What car should we look for

Poppy9

OH had until 2 years ago an 02 Mondeo 2L zetec petrol which he loved but change in work place/job and the fact he spent more time using his motorbike meant he sold it and bought an Astra. He hates the Astra so it's going.

He thinks he wants another Mondeo. In the car he does low mileage - about 6k per year. Mostly around town but now DD in Uni we do a 160 round trip probably once month max.

We definitely need more room as we struggled to move DD to uni with the Astra plus we like the comfort of a bigger car on a trip.

We did find the Mondeo pricey on petrol and road tax (think it was £330 ish a year) which was one reason in us downsizing his car as we thought we didn't need a big car really.

Budget wise he wants to spend about £6k

Should he steer clear of diesel due to low annual mileage?

OddballJamie

What about a Focus estate, 1.8 petrol?

Personally I wouldn't touch a diesel Mondeo unless I was doing 3 times your mileage, any savings on fuel and VED could be quickly lost if you experience any DPF, DMF or turbo issues due to the around town driving.

SLITHER99

Don't touch diesel full stop on that mileage.

I also wouldn't touch another Mondeo. Google for the ford owners forums and just read about all the known issues. Mine cost me bucket loads to keep it running. They are utter money pits.

How big a car do you need? I'd personally look around on autotrader and see what is actually out there. If you definitely need a load lugger, you should be able to get something Japanese in £6k.

The Focus as suggested isn't a bad bet! I had one for a while and it was markedly better than either my Mondeo or my parents'.

forgotmyname

If yuour looking at a MK4 Mondeo with a DPF then you do not want a diesel with mostly short journey's.

Focus will be a similar size to the Astra.

I have an older MK3 diesel and do mostly short journeys. I get the oil changed every 6 months and a full service each year whether its done 2000 or 6000 miles.

170,000 miles now. And running well.

podcake

I think, ultimately, that the people on here are correct about the petrol Diesel thing. BUT you do have a few questions to ask/ things to ponder.

How many years do you intend on keeping the car

What is the ACTUAL price difference between two cars
(a Diesel skoda might cost less than a petrol VW for example, even though they are virtually the same car!)

What is the predicted resale value of each car when you want to sell it


I think that if you do the maths you will find that at your mileage it is very much of a muchness.. unless you want to keep the car 10 years..

bear in mind that (as an example) the new 1.6 Focus Diesel is free tax (and does 83mpg), the 1.6 petrol will cost you £125 a year (at 43mpg too)

Personally I'd seriously look at the Skoda range. Octavias are nice cars and good value 2nd hand too!

bigjl

You could get a nice Volvo V50 estate for that kind of money.

Avoid the 1.6d as it is not the most reliable.

The 2.0d is what I have, a Euro 4 model without a Dpf.

The quickest way to spot a 2.0d with a Dpf is to look underneath at the rear beam, on no Dpf cars there is a squarish metal weight bolted to the middle.

A diesel with short trips only isn't ideal in some respects, but then again some modern petrol cars have a dmf now.

I have never had a dmf fail despite doing many hundreds of thousands of miles in diesels with lots of local work.

I suspect a lot of dmf problems are due to harsh usage.

And also many forget you should start and stop a dmf equipped vehicle with the clutch pushed down and certainly not labour the engine in to high a gear as the dmf is working overtime to deal with the extra vibes created.

Wether you do 6k or 15k a year a diesel is more economical.

After driving a relatives 2.2 petrol Vectra recently I missed the low down urge.

The Focus is also a good vehicle, the V50 being a mk2 Focus estate underneath.

Diesel cars also hold their value a bit better, putting low miles on a diesel vehicle means it will be still sought after come sale time.

Other good options would be a Skoda Octavia or Seat Toledo (older saloon version) with the 1.9tdi lump are good options.

Definitely avoid anything with a Dpf if possible.

Though I have, so far, never had any issues with my Nissan Pathfinder and that only does 7/8k a year and has a Dpf.

I always use good quality diesel and add injector cleaner (and Dpf cleaner in the Pathfinder) to the tank a couple of times a year and do an interim oil change half way through the manufacturers interval.

