Help please! What car would suit these rules?

code-a-holic

My mother in law has said to my husband she will buy him a car....she recently came in to some money!
He has a £10,000 limit.
He has to have a automatic as he passed his test in one (lazy so and so!) (can he drive a triptonic?)
Mother in law has said it has to be a diesel - opinion of diesels being more economical!
Husband has a need for speed - so wants a car with poke
But i nag about associated costs - need it to be on cheap side to insure and tax!
Size not important as it is only for him to go to and from work (family can only travel together in my 7 seater!)

Any suggestions? He's looked at golf TDI auto's. I have tried to persuade him to re-take his test in a manual so he has a vast choice but im not going to win there!

blue_haddock

He is severely limited in choosing a diesel auto - not many manufacturers do them and they are hard to find on the 2nd hand market, any that do come up usually get sold on very quickly.

code-a-holic

Only been looking for a day and finding it hard! Hard enough finding a auto let alone a diesel!
Is a diesel really that much cheaper than a petrol these days? I have gone from a 1.6 petrol to a 1.9TDI and spending a lot more on fuel

Need_More_Money_2

code-a-holic wrote:

Only been looking for a day and finding it hard! Hard enough finding a auto let alone a diesel!
Is a diesel really that much cheaper than a petrol these days? I have gone from a 1.6 petrol to a 1.9TDI and spending a lot more on fuel

definitely seems cheaper to me. Road Tax also cheaper on diesels

martyfarty69

I dont agree on the choice being limited as doing a quick search on https://www.autotrader.co.uk and entering diesel and automatic in the search preferences brings up 200 + choices of cars covering a wide spectrum of Makes and Models, although he says he wants a car with some poke, but unfortunately a car with an auto box will always be slower than a car with a manual .
I personally had a 2003 Ford Mondeo 2.0TDCi 130 Ghia X auto as a company car and it was one of the best cars i ever drove, and had some grunt to it too, it was big enough to easily seat 4 people and had every luxury you can think of, Climate Control, Cruise Control, Electric everything and a decent CD multichanger, i did a quick search on autotrader and found a two year old one with 20,000 miles on the clock for a couple of hundred pounds under your budget, and if thats too big for you then a friend of mine has a Peugeot 307 HDI auto that is a very good car too and a little smaller.
So believe me if you know what you want and look around you can get a very good car for that budget.
Good Luck

code-a-holic

Its a mondeo he has at the moment - a R reg one but still very good! Was hoping to get a smaller car this time around..... he's searching for the 307 at the moment!

nearlyrich

I have a diesel auto, Seat Altea 2.0 DSG, I spend a lot of time in the car and I suffer from FMS so the auto was a no-brainer for me. I have done almost 20K miles in the last 6 months and it is much more economical then my previos 1800 Petrol Audi A3.

scheming_gypsy

if he's only driving to work and back then it probably won't be worth getting a diesel. Diesels cost more to buy and diesel is more expensive to fill up with. Depends how many miles he's driving to work and back really.

Need_More_Money_2

scheming_gypsy wrote:

if he's only driving to work and back then it probably won't be worth getting a diesel. Diesels cost more to buy and diesel is more expensive to fill up with. Depends how many miles he's driving to work and back really.

Diesel is only slightly more expensive to fill up with and I found for 2nd hand cars there wasn't much of a difference in the purchase price (just less to choose from)

code-a-holic

I was wrong saying just to and from work - he does travel for his work too - anything up to a extra 50 miles a day.

He's had a look at a mx5 now!
I cant convince him to get a smart car....shame!

Lob_Rockster

smart cars are rubbish, terrible ride.
mx5 might come with auto but no diesel
diesel cars often benefit from longer service intervals.
avoid anything French btw