Big Commute Car Advice

Winger15mk

Hello all,

So I'm currently living in Peterborough and have just landed a new job on the outskirts of London. Public transport really isn't an option due to cost and time so driving is the way, I'm currently usually doing around 180 return miles on the days I'm working a shift. Yes 180 miles.

I'm currently driving a 1.6 Petrol 2010 Vauxhall Astra so need to look at changing for a diesel of some variety and wanted to get some opinions on practical cars to look at for my kind of situation?

I'm ideally looking for a car which gets good MPG and also has a built in Sat Nav and Bluetooth phone connectivity.

And before anyone says, moving is not currently an option unfortunately so need to start by at least saving me on the £500 petrol I'm spending a month!

Really appreciate any advice!

Thanks
Gary

DUTR

Winger15mk wrote: »

Hello all,

So I'm currently living in Peterborough and have just landed a new job on the outskirts of London. Public transport really isn't an option due to cost and time so driving is the way, I'm currently usually doing around 180 return miles on the days I'm working a shift. Yes 180 miles.

I'm currently driving a 1.6 Petrol 2010 Vauxhall Astra so need to look at changing for a diesel of some variety and wanted to get some opinions on practical cars to look at for my kind of situation?

I'm ideally looking for a car which gets good MPG and also has a built in Sat Nav and Bluetooth phone connectivity.

And before anyone says, moving is not currently an option unfortunately so need to start by at least saving me on the £500 petrol I'm spending a month!

Really appreciate any advice!

Thanks
Gary

Welcome to the forum, perhaps you maybe not aware, the readers are not mind readers! It is easy to reduce your £500 a month fuel bill, however it may mean that the savings are made up or exceeded by the purchase of a newer vehicle.
So what is your BUDGET?
On a practical note, are you going to be good for a long day's work after a 90 mile drive and more so, after a hard days work are you going to be good for driving back fatugued, day in day out?
Shiftwork syndrome springs to my mind .

Winger15mk

Sorry my mistake, I'm aiming for around the £6,000-7,000 mark if possible.

After a month of doing the job and the drive already and I can I've found it fine, it's not a physically intense job and I would never be on the road if I didn't think I was safe to do so

Thank You

forgotmyname

What MPG do you get with the Astra? Modern diesels can have fairly large repair bills so you need to choose wisely.

Dual mass flywheels and diesel particle filters can be costly to replace. The DPF also uses extra fuel when they regenerate. Some cars need a special fluid also. Check to see what system the car your thinking of uses.
And ask them what happens if its in a regen cycle and you stop before its done.

Some cars will start again next time. But after so many fails it maybe a dealer job. Although with a commute like that it shouldnt be an issue.

DUTR

Winger15mk wrote: »

Sorry my mistake, I'm aiming for around the £6,000-7,000 mark if possible.

After a month of doing the job and the drive already and I can I've found it fine, it's not a physically intense job and I would never be on the road if I didn't think I was safe to do so

Thank You

Well that rules out a VW XL-1 ,
however from what you have posted you are doing 900 miles a week and spending £125/week on fuel which is roughly just over 40mpg combined and realistically that is the going rate an Astra diesel may get you another 10mpg.
Even if it were say 55mpg then that is still £99/week in diesel , so there is a £25/week 'saving' which is probably not enough to cover the outlay, plus the additional wear n tear, it's a lot of mileage to be continually doing unless you are into haulage or taxi-ing etc

stampede

I used to do a 87mile trip each way for about 3 years, you just get used to it, it's not that difficult. So a total of 174 mile round trip.
I left the house at 5:30 & got home anything between 7pm & 9:30pm depending on traffic.

I did have a company car, unfortunately it was petrol though!

Is integrated sat nav and bluetooth absolutely essential as it'd probably save you quite a bit not having it as a sat nav is only around £100?

On that budget I guess you have to choose carefully, but I always did find VW's totally reliable, my 2010 Touran returns 50-55mpg on a run & the old Bora about 55-58mpg. The VW's have an option of long life servicing which give 24k approx service intervals for heavy use as yours which saves on servicing every few months.

