New car to save money???

steve-L

anotherbaldrick wrote: »

I have a BMW 3 series in this situation, a prestige vehicle just over 3 years old with a engine warning and limp mode coming up intermitently and the dealer scratching his head.

Take it over to TGW or Barkers, they will charge you (reasonably) for the diagnostics but you'll at least know what is wring and needs replacing. (You could also try Cartronics)

You shouldn't have to but .....

With DMF's, DPF's, engine management systems, sensors, ABS, traction control, electronic handbrakes, auto park, TPM, auto start/stop, systems monitoring and a whole host more, when these cars are getting to beyond 3 years and out of manufacturers warranty they become a veritable money pit as dealers unable to diagnose intermittent faults resort to replacing components at vast cost to the owner without any certainty of curing the problems.

Why class DMF's with EMS or auto park?
Its pretty obvious when the DMF or clutch needs replacing. Its also easy to check on a BMW or most RWD cars.

EMS is a tricky one, I miss the days of carb's and being able to tinker myself but I have to say a 280 BHP engine that gets 50 MPG is not possible without one. Even getting 280 BHP 15 years ago meant a big petrol engine and big turbo.... now they can stick it in a dinky 3L oil burner.... this requires the TPS

ABS and traction control make actually being able to drive it in the wet possible. Well you can't have traction control without ABS....
the velocity sensitive braking requires the similar thing to TPS on the brake pedal.

Parking sensors are moderately useful, as the 3 series got bigger parking spaces seem to have got smaller.

Sat Nav, auto park.... I can't really see why someone would pay. I have previously paid more to get a car without sat nav and can't imagine why anyone would want redundant technology built in?

The next big thing will be DAB .... soon as they stop broadcasting on analogue all those built in stereo's that also access heating, onboard computer etc. will all be useless as stereos???

anotherbaldrick

steve-L wrote: »

Take it over to TGW or Barkers, they will charge you (reasonably) for the diagnostics but you'll at least know what is wring and needs replacing. (You could also try Cartronics)

You shouldn't have to but .....



Why class DMF's with EMS or auto park?
Its pretty obvious when the DMF or clutch needs replacing. Its also easy to check on a BMW or most RWD cars.

EMS is a tricky one, I miss the days of carb's and being able to tinker myself but I have to say a 280 BHP engine that gets 50 MPG is not possible without one. Even getting 280 BHP 15 years ago meant a big petrol engine and big turbo.... now they can stick it in a dinky 3L oil burner.... this requires the TPS

ABS and traction control make actually being able to drive it in the wet possible. Well you can't have traction control without ABS....
the velocity sensitive braking requires the similar thing to TPS on the brake pedal.

Parking sensors are moderately useful, as the 3 series got bigger parking spaces seem to have got smaller.

Sat Nav, auto park.... I can't really see why someone would pay. I have previously paid more to get a car without sat nav and can't imagine why anyone would want redundant technology built in?

The next big thing will be DAB .... soon as they stop broadcasting on analogue all those built in stereo's that also access heating, onboard computer etc. will all be useless as stereos???

The redundant technology comes as standard . I did not order it. I am in the hands of the main dealer in the area , the problem is not logging up any codes so the dealer is stuffed as am I . How is going to a different dealar going to help ? he won't be any the wiser.
PS edit on that, second thoughts I think I will phone Barkers, thanks for the name.

steve-L

anotherbaldrick wrote: »

How is going to a different dealar going to help ? he won't be any the wiser.

The stealers are good at taking money, doing services and stamping the log books....

They are notorious for after sales though....

Both Indy's are in Surrey and both get good reviews from BMW forums....

it might not solve anything but talking to them won't hurt.... last time I was in Barkers he had a guy with an X5 on the phone and some prob with the 4WD, he said he thought it was because the tyres were different left/right and a slightly different diameter so he offered to lend the guy his X5 wheels to see if the issue was the different circumference .... so they seem decent enough (he was doing extra work as well)

I got the service at Barkers and just got a quite for a clutch and DMF and TGW (Camberly) came back slightly cheaper (both came back 1/2 the price of stealers)

TGW also do stage-1 remaps so they have access to the full diagnostic kit not just reading the standard codes.....

btw you can also access many (hundreds of) these yourself (google E90 hidden menu's or similar).... I have a copy printed in the glove box with the instructions on how to get into the menu's....

I don't have Sat Nav (as said previously) which makes getting the menu's to come up a bit more involved so my instructions won't work if you have sat nav (or they might but yours are easier)

Unless you speak german its better to print the reference anyway as they are all abbreviations in german.

missing_link_2

LindieR wrote: »

So our old banger is actually starting to fall aprt at the seems and is more and more expesnive to maintain annually. Hubby and I are looking at a new car and we need and argument settled. I am looking at getting a diesel 1.4 / 1.6 with insurance of around £300 pa, no more than 5 yrs old. He drives 32 mile round trip to work everyday and on some days 3 times that. He says that deisel is that much more expensive that it would not jusitfy the saving on road tax. I was under the impression that yes deisel is more expensive to fill the tank with but lasts much longer. Any thoughts also what else should I look out for in an effort to save pennies on this purchase.

I was speaking to one of my work colleagues about his impressive VW Tiguan 2 litre diesel. Very luxurious,and does 45mpg on average. But he pays £400 per month on finance:eek: and every day,it is depreciating. On top of that,he pays £460pa on VED:eek:. I wasn't aware the VED grades had changed on 3/2001. Also,the annual service costs £200+/-.. I'm very happy with my 1992 Ford Sierra,which I do my own maintainance
Here's two websites that might assist in your purchase thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/green-cars/volkswagen/jetta/
(not necessarily VW Jetta)
gov.uk/vehicle-tax-rate-tables
(Sorry as a new user you are not allowed to post with links. This is done to stop spammers clogging up the site. Please edit your message below to continue.)

Lum

That Tiguan just goes to show how much the emissions based road tax is a load of rubbish.

That gets (slightly) better MPG than my 2010 Mondeo and that Mondeo doesn't pay anything like that in road tax!

Trebor16

missing_link wrote: »

I was speaking to one of my work colleagues about his impressive VW Tiguan 2 litre diesel. Very luxurious,and does 45mpg on average. But he pays £400 per month on finance:eek: and every day,it is depreciating. On top of that,he pays £460pa on VED:eek:. I wasn't aware the VED grades had changed on 3/2001. Also,the annual service costs £200+/-.. I'm very happy with my 1992 Ford Sierra,which I do my own maintainance

No way will he be paying £460 a year for the road fund licence on a diesel Tiguan.The highest CO2 for any diesel Tiguan is 158g/km ( 177bhp 4 motion) which puts it in band G. The first year rate is £170 and subsequent years are also £170.

The highest emissions on any Tiguan are 199 g/km for the 2 litre TSI 4 motion. The first year road fund licence for this is £460 and from year 2 on it is £250. This is a band J rated vehicle.