I never drive hard till the engine has warmed up a little and let them tickover for a while when reaching my destination.

Maybe I have just been lucky but I suspect good maintenance and quality service parts, oil and fuel are also relevant.

skivenov

If he's not doing many miles, and most of it's around town, then anything's going to drink the fuel, so if he wants a bigger petrol, why not? You'll make up for it in a lower purchase price.

Yep, that 160 miles feels like a hit when you're doing it, but the difference between petrol and diesel for it probably isn't even a gallon.

If he likes the Mondeo, you can do far worse than getting another one. However, do have a look at a Mazda 6. I won't lie, I like Mondeo's, I think they're a really nice place to sit and rack miles up, but the Mazda is just a notch up all over.

OddballJamie

podcake wrote: »

I think, ultimately, that the people on here are correct about the petrol Diesel thing. BUT you do have a few questions to ask/ things to ponder.

How many years do you intend on keeping the car

What is the ACTUAL price difference between two cars
(a Diesel skoda might cost less than a petrol VW for example, even though they are virtually the same car!)

What is the predicted resale value of each car when you want to sell it


I think that if you do the maths you will find that at your mileage it is very much of a muchness.. unless you want to keep the car 10 years..

bear in mind that (as an example) the new 1.6 Focus Diesel is free tax (and does 83mpg), the 1.6 petrol will cost you £125 a year (at 43mpg too)

Personally I'd seriously look at the Skoda range. Octavias are nice cars and good value 2nd hand too!

A diesel Focus will not average 83mpg, don't believe the marketing hype. Round town driving with a cold engine, it's gonna be more like 40mpg, factor in the inevitable damage caused by all the town driving and you may as well be driving a petrol V8. Besides the new Focus 1.6 diesel is over OPs budget.

New Focus actual MPG
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/ford/focus-2011

podcake

OddballJamie wrote: »

A diesel Focus will not average 83mpg, don't believe the marketing hype. Round town driving with a cold engine, it's gonna be more like 40mpg, factor in the inevitable damage caused by all the town driving and you may as well be driving a petrol V8. Besides the new Focus 1.6 diesel is over OPs budget.

New Focus actual MPG
http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/ford/focus-2011

No, I know what you mean, I wasn't saying that they will get that MPG, but there are two things here.

1) http://carfueldata.direct.gov.uk/search-by-fuel-economy.aspx

official data done in a very specific way, and it allows a fair comparison.

if you say the TDI will do a lot less, then so will the petrol (in all probability)

Its only a comparison method..

2) and this was the brand new car, not the 2011 model MPG is a lot less for the 2011 model you linked to. The mpg quoted for that one is 67 on the gov website

OddballJamie

podcake wrote: »

No, I know what you mean, I wasn't saying that they will get that MPG, but there are two things here.

1) http://carfueldata.direct.gov.uk/search-by-fuel-economy.aspx

official data done in a very specific way, and it allows a fair comparison.

if you say the TDI will do a lot less, then so will the petrol (in all probability)

Its only a comparison method..

2) and this was the brand new car, not the 2011 model MPG is a lot less for the 2011 model you linked to. The mpg quoted for that one is 67 on the gov website

I'm sorry to say but you have no idea what you are talking about.

The 2011 model Focus is the new Focus, if you scroll down the page to 1.6 TDCi ECOnetic you will see the claimed 83mpg figure next to the actual average figure owners have got 53.9 mpg.

For a start a diesel will take longer to warm up than a petrol, during that time the mpg will be similar to a petrol model. If the OP is during all town driving and short trips, the engine will never warm up enough normally.

This may also lead to DPF, DMF and turbo problems, if this happens, it's makes fuel costs look insignificant.

Regarding "official data done in a very specific way, and it allows a fair comparison." The only fair comparison is all manufacturers pull tricks to get high MPG, taping up panel gaps, removing parts of the car (alternator), running on special oil and using only certain testing facilities to get higher mpg figures.

Google it if you don't believe me.

Although I'm wasting my time explaining all of this as the car is still out of the OPs budget.

gilbert_and_sullivan

Avensis estate, known as Tourer to placate name junkies.