I did have a 2006 mondeo diesel which did do good mpg but often had problems which meant a garage trip to sort out an injector fault.

gilbert_and_sullivan

There is an alternative, given your mileage your present or another car converted to LPG would do the job, it doesn't have to be Diesel, 'payback' on the typical good conversion takes roughly 20k miles, and if you happen to pass Sainsbury's at London Colney on your commute you have one of the cheapest LPG sites around, currently 69ppl, several slightly higher priced sites on your journey too.

Be warned once you've gone LPG few people go back, but all conversions are not the same, all converters are not the same and some cars don't convert well, so if you are at all interested do your research well.

Some stand alone sat navs have Bluetooth, so thats an easy fix anyway.

Wh05apk

Hyundai I30:


http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201402071630922/sort/default/usedcars/radius/1500/onesearchad/used%2Cnearlynew%2Cnew/price-to/7500/maximum-mileage/up_to_50000_miles/maximum-age/up_to_3_years_old/postcode/co49th/fuel-type/diesel/page/1/model/i30/make/hyundai?logcode=p


Should give ~55mpg, similar size to Astra, but would still have 2 years warranty.

Prothet_of_Doom

Winger15mk wrote: »

I'm ideally looking for a car which gets good MPG and also has a built in Sat Nav and Bluetooth phone connectivity.

And before anyone says, moving is not currently an option unfortunately so need to start by at least saving me on the £500 petrol I'm spending a month!

Really appreciate any advice!

Thanks
Gary

I would treat the sat nav as a nice to have, and nothing more. You can get FREE sat nav on a smart phone. A standalone sat nav which is linked to traffic information might be useful.

Hands Free kits are cheap enough these days too.

I wouldn't limit my options by putting either on my list of must have's.

As for the car? With that sort of miles you want to stick to something where the depreciation is not going to become more expensive than the fuel savings.

If I had £6K to spend I'd go for a honda civic or accord 2.2 Diesel. Having owned an 04 accord for 3 years now, it's a great car, and a great engine.

Just change the oil frequently :rotfl:

Winger15mk

Thank you for the advice so far guys!

Lots of interesting ideas already, in regards to the bluetooth/sat nav stuff, I currently have a bluetooth headset and a tomtom 6000 with traffic updates but it's all just a lot of wires which is what I'd like to avoid where possible.

The main car I've had my eye on from a friends advice was a Hona Civic? I can pick up at 2008 model with bluetooth etc for around 7k with 43k miles on it, any advice or experiences with this? Should I save a get a younger car?

Thanks again!

motorguy

Winger15mk wrote: »

Thank you for the advice so far guys!

Lots of interesting ideas already, in regards to the bluetooth/sat nav stuff, I currently have a bluetooth headset and a tomtom 6000 with traffic updates but it's all just a lot of wires which is what I'd like to avoid where possible.

The main car I've had my eye on from a friends advice was a Hona Civic? I can pick up at 2008 model with bluetooth etc for around 7k with 43k miles on it, any advice or experiences with this? Should I save a get a younger car?

Thanks again!

I've a satnav unit subtly wired round from the cigarette lighter and neartly tucked in up the side of the dash up to the unit.

Also, i've a bluetooth unit similar to one of these

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SuperTooth-Handsfree-Bluetooth-Speakerphone-Smartphone/dp/B0039YP2VG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397466919&sr=8-1&keywords=bluetooth+visor

Battery lasts for ages and its fine for every day use.

I dont think the Honda will give you remarkable economy, but otherwise a good car.

I've a 90 mile return commute daily and i've a Golf 1.6 TDI S. With a steady run i've been able to average 65.5mpg over 15,000 miles, measured brim to brim each time.

You should get one of those in budget.

For a down the money choice i'd go for a 1.9TDI Golf, which should get you 55mpg but cost a lot less to buy. I'd avoid 2006/2007/2008 2.0TDI VW engines as they are known to be problematic.