Reliable and fairly economical auto cars?

Johnmcl7

Iceweasel wrote: »

Are you meaning that a manual box isn't expensive?

How may autos break these days?

Manual gearboxes and traditional automatic gearboxes aren't as expensive as the DSG boxes when there's a serious repair needed as the former can generally be repaired/rebuilt whereas with the DSG boxes it has to be replaced at much higher cost. There's a few different versions of the DSG boxes and there's been quite a few teething issues particularly with mechatronics units which is fine under warranty but a hefty bill if not.

colino wrote: »

Go on, test drive one. Get a decent run, make sure you experience stop-start town work, twisty B roads and some motorway running. You'll begin to wonder what your left leg's for.

No, I didn't - I was glad to be able to use my left leg again after a five day drive covering 1,000 miles and various road conditions in an auto. Sometimes it worked well but other times it didn't and was slow to guess what it thought I was wanting to do which is where I missed the manual and in loose conditions being completely at the mercy of the traction control system and auto box was particularly frustrating as there's no clutch pedal to control the traction.

John

bigjl

To add to the DPF and Auto debate.

My Pathfinder has never had an issue with the dpf light coming on.

It is pretty much driven up and down the A13 in traffic everyday.

When we first got the Zafira autos with the 1.9cdti engine and autobox at my old job back in 06 the biggest issue was them being turned off when regenerating.

They would happily regenerate when pootling round town or ticking over.

A cycle responder once burnt his leg on one that was ticking over in the garage, it was surprising how hot the exhaust gases get.

Oil quality is also an important factor i think.

My Jag was fine till a service at Jag then kept putting up the orange light requesting a run up the road.

Since going over to the oil that Citreon spe for the same engine it has been fine.

I drove a Galaxy tdci Powershift back in '12 for a few months and that was a lot of town running but the engine was rarely switched off all shift.

You could hear and feel it actively regenerating.

I never had an issue with the orange light coming on requesting a run up the road.

But with the improvements in petrol economy i would likely go for an Auto petrol not diesel.

Fuel economy savings in a turbo diesel auto are really only seen on a long run. Not round town.

The Prius is a good bet for urban running around, the Honda Insight is also not bad but cheaper to buy.

Neither is good looking.

But economical transport.

They are good options.