Best Car for Daily Commute

Sam_784

Hi all,

I need to get a reliable, non-fuel guzzling, car in order to commute from Birmingham-Nottingham (roughly 50 miles) daily for work.

I don't currently have a lot in savings so will most likely be looking at something on finance.

Can anybody recommend which cars may be best to look at?

I do like Vauxhall Corsa's but have been told that they are expensive to run and have also been advised it may be a good idea to look at diesel cars?

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Sam

jimjames

When you say not a lot, how much savings do you have?

I know it's the stock answer to every cheap car question but a VW Golf Mk4 TDI would do the job and you probably wouldn't need finance either. 50mpg and none of the issues with diesels like DPF that later cars have.

Sam_784

Around £1,000-£1,500 at the minute if I'm honest so really is minimal hence wanting to look at finance.

jimjames

Sam_784 wrote: »

Around £1,000-£1,500 at the minute if I'm honest so really is minimal hence wanting to look at finance.

That would still get you a reasonable Golf. I ran a 10 year old one for 50,000 miles doing 30 mile commute and no costs other than servicing in 4 years.

Sam_784

Thanks, I'll have a look at the Golf then.

Any other suggestions failing that?

Mobeer

Early Toyota Auris 2.0 diesel?
Comfortable, very reliable, and low fuel consumption. Also a bit dull.
Doesnt have a DPF (but actually if doing 100 miles a day roundtrip then this is a non-issue)

Iceweasel

Another vote for the Golf.

Instead of using finance to buy it - buy an older one outright and use the money that you were going to use for the finance payments to start saving for a newer model in a couple of years time.

The is MSE after all.

forgotmyname

Skoda Octavia. Cheaper than a GOLF and oddly more reliable. Look at the extra money your going to pay out on finance and think what you can do with that extra money.

Money towards a better car when funds allow.

Tigerprint

A few diesel ideas in my experience....

Seat Ibiza 1.2 CR TDI Ecomotive, expensive, possibly about £6500 (2010 ish) , HOWEVER, £0 tax & approximately 80 MPG......

Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 CDTi Design (Design tend to have the 6th gear which I found good on the motorway) Although you will possibly pay about £100 for a years tax, you will get 60/65 MPG.

Ford Fiesta 1.4 Diesel & Renault Clio 1.5 DCi both have £30 tax cars available & get good miles per gallon, also the Peugeot 206 1.4 HDi from about 2005 is £30 tax, all good MPG

VW Polo 1.4 TDi, most of the early diesels 02 to 05 are approx £125 tax & approx 60 MPG, although the later diesels from 05, range from £30 to £105. The Blue Motion diesels are the 70+ MPG & £0 to £20 tax.

Peugeot 207 HDi, the early 1.4s & 1.6s up to (90) Bhp tend to be £30 tax, good MPG, some of the later 1.4s are £20 tax. All 60+ MPG.

And do not discount the old school Peugeot 306 2.0 HDi for a cheap diesel in terms of initial costs, the tax is likely to be £225, & you should get 50+ MPG. A solid well built car that, if you buy with good history & low miles, should do very well....

wba31

I'd suggest the 2001-2005 Honda Civic diesel. I did 25k miles+ in mine in 2012 and it was fantastic. when sat at 60-65mph could get 60mpg.

Sold it to my dad in 2013 to get the newer Civic with the bigger diesel engine, cruise control, built in sat nav and then changed jobs where i just drive into Birmingham each day. wish i'd kept it as it is a great car...

Stoke

Volkswagen Lupo TDI or SDI.

For TDI:
Faster, good economy (in the region of 60mpg-70mpg), highly spec'd (most come with electric mirrors, air conditioning, remote central locking etc), later models came with GTi interior so Recaro style seats and fancy door cards etc, there's also retrofittable functionality such as cruise control etc.

Against TDI:
Tend to cost more (later models can still fetch in excess of £3,500), slightly harder to service (if you do it yourself) and service parts are more expensive, need to use slightly more expensive 'specialist' oil (505.01 fully synthetic spec designed for Pumpe-Düse), there's a turbo which may eventually go bang.

For SDI:
Exceptional fuel economy (70mpg-80mpg), tend to be cheaper (older models can be picked up for less than £1000), reasonably well spec'd (most come with central locking, electric windows, ABS, colour matched seats), cheaper to service and pretty easy, doesn't require specialist oil (standard 505.00 fully synthetic is fine), super reliable engine built on VW's industrial line of engines (known to do over a million miles), no turbo to worry about (if that's a For), if you're a real scrimper, you can also run them on veg oil

Against SDI:
Sluggish compared to the TDI, unlikely to find one with top spec (e.g. air con, electric mirrors, remote central), pre-2001 models are £220 tax (post 2001 models are £30 tax), no chance of retrofitting features like cruise control etc.


Don't let the power, or lack of, put you off an SDI though, they're real motorway !!!!!s. I hammer mine down the motorway regularly and usually get about 70MPG. Obviously if I drove a little slower I'd get more, but I have no problem keeping up with traffic in the middle or fast lane so the fact it's a N/A diesel shouldn't be a put off. The main issue with the SDI is they simply don't accelerate that fast, but once you get the hang of it, you'll have no problem