Renault Laguna DCI estate + Alternatives

[Scuzi]

A mate of mine is looking for an estate car as a daily driver. It needs to be a workhorse as he'll be doing quite a few miles. He deals with sound equipment and needs a lot of space in the back to get all the speakers and other equipment in. It must be diesel for economy reasons.
His budget is £3750 and can stretch to £4000 for a good example.

He's asked me about the Renault Laguna DCI 120 estate. It would seem that a ~2001 model with about 80-100k can be had for somewhere around £3500. I haven't had any experience with this car so I thought I'd post here to get your opinions and experiences. The car will be used for driving back and forth to jobs as well as normal everyday use so reliability is a must. What do you think?

The main thing to remember is that car prices in Northern Ireland are a bit higher than the UK mainland so if you want to do any searches on Autotrader, anything within 40 miles of postcode BT66 8QP will be grand.

Thanks

 

[[TW]Fox]

They are a bit of a reliability nightmare which is why they've depreciated so much more than anything else in the class.

If he's after a French commonrail diesel he'd be better off with a 406 HDi.

 

[mattpc]

C5 HDI is worth a punt as well but they're not everyone's cup of tea.Alternatively pay a bit more and get a Mondeo estate which would probably be my choice to be perfectly honest. Another alternative is to spend a bit less and buy a very late Xantia HDI estate. These are excellent cars for the money and much more reliable than the Laguna in my opinion.

 

[Scuzi]

It doesn't necessarily have to be French. Anything that fits into the price bracket will do, although it most likely will be French given the budget

Thanks