
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I know it sounds bizarre: I'm talking about getting an E Class or a luxury saloon, yet I'm complaining about potential DPF and turbo replacements. If I can't afford the running costs don't buy the car, right?

Well, the thing is, I don't mind fixing a car. I suspect if I buy a Mondeo or Passat it'll need fixing. Rather than spend that money fixing a Mondeo or Passat, I can instead fix a better car, be it E class or 5 series etc.
 
Have you looked at what you get for your money from a premium brand? The Skoda's I linked will likely be newer and not been to the moon and back. You start entertaining 120-150k mileage cars as a starting point, and adding 25k a year, it's going to be get tiresome and expensive.

I do see your logic though.
 
Mercedes has the potential for bigger bills than anything VAG based would. The 1.9 TDI PD engines are fairly bullet-proof so long as the service history is up to scratch. Any particular reason for auto over manual? At the end of the day it's just another thing that could throw a larger bill than if it was manual.

Passats/A4/Octavia will all be similar; just get in one of each and see how many toys you can get for the money with good service history is my advice.
 
bJN said:
Any particular reason for auto over manual? At the end of the day it's just another thing that could throw a larger bill than if it was manual.
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I enjoy driving an auto over a manual. I don't want to be stuck in traffic in a manual. I recently made the switch from a manual to a silky smooth, seamless auto, and I'm not looking back.
 
Superb 1.9 would be my suggestion too. Parts are plentiful and cheap, less to go wrong than an old Merc diesel.
Long wheelbase on the Superb makes it a comfortable cruiser and the PD engine has been around forever and is very reliable. I wouldn't be happy ploughing money into an old E class TBH.
 
OP you may not need to even spend that much if you don't mind an older car. I fully support the 1.9PD engine, I have one myself paid just over £1k for it and it feels bulletproof.

I do 400 miles a week myself, all on national speed limit roads.
 
Ricochet J said:
How do I know if the DPF is about to go?
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Generally you don't, unless you can scan for historical fault codes and hope something is logged. As long as annual mileage has been reasonable (e.g. check mileage between MOTs using online checker) then at least it will have been driven appropriately.

Ricochet J said:
How do I know if I need to replace the turbocharger?
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Normally lack of power - although lack of regular oil changes will accelerate wear and demise of this.

Ricochet J said:
How would I know if the previous owners let the turbocharger cool down before turning the engine off?
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You don't - but you don't need to, whilst it is best practice to let turbos cool down after giving them a bit of abuse, you are talking about diesel Passats and Mondeos not a highly modded Evo or Skyline.
 
Personally, I would not buy a modern diesel, certainly not one that is more than 5 years old.

An "Old" diesel is a different matter. If I wanted to buy a Diesel car I would look for a good condition vehicle from the mid 90's

Pick anything that doesn't have an ECU!:p

(The old French HDI engines are pretty bomb proof mind)

If you want something more recent, get a petrol
 
Blackhawk47 said:
And after owning a 10 year old Mercedes for a couple of years the mileage will be probably close to 200k. By which point I think it will be worthless.
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He's looking to spend £3k. I'd love to see any lease deal that involves an automatic diesel with 25k miles per annum for two years minimum with a total outlay of £3k.

I'll save you the trouble: it won't happen.
 
Ricochet J said:
Sure, that looks good. But for the same money you can buy a Mercedes E class.
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That's likely rotten to the core, and about to throw bills larger than the purchase price.

Ricochet J said:
What do I look out for?

How do I know if the DPF is about to go?
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You wont need to worry about that AT ALL. Your £3k budget is unlikely to get you close to a car with DPF.

Ricochet J said:
How do I know if I need to replace the turbocharger?
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If it makes funky noises. Otherwise you wont know.

Ricochet J said:
How would I know if the previous owners let the turbocharger cool down before turning the engine off?
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You will have to take his word on it. I wouldn't be overly worried about that so long as it isn't too noisy.

Ricochet J said:
I hate diesels :(
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I like them loads. I much prefer driving lazily on the waves of torque.

I'll carry on the sentiment that a VAG 1.9 TDI is the way forward here. Decent engines, fairly bombproof. Reasonable turn of speed, and decent economy to boot. Wasn't a fan of their 2.0 TDI's at all in the later motors. But the 1.9 just gave epic fuel economy.

But yeah, you're gonna be putting on 25k per year. So you shouldn't really be looking at anything that might be overly unreliable or expensive to maintain.
 
So you work every week of the year?

I think I'd rather find a petrol car that will hit 40mpg at this price point, if it's possible.
 
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I second this, why go diesel if you only need 30mpg? No reason for diesel torque either on saloons.

You'll get a lot lower mileage example for the same money and petrol engines are so simple in general compared to diesels repair costs are lower.

I'm selling my 08 astra 1.6 vvt and it does 30mpg urban, 40mpg on a run! Obviously I'm not suggesting you get an astra, just advising the engines are out there.

Claiming 25000 a year is diesel mileage, then buying a 125k+ diesel vs a 70k petrol makes little sense
 
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