A good family car for 3000 pounds

jeannieblue

redux wrote: »

Diesel engines have fewer bits to go out of tune, like spark plugs, ignition leads etc. I bought a Citroen Xantia HDI at 4 years old and 24,000 miles for just over £4000, so someone else had the worst of the depreciation. 5 years later, it's reached 150,000 and is in the middle of the time it will be cheapest to run; little further depreciation and a few oil changes, a couple of tyres and maybe £200 on the suspension will see it up to the next cambelt service in 2/3 years' time. Pity it's now out of the age range the OP is looking for, but it would be the same sort of picture for most diesels

Just alot of different bits to go wrong.....

All cars have good and bad points. And all makes have 'friday' cars.. :eek:

Personally, I would avoid French and not even think about Fiat. German can be ok - VW and Skoda (same really) are ok. I'd really never ever buy Mercedes..... absolute cr*p these days. Although have heard that they have said they will do better.....

buglawton

redux wrote: »

Diesel engines have fewer bits to go out of tune...<snip>...

There is nothing at all to tune on a petrol either and plugs get changed every 10 or 20k service, that's it. Diesels need oil changes at least twice as often due to the high compression. Clutches on diesel cars have to be more complex to damp vibration (Google dual mass flywheel Honest John for the discussions) which might be OK on a large vehicle but shoehorning it all into a compact car...

Main reason for diesel's popularity is fuel consumption and lower annual tax disc cost. Since diesel remains at 10% more than petrol currently, it does not really add up for me. Especially as once you are doing motorway speeds the difference in economy becomes rather marginal.

redux

buglawton wrote: »

There is nothing at all to tune on a petrol either and plugs get changed every 10 or 20k service, that's it. Diesels need oil changes at least twice as often due to the high compression. Clutches on diesel cars have to be more complex to damp vibration (Google dual mass flywheel Honest John for the discussions) which might be OK on a large vehicle but shoehorning it all into a compact car...

Main reason for diesel's popularity is fuel consumption and lower annual tax disc cost. Since diesel remains at 10% more than petrol currently, it does not really add up for me. Especially as once you are doing motorway speeds the difference in economy becomes rather marginal.

You're rather distorting the picture. Nobody's forcing you to have a diesel, but at least try to be a bit more balanced for the sake of people who would consider it.

Spark plugs aren't free, and nor are ignition leads; that recent Top Gear programme found a petrol car that was almost 20% down on its specified power. Recent diesel engines have defined oil change intervals of 12 to 15000 miles (though it would be worth changing sooner if running biodiesel); I've never needed a clutch change in 375000 miles on 3 diesel cars.

Much of diesel's advantage over petrol is at less than full power settings, and this is almost all motorway conditions. It's only when flat out that they get closer together, but not many people travel at 110-120 mph all the time