Time to replace the car, with an Octavia vRS?

[GeX]

Baby on the way, the boot isn't really big enough on the Clio we have at the moment.

With a rough budget of £5k, requirements are "bit of poke", "rear doors", "AC" and "useful boot".

Does something like https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201806067240732 seem sensible?

We only need one car, and currently have a 2002 1.2 16v Clio so anything really is an upgrade from that! It was bought as it cheap to insure / run as my wife's first car, and it's just refused to break ever since.

Any suggestions on what else to consider or avoid in this price range?

 

[GeX]

I used to own one and it was a nice car (well built interior etc) but extremely unreliable. At 80k it needed an engine rebuild which is when I dumped it in part exchange. The others on the forums shared a lot of my issues including excessive oil usage. That one also seems rather overpriced to me. Ford did make a mondeo with the 2.5t from the focus St. Not sure if that fares any better in reliability but I doubt it could be worse than that octavia

Interesting, is that with the BWA engine? I'd be looking for a 2009+ with a CCZA. I've heard about oil consumption on the TFSI, but not to the point where it was an issue.

Mazda 3 2.2D

Diesels don't do it for me. Not for me.

I have an 08 2.5T mondeo. Apart from a seriously shoddy job from a garage to replace the aux belts which then caused a catastrophic engine failure (aux belt snapped and went through the cam belt destroying it) its been rebuilt and fine ever since. Done over 20k in it now. Few months ago had a £500 bill for suspension issues but half that was the required tool to do it and labour. That's the only real work needed.

Boot is enormous and its quick enough for my needs even with the family in it. 2yrs left on the loan and then I'll probably get rid of it towards something else.

Had Mondeo in the back of mind - but always think of them as huge cars. I'll look at them vs the vRS size wise, not sure my wife would be happy driving it.

 

[GeX]

Thanks for all the replies. Certainly lots to think of.

I had a look on autotrader and there weren't many Mondeos about, and tbh 27mpg does concern me. Once my wife is back at work, she'll be using the car for commuting, and I think like that it's going to drink fuel. It doesn't matter how much power it has if it spends most of it's miles doing 10-15mph.

As with most German cars, the vRS looks to suffer with people not having ticked the right options when having the car new; having head the likes of auto wipers and lights in my French cars for years I'm shocked to not see them!

 

[GeX]

It'll be about 20 miles a day. I don't regard 200bhp as a 'powerful' engine. It's just not slow and has a bit of poke. Looking on 'honest John', the vRS does 33 vs the Mondeo's 28.

I'm not expecting to see the ~45 the Clio does, but I was expecting at least low 30s

 

[GeX]

What if I remove the requirement for 'a bit of poke' - does Mondeo still come out top? I should stop thinking of this as my car really, as my wife will drive it most of the time; and it'll be left in a public car park and will likely have doors bashed into it