German or other?

Chorlie

I'm a bit of a Volvo fan I've had many over the year, they are very comfortable, solidly built and a little different to the German cars.

I've always had the bigger Volvos (V70) all but one was diesel and all automatics.

However for your mileage than Petrol is better, but the choice of petrol engines is limited compared to BMW.

For your £15k budget you could get a V40 which is low miles and less than 2yrs old or you maybe able to find a little older around 3yrs S60 / V60.

Just remember the old rules of full service history, high spec & low miles. So if you are looking at Volvo find a SE Lux model (they have high spec as standard).

macman

I've not driven one,but test reports indicate that the V40 does have a hard and unforgiving ride.
I'd be looking at the Mazda 3 (new model) or the Seat Leon/Skoda Octavia

Avoriaz

We have just completed a similar purchase, albeit with a slightly higher budget than yours. (£15,000 to £20,000)

We wanted a newish used car of VW Golf class to replace our ageing Golf. We wanted 5 doors, petrol, circa 1.6 engine, manual, blue colour, cruise control, DAB radio. Everything else such as parking sensors and sat nav was fairly unimportant. Never had them, don't really need them. Unlike buying a new car, when buying used you take whatever options happen to be on the car.

We looked at and test drove current models of:

Ford Focus: Neither of us liked the ride or the seats. I didn't like the steering. It was too vague. Mrs A found the seats far too hard. Rejected.

Merc A Class. I loved the looks and mid blue colour. Mrs A hated the colour and also the interior dash and cabin. It isn't as good to drive as any of the others. You can feel road bumps quite a lot. The steering was also a bit imprecise. Rejected.

VW Golf: We both liked it but wanted a change as we have owned three Golfs over the years. It is still a great car but the styling looks a bit dated and boring, perhaps because we have had one for the last 4 years. On the longlist.

Audi A3. We both liked it a lot. It looks good, has a stylish interior and drives well. On the shortlist.

BMW 1 Series. We both liked it just as much as the Audi. It also looks good, has a stylish interior and drives well. On the shortlist with the Audi.

After five test drives we decided to go for a BMW or an Audi, our choice being dependent on the best deal we could find.

Last Saturday we bought a BMW 116i Series 1 Sport in Deep Sea Blue. It was first registered in January 2015 and had only 220 miles on it. It has 5 doors, petrol, manual, blue colour, cruise control, DAB radio and parking sensors. It doesn't have sat nav.

On the road price in January was over £23k. We paid just under £17k. Someone has taken a big hit in depreciation for a few miles. We added a BMW 5 year Service Pack for £425 as it is a good deal as it covers services, oil top ups etc for 5 years.

I can't comment on Volvo, Mazda, Alfa etc as we didn't consider them.

I'd advise you to consider VW Golf, BMW 1 Series and Audi A3. They are all excellent cars with little to choose between them. With your budget of £10,000 to £12,000 you should be able to get a very good car fairly easily, especially if you stretch to nearer £15,000.

Good luck.



PS: The BMW is the only rear wheel drive in our list.

Spicy_McHaggis

theghool wrote: »

Agree with Volvo being solidly built cars but not sure whether I would subscribe to the general rule that low miles=better.


A car with low miles would normally suggest that the owner does a lot of short trips in an urban environment. This means a lot more cold starts and more ware to the engine and gearbox. Most ware occurs during the first 5-10 minutes until the car is warned up and a car that does a lot of short journeys means that the engine never reaches optimum temperature. Excess fuel and water are mixed with the engine oil and unless the oil is changed twice a year I would avoid buying such cars.

What's your experience of volovs [STRIKE]darkmatter[/STRIKE] ghool?

From watching topgear or have you actually been a passenger in one?

BeenThroughItAll

Spicy_McHaggis wrote: »

What's your experience of volovs [STRIKE]darkmatter[/STRIKE] ghool?

From watching topgear or have you actually been a passenger in one?

Saw one once, probably.

Spicy_McHaggis

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Saw one once, probably.

Anyway back to the original question.

Chorlie

theghool wrote: »

Agree with Volvo being solidly built cars but not sure whether I would subscribe to the general rule that low miles=better.


A car with low miles would normally suggest that the owner does a lot of short trips in an urban environment. This means a lot more cold starts and more ware to the engine and gearbox. Most ware occurs during the first 5-10 minutes until the car is warned up and a car that does a lot of short journeys means that the engine never reaches optimum temperature. Excess fuel and water are mixed with the engine oil and unless the oil is changed twice a year I would avoid buying such cars.

Yes I fully agree re low low miles; I should of said average to a little below average miles.

However; since you'll point out that the OP States they only do about a 20 mile round trip than mileage isn't the most important, so therefore maybe cheaper to buy an above average mileage car and if they keep it for several years when they do come to sell the car it will have average to below average miles on it. Personally I'd still rather buy a car with below average mile even though I now do below average miles a year....

Chorlie

theghool wrote: »

This is completely inaccurate/ build quality of an Audi is much more solid than ford/Vauxhall and many other marques. Sit inside the two and drive them, you will notice a difference

Back in the 80's / 90's maybe, but I know 4 people who have bought VW Golfs or Polos in the last few years and had nothing but problems with them, all of them have moved to other makes now.

As for Audi, my uncle was a big Audi man, he had several over a period of 15yrs and his wife had a couple, but they both now drive BMW's and they have nothing good to say about Audi.

Merc were the same, bulletproof in the 80's and then the accountants got hold of things; they are still trying to rebuild there reputation.

But as you'll say you can have to identical cars and one with give problems and the other won't, strange but true, I've never liked German car, the ride is hard, the seats are hard and it's all about the badge. If I was looking for another car (other than Volvo) it would be a Honda Accord, my old man is on his 3rd after many German cars (mostly BMW's but a couple of Merc's) and IMHO they are on a par with any of his old 3 & 5 series for spec & build quality and they are more comfortable.

R34GTT

E90/92 versions of BMW M3 are getting remarkably close to £15K

cyclistpete

At the moment we have 4 cars in our house hold. A Seat Ibiza over the last few years we have spent £100's in repair bills, both front windows fell into the door, engine management problems and an engine rebuild for a new timing chain. We also have a Mini Cooper again it's cost several £100's in the last year, we've had problems with the gear box, suspension, radiator and alternator. We also have two Toyotas an old RAV4 and an Auris in the same time we have spent over a £1000 on the other two these two have cost nothing.