Which car for long commute? No savings available but needs to be reliable

koloko

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wba31

koloko wrote: »

I currently have a 2001 Peugeut 206 Hatchback that is falling apart. I spent £600 on maintenance in June, £300 in July, £750 in August and have just got it back from it's first trip to the garage this month - £250.

I have a long commute to work - I commute 260 miles a day to my work and back. This is why the car is falling apart. It is worth the drive, as I get compensated at 45p a mile by my employer. However my Peugeut only does 23mpg and with all the maintenance I'm spending, I'd be an idiot to keep it.

I have no debts but I have no savings either. I'm obviously losing a lot of money with this Peugeut so will take out finance to buy a new car.

Here's the tricky part - how much finance, and which car? I need something that doesn't break down and has a high .mpg. Someone suggested a 3 year old Mazda Mx-5 to me, but £8k seem excessive. If I went on to the loan board to talk about getting finance for an £8k car when I have no savings I think I'd be shot.

Does anyone have any advice on any cheaper cars? I'd be comfortable getting a loan for around 24 months, perhaps at around £5k inc interest, so £4.2k ish would be the cost of the car. I'd like to 100% own it at the end of the term.

Honda Civic 2.2 diesel. ultra reliable, will do 60mpg+ with cruise control on the motorway, will go forever and a day. great car
Also consider skoda octavia diesel. Think people will also suggest Focus diesel...

Ghostrider

I can assure you (as i've owned 3 and currently still have 1) that commuting 260 miles a day in an MX-5 will not be much fun!

They are fantastically fun cars to own and drive, very reliable and pretty cheap to maintain, but they not are designed for long commutes every day.

koloko

Ghostrider wrote: »

I can assure you (as i've owned 3 and currently still have 1) that commuting 260 miles a day in an MX-5 will not be much fun!

They are fantastically fun cars to own and drive, very reliable and pretty cheap to maintain, but they not are designed for long commutes every day.

Why is that?

Ghostrider

Because they are lightweight sports cars which means amongst other things that are good, the downsides that affect long commuting are

- Assuming you don't have a hard roof (and to be fair even if you do) you get a lot of windnoise at anything over a moderate speed, which gets very tiresome. Bizzarely I find it's actually more pleasant to drive on the motorway with the roof down!
- To keep weight to a minimum they do not posses much in the way of sound deadening, which means you get a lot of road noise, and has the same affect as above.
- The driving position is quite different to a normal hatchback, and whilst feels good, it's not great for long distance
- The cabin is small and cramped, this will affect people in varying degrees depending on how large a person you are but generally less room to shift about than in your 206. Not much elbow room to your right, not much room to move your feet about and all that sort of thing.
- Depending on the wheel size and spec of the car, it can be a relatively hard ride compared to your 206, although the MX-5 is actually a lot better than some cars. But you will notice all the cracks in the road more, each one will transfer through the chassis to the driver.

I drove mine down to the New Forest during the summer (about 140miles), and it was really nice once I was there but the drive down and back was just annoying and hard work, I could hardly speak to my other half in the car, had to shout or just not bother and turn the radio up so I could hear that instead (which I barely could - so I spent a small fortune upgrading that!!!)

As I said above, it is a great car, but not one you'd choose for long commutes.

Foxy-Stoat_3

+ 1 for the Octavia as I own one and have driven it for nearly 3 years from 100,000 miles (now on 147,000 and still going strong). Its a 53 reg estate 1.9 tdi and it does 625+ miles to £70 thats about £0.11 per mile. Road tax is £130 a year (I think) and its a group 9 on the insurance.

Once you start driving cars that you can drive for less than £0.15 per mile you wont care how much the diesel costs you because in the REAL world, a price rise of £0.05 on a litre of diesel would mean £2.75 extra on every fill up which is less than spending £0.01 per mile extra.

I am selling the Octavia soon and expect to get £1700 for it, so these are quite cheap cars to buy and run, and dont be scared of getting a higher mileage one as the diesels lap up the miles.

If you are getting £0.45 per mile (for the first 10,000 then it drops down to £0.25 I think) then you will drive 62,400 miles year....is that right? and so will cost you £6864.00 in diesel but you will claim back £13,600.00 making a profit of £6,736 on the diesel alone (£500 a month). Assuming you work 5 days a week and 48 weeks a year.

You just need to budget for running costs but you pay them anyway.

colino

Take your pick from Vectra, Mondeo, Octavia, even Focus, but if your not fixing the car yourself, change garages. If your Pug is only giving you 23mpg, they really are doing something seriously wrong.

Mrs_Arcanum

colino wrote: »

Take your pick from Vectra, Mondeo, Octavia, even Focus, but if your not fixing the car yourself, change garages. If your Pug is only giving you 23mpg, they really are doing something seriously wrong.

Agree.

Our 10 year old diesel beemer does an average of 35mpg :cool:

Ghostrider

colino wrote: »

Take your pick from Vectra, Mondeo, Octavia, even Focus, but if your not fixing the car yourself, change garages. If your Pug is only giving you 23mpg, they really are doing something seriously wrong.

Thats a good point too actually I dont know what engine you have in the 206 but for any of them 23mpg is shockingly low mileage on a long drive. I used to get more out of my XJR on the motorway than that, and that was a supercharged 4.0l V8!!

scheming_gypsy

My MR2 got me 37 on an easy run to Carlisle, so unless it's supercharged or had a 4ltr turbo lump dumped in it; you should be getting 40+ if your commute is motorway miles.

Foxy-Stoat_3

£1900 in 3 months for servicing and repairs should start alarm bells ringing!

23 mpg is shockily low even if its a gti 206.