What do you think - Clio to buy or not to buy?

Poppy9

The Yaris is a nice car but it starts at £8k which is more than I want to pay.

Price is a factor and I have to weigh up whether it's reliabilty issues of the Clio will cost the extra £2k over the time I own it.

Need_More_Money_2

Of course, it's not very MSE to buy a brand new car, since they depreciate in value so much the minute you drive them away from the dealer. Have you considered buying a 1 or 2 year old car instead. Much better value for money?

Poppy9

Need_More_Money wrote:

Of course, it's not very MSE to buy a brand new car, since they depreciate in value so much the minute you drive them away from the dealer. Have you considered buying a 1 or 2 year old car instead. Much better value for money?

Second hand market around my area is very overpriced. Do I want to pay £4500 for a 2 year old car with goodness knows what problems or £6k for a brand new with a warranty.

michaels

pinkfluffybabe wrote:

Rubbish! :rolleyes:

It has a 5 star Euro NCAP safety rating. One of the safest small cars on the road!!

New CLio III is 5* NCAP, but the deal seems to be on a new 'Clio II' so probably not 5*

How about the new punto, looks nice, I have had several small fiats with no reliability problems at all (don't ask about the larger ones).

michaels

Mado wrote:

You have my blessings as long as it's not that Fiat toadmobile multipla....:rotfl:

It is so sad to only want a car if it looks like every other one...in life are you always a follower?...and my Fiat multipla is incrediby practical, and you can now buy the restyled superbland one if you don't like being an individual.

steveeeee

Very good price for a new car. But as others have said, it's a Renault, and while they're improving again, they're still not particularly good cars. Especially the Mark 2 Clio which has the Watchdog-publicised issue with the bonnet catch, and general reliability problems.

Does it have to be a brand new car? Buying a two- or three-year-old car will take the initial sting out of the depreciation.

For about £6k you could pick up a 55 reg Toyota Yaris (according to autotrader.co.uk for my area), or maybe a slightly older Corolla. Or an almost-new Mazda2 (bit ugly, but my wife loved it when I had one as a courtesy car). Both Mazda and Toyota have a good rep for reliability.

The Ford Focus (it would be old shape at that price) is a great car, as is the Fiesta (Mazda-developed engines in both). That amount will also get you a 54 reg VW Polo, maybe even a diesel, though that will likely have a high milage for its age. My wife drives a 2001 Y reg Polo Match which has been completely trouble-free up until this year: the exhaust sounds like it's on the way out.

Not sure about remote locking on any of these, but air con and electric windows seem to be widespread enough.

Edit: If you're worried about warranty, there's always the option to get one from somewhere like http://warrantydirect.co.uk. Or if you buy a used car that's still in its warranty period from a franchised dealer, you may get the option to extend the manufacturer's warranty for a year or three (for a price, natch).

Need_More_Money_2

steveeeee wrote:

Edit: If you're worried about warranty, there's always the option to get one from somewhere like http://warrantydirect.co.uk. Or if you buy a used car that's still in its warranty period from a franchised dealer, you may get the option to extend the manufacturer's warranty for a year or three (for a price, natch).

Also, if you buy from a main dealer you might get a warranty anyway. I know Toyota cars come with a 1 year warranty if the car is not still covered by the initial 3 year warranty

DavidHM

If you are considering a Yaris, you can get a new shape one less than a year old for under £7,000 - plenty on the Trader, still with two years' warranty and will be worth more second hand than the Clio when you sell on in any event.

plane_boy2000

michaels wrote:

New CLio III is 5* NCAP, but the deal seems to be on a new 'Clio II' so probably not 5*

How about the new punto, looks nice, I have had several small fiats with no reliability problems at all (don't ask about the larger ones).

OP is looking at Clio II which is 4 star acording to the euro n cap site.

Ckio is comfortable, but not known to be reliable, although bear in mind all the guys who are complaining are the unhappy ones - most people will have no problems and as such will say nothing.

The cheif exec of renault has himself admitted that they need to work on reliability so new models are likely to be better.

VW Fox is possible an option? http://www.vw.co.uk/new_cars/fox

Starts at about 6.5K

neil1965

Would agree with the above post. I bought a new 1.2 dynamiqe in july 04 have driven 53,000 trouble free miles. Seems to me that the good ones are good but the bad ones are very bad!