Spec me a fun-to-drive dog carrier

Stringy

Stringy

Stringy

Soldato
Joined
2 Aug 2004
Posts
4,288
Location
The moon
Budget - £10-13k (max £7.5k + my car, '08 Clio 197 45k miles, is £13k dreaming?)

Mileage - ~12k, my commute is 35 miles each way with mostly dual carriageway which I am happy to cruise control at ~70mph for economy.

Needs
- To be able to have a labrador-sized dog in the boot (hatchback or estate then)
- Some semblance of driveability for when I'm not commuting in it, both in speed and handling terms. Not as much as my current car obviously, but I don't want to be bored by it on a fun road. Potentially things <=9sec 0-60.
- Hopefully 45mpg+ on a long run (like the commute).
- Don't mind Petrol or Diesel
- Want something low mileage if possible, looking for hopefully hassle free motoring for the next 3 years.

Would like
- Cruise Control
- Any other random gadgetry and toys. In extremis geekery may make up for straight line performance.

Things that have caught my eye so far are Golfs/Leons in various guises, but the Leon interiors look a bit low rent from the pictures I've seen. There's a 1.4TSi 160 GT near me for £11.5k (Autotrader price is old) with 25k miles that caught my eye and I went to view - anyone have any real world experience of the 1.4TSi engine? There were also some 2.0 TDi 140 SE/GT's, one of which I'm going to test drive on monday alongside the 1.4 GT, anyone with experience of how the engines/trims compare?

I would think I'm limited to Hatchbacks/Estates - are there any viable coupes or anything else left field I might have discounted?
 
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I like the 1.4tsi but apparently the 160 has all sorts of issues so I wouldn't buy one without warranty. What about a 5 door GTI or alternatively an a3 sportback with the same engine, could you live with 35mpg? (not sure if you'll get more out of the 2 litre on a run, mk5/6 owners should be able to confirm)

The civic is a pretty good mutt carrier if you wanted to go diesel, would be well under the budget, no dpf etc to worry about either - reasonably swift with the remap but you'll pretty much need to budget for a new clutch at some point.

Tdci focus or mondeo is the obvious diesel choice, but the engines come with many a tale of woe - do you only work a few days a week? 70 miles a day multiplied up by a nominal 48 week working year is more like 17k
 
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rodenal said:
I like the 1.4tsi but apparently the 160 has all sorts of issues so I wouldn't buy one without warranty. What about a 5 door GTI or alternatively an a3 sportback with the same engine, could you live with 35mpg? (not sure if you'll get more out of the 2 litre on a run, mk5/6 owners should be able to confirm)

The civic is a pretty good mutt carrier if you wanted to go diesel, would be well under the budget, no dpf etc to worry about either - reasonably swift with the remap but you'll pretty much need to budget for a new clutch at some point.

Tdci focus or mondeo is the obvious diesel choice, but the engines come with many a tale of woe - do you only work a few days a week? 70 miles a day multiplied up by a nominal 48 week working year is more like 17k
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I work 4 days on, 4 days off, and if you deduct leave (30 days + bank holidays) I work roughly 140-150 days a year. Would something like Warranty Direct cover any woes from the 160 1.4? Do VW do any warranties like the BMW one I hear about on here whereby you can purchase a warranty up to certain mileage?

The Civic had caught my eye in its 2.2 Diesel form - what's the crack with the clutches?

edit: Just spotted this - Link - I'm stuck at work so I can't load the stratstone or BMW websites - can anyone tell me how it fairs spec wise and give me 3 series-type advice?
 
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Stringy said:
I work 4 days on, 4 days off, and if you deduct leave (30 days + bank holidays) I work roughly 140-150 days a year. Would something like Warranty Direct cover any woes from the 160 1.4? Do VW do any warranties like the BMW one I hear about on here whereby you can purchase a warranty up to certain mileage?

The Civic had caught my eye in its 2.2 Diesel form - what's the crack with the clutches?
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I *think* vag now do a warranty that's similar in coverage to the BMW one, worth checking.

