What reliable, smallish, automatic car with v high mpg?

bigjl

I would suspect that any of the VAG group cars with the DSG autobox would give the best returns on fuel, especially if used in tiptronic mode, the reasoning being that it is basically a manual box with two clutches inside, so no torque convertor to waste power.

My NHS trust looks very likely to go down this route, with either an Octavia Scout or Yeti.

Your choice would be perhaps a Fabia with a diesle engine and DSG Autobox, good quality and cheap. I would expect you to easily exceed 50/60mpg on your kind of usage, if you can get 42mpg from a petrol micra then you are getting good returns as it is.

I would also say the Fiat 500 with the twinair engine and the duallogic box or the New PAnda with the twinair engine and duallogic box that is coming out later this year, but the nagging thought I have is regards reliablilty of the duallogic autobox as fitted to the Fiat.

custardy

bigjl wrote: »

I would suspect that any of the VAG group cars with the DSG autobox would give the best returns on fuel, especially if used in tiptronic mode, the reasoning being that it is basically a manual box with two clutches inside, so no torque convertor to waste power.

My NHS trust looks very likely to go down this route, with either an Octavia Scout or Yeti.

Your choice would be perhaps a Fabia with a diesle engine and DSG Autobox, good quality and cheap. I would expect you to easily exceed 50/60mpg on your kind of usage, if you can get 42mpg from a petrol micra then you are getting good returns as it is.

I would also say the Fiat 500 with the twinair engine and the duallogic box or the New PAnda with the twinair engine and duallogic box that is coming out later this year, but the nagging thought I have is regards reliablilty of the duallogic autobox as fitted to the Fiat.

the twinair is yet to give real world results matching the Fiat figures

bigjl

custardy wrote: »

the twinair is yet to give real world results matching the Fiat figures

Very few cars actually match the figures in the borchure unless driving with an economical right foot.

Mt wifes Clio DCi can't match the figures quoted for it on a run, but nearly gets there round town, they recon on nigh on 70mpg in extra urban we get about 60mpg give or take a couple of mpg, but that drops to mid 50's on a 70mph run on the motorway, I blame the fact we have the 68bhp version and the low gearing.

I wouldn't put much into what TopGear said, they almost certainly hammered it away from every traffic light they stopped at when they obtained the figure of 48mpg(i think) recently.

I personally think you will easily break 50/60mpg in it if you drive it like you own it, rather than drive it like a rental car.

The additional factor to consider is the free Congestion Charge for London drivers, the free RoadTax for the foreseeable future and the good residuals of the Fiat 500 at the moment.

If you have them for business use you gain tax advantages because of the low emissions, you can offset your corporation tax apparently.

custardy

bigjl wrote: »

Very few cars actually match the figures in the borchure unless driving with an economical right foot.

Mt wifes Clio DCi can't match the figures quoted for it on a run, but nearly gets there round town, they recon on nigh on 70mpg in extra urban we get about 60mpg give or take a couple of mpg, but that drops to mid 50's on a 70mph run on the motorway, I blame the fact we have the 68bhp version and the low gearing.

I wouldn't put much into what TopGear said, they almost certainly hammered it away from every traffic light they stopped at when they obtained the figure of 48mpg(i think) recently.

I personally think you will easily break 50/60mpg in it if you drive it like you own it, rather than drive it like a rental car.

The additional factor to consider is the free Congestion Charge for London drivers, the free RoadTax for the foreseeable future and the good residuals of the Fiat 500 at the moment.

If you have them for business use you gain tax advantages because of the low emissions, you can offset your corporation tax apparently.

Im not,Im going on the reports of people who have bought and use the car
though as the miles clock up and the weather warms there are reports of 60mpg+

bigjl

puddy wrote: »

i cant drive a manual.
age, not bothered.
budget, not sure really but the car would need to last around 10 years. diesel i dont mind but wasnt sure if you get automatic desiels.

my car has been largely reliable (touch wood), a few little glitches but mainly due to needing the battery changed (it did 6 years) and just stuff like discs and pads. i thought nissan and toyota and the such like had good reputations.

You may be thinking about Nissan in the pre Renault days.

The current Micra had a fair few build quality issues when it first came out, and the DCi version was apparently a bit noisy, but they are very rare from what I can see.


I believe your car has a CVT box, I'm sure they don't have a torque convertor, and instea dhad bands and two metal cones inside that altered the ratios as you drove along.