The clutches just can't handle extra power unfortunately - if you get a 2010 onwards car it should be fine on a standard map, but up the power and it's likely to need an uprated clutch (and you'd be as well doing the fly at the same time) so budget about £900 just in case.

Mine has been fine in the year i've owned it, but I wouldn't like to say the clutch will last forever.
 
Stringy said:
edit: Just spotted this - Link - I'm stuck at work so I can't load the stratstone or BMW websites - can anyone tell me how it fairs spec wise and give me 3 series-type advice?
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It's 4.5 years old, a prefacelift SE and has no Satnav. Probably the worst near £14k BMW I've ever seen! You should be able to get an LCI model for that sort of money..

Why diesel? You do 13k a year not 30k?
 
[TW]Fox;22865001 said:
It's 4.5 years old, a prefacelift SE and has no Satnav. Probably the worst near £14k BMW I've ever seen! You should be able to get an LCI model for that sort of money..

Why diesel? You do 13k a year not 30k?
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I don't mind if it's Diesel or Petrol - I saw it and knowing nothing about BMWs I thought I'd throw it in the ring to get feedback on it. If anyone can find more sensible suggestions I'd be more than willing to look at them :)
 
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http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif.../postcode/pl11aa/radius/1500/page/2?logcode=p

This one has:

a) The wrong engine - its a petrol 320i which is less popular than the diesel
b) The wrong trim level - it's an SE and everyone who wants a proper wicked BMW like wants an M Sport
c) The wrong nav - its Business nav with the smaller screen


As a result its about £14k for a 3 year old facelift 3 Series Touring with the correct amount of mileage for a (reasonably, they've jacked the price) hassle free warranty with BMW. Which IMHO beats the idea of a 5+ year old M Sport or something with no warranty. Business Nav isnt as good as Pro nav but it still has the effect of making the interior less crap than a car without any iDrive at all.

It's probably as low as I'd go E90 wise unless you can put up with how crud the prefacelift one looks and you dont mind an older car. There are many cheaper older ones but I'd just get bored with worrying which bit might go wrong next and they are not yet where the older ones are where you can just whack a new engine in for a grand if it blows up :p
 
It's just the reliability factor for me - the 2.0tsi is proven to be relatively bullet proof, the 1.4 tsi in 160bhp form has been proven not to be.

If you're not fussed about power the 120 tsi is still a nice little engine though and doesn't seem to have the same issues
 
Stringy said:
Effectively what you're saying is don't get a 3 Series Touring for £10-13k? ;)
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Effectively yea but I've got an enormous downer on that generation of 3 and 5 Series so I'm a bit biased. The models before? Awesome! The ones after? Awesome! The big space between in the £7-£23k price bracket? Meh.
 
What are Vauxhall Insignias/current Astras like to drive? Seem to be quite a lot in my price bracket and are generously spec'd...what's the catch?

(I know my range of options seems quite diverse - the main constraining factor is dog carrying and not-silly economy, everything else is negotiable!)
 
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The astra's alright, more of an "id be happy enough with one as a co car" than anything i'd want to own tbh - doesn't seem like the kind of car you were after though

I'm not a fan of the insignia
 
Well I got a Mondeo 2.5T Titanium X Estate because I have a dog and family and I love it.

With the Bluefin remap it does 0-60 in 6.3 (according to some posts I read, never timed myself, but it's hard to imagine a fwd vehicle being any faster), around 270 bhp too. Drives really well etc etc..

BUT with the Bluefin it is hard to get much over 30mpg.
Yet it only costs me £7.5k + £400 for bluefin.
 
Anyone got any opinion on how the latest Focus drives? There are a million and one 1.6 125s on autotrader which aren't fast in the slightest, but are quite well spec'd (one Titanium in particular has Nav, bluetooth, climate, rear view camera and the kitchen sink) so as per my original post I wonder if gadgetry + handling would satiate me...
 
They've basically ruined all the control weights but its alright apart from that and the cheap trim on some models - would imagine the titanium to be better on that front. Mich the same as the astra imo

120 tsi mk6 a far nicer car, obviously you'll pay for it though
 
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