This is all from memory, I am sure somebody with more up to date knowledge will be along to correct any errors in my thinking.

vikingaero

Most of the car magazines who have tested the Fiat 500 Twinair have commented on the appalling fuel economy. It's not due to Top Gear style leadfootedness, but the fact that the Twinair engine is optimised for the manufacturers test fuel cycle rather than real life. I think some mags got mid 30's mpg which is appalling for a small engined car.

vikingaero

bigjl wrote: »

I would suspect that any of the VAG group cars with the DSG autobox would give the best returns on fuel, especially if used in tiptronic mode, the reasoning being that it is basically a manual box with two clutches inside, so no torque convertor to waste power.

My NHS trust looks very likely to go down this route, with either an Octavia Scout or Yeti.

Your choice would be perhaps a Fabia with a diesle engine and DSG Autobox, good quality and cheap. I would expect you to easily exceed 50/60mpg on your kind of usage, if you can get 42mpg from a petrol micra then you are getting good returns as it is.

The OP wants a car that they can keep for 10 years. A DSG box isn't wise for 10 years ownership. James Ruppert who writes about bangersnomics in Autocar Magazine interviewed a garage which repaired autoboxes in Sussex. The owner of the garage said that anything 6/7/8 speed was likely to fail just out of warranty as was any automated manual and DSG gearbox. The owner went on to say that the only automatics worth buying for longevity were 4 or 5 speed autoboxes and preferably Japanese/Korean boxes.

bigjl

I would still like to test drive one and check the fuel consumption myself, as most of these magazines these days are written by people that obviously don't buy their own fuel.

I have read some tests where they say a car gets rubbish fuel economy, only for a mate to do 50k a year in one for work and he has got 10 or 20 mpg more averaged over the 150k working life span of the car, which he then passes to his wife for three ears whilst he uses the replacement for work, and she still gets much more than the review stated.

Though I bitterly remember buying a Seat Toledo after reading a review saying ti would do 55mpg easy, so replaced my dependable 405 TD fro a brand new Seat, only to never be able to break 45mog no matter how I drove it, annoying because I used to get 42mpg average out of the 405, but that was four years old and bought and paid for, LOL.

bigjl

vikingaero wrote: »

The OP wants a car that they can keep for 10 years. A DSG box isn't wise for 10 years ownership. James Ruppert who writes about bangersnomics in Autocar Magazine interviewed a garage which repaired autoboxes in Sussex. The owner of the garage said that anything 6/7/8 speed was likely to fail just out of warranty as was any automated manual and DSG gearbox. The owner went on to say that the only automatics worth buying for longevity were 4 or 5 speed autoboxes and preferably Japanese/Korean boxes.

I can see your point, except that the Autogearbox specialist is biased against the DSG box, as it isn't an automatic as such, but a double clutch manual with an automatic mode, therefore if there is a huge change to DSG boxes, which there currently is, then autobox bods like him are in trouble, as they are not going to be able to work on them, they have no torque convertor and don't run a wetclutch system like a normal auto.

I suspect that the same bloke said the same thing about CVT boxes back in the day.


From what I have heard the weakspot of the DSG box is the dual mass flywheel.

A large fleet on Passats run by Lewis Day had a few DMF failures, no gearbox of clutch issues, just the DMF.

I personally would rather have a DSG box than a standard auto.

And yes I did do a bit of parttime work a few years ago, in a Passat with a DSG box, and yes the DMF did go bang in a big and expensive way, lucky for the warranty I think!

Funny how one of the worst autoboxes for reliablility was the autobox in the Accent, and it required a special gearbox fluid that cost a fortune.

I agree about Jap boxes though, very reliable.

Still think those comments are more about protectionism rather than honest advice.

Fir example how many people would believe an Americans opinion on Concorde, they hated it because they couldn't engineer one for themselves and resented Concorde from the first time it flew.

Do you think they would have refused to let any other aircraft to fly over American airspace because of one bad accident, which occured due to problems that where pretty much engineered out of the Cincirde owned by BA.

The resulting solution post the French disaster made another crash impossible, but protectionism took over and that was that.

I have digressed but I am sure that is where this is coming from, I haven't heard of any issues other than the DMF on the DSG box, but will post up and change my advise if I hear any rumours.

The good thing about the Private Hire trade in London, is that due to the sheer size, 25000 drivers, any major reliablity issues go round the grapevine super fast, as I still have plenty of mates in the trade then i still benefit from this "jungle telegraph".

iolanthe07

I believe your car has a CVT box,

It depends. Post 2003 Micras had a torque converter conventional auto box. The pre 2003 'Noddy' shaped Micras had a CVT.