Car has gone past 175 000 miles.

Stigy

DominicH wrote: »

I will remember that "engineered for longevity" thing next time I spot a rusty early-2000s Merc next to a rust-free Peugeot (or indeed Vauxhall) of similar vintage, which won't be long. Saw a 52-plate (if memory serves) E-class in shocking condition the other day.

Indeed. Which I guess also is a big reason why a lot of Taxis tend to be Peugeot Experts/Citroen Dispatch or their Taxi named equivalent. HDi engines (and the older, more archaic non-turbo diesel engines) go on for hundreds of thousands of miles without fault. The only downside is overall build quality of the cars. Modern cars shouldn't rust, but a lot still do unfortunately.

I find a lot of Taxis in the south at least, are Skoda Octavias, probably because of them being VAG engine and running gear, yet cheaper buy. 1st Generation Octavias also had a poverty spec well suited to Taxis or those on more of a budget (No A/C and wind-up windows!). They also still sold a lot of them with the non-turbo SDI engines!

I don't see BMWs as Taxis very often, but I also don't think they're as reliable as the equivalent Merc.

jase1

neil.woos wrote: »

Most BMWs are not engineered for longevity.

... which was the point I was making the other day and you dismissed it.

I ran a petrol Primera to nearly 270,000 miles and the engine was still as sweet as a nut. A lot of the Japanese petrol engines of the 1990s were pretty much indestructible -- but as they were petrols, they didn't tend to be run for that sort of distance purely because they weren't as economical as the diesels.

colino

Lovely how opinion is reconstructed into fact. BMWs and Mercedes, for example, are better designed and engineered than run of the mill cars. Mercedes choose to continue to target the taxi market for example in other, non-UK territories, despite their hiccups in the mid eighties with very little change to spec., and almost all to improve the longevity of the interior, nothing to do with the running gear.
While I do know taxi drivers who use BMW 530s as private hire cars, they are in the minority. The marketing of the cars worldwide is for their driving excellence and as the specced up ones are not cheap, once they are beyond their first company/lease/wealthy owner, there is a very different buying dynamic going on; with next buyers almost queueing up to overpay for their status symbols and they quickly fall into council estate runners, just by plate snobbery, not anything to do with the cars.
Try real life comparisons with looking after 10 year old examples. I know I'm not going to need a hot-spanner doing suspension on a BMW or a Merc, I probably will on a Skoda or a Vauxhall, I definitely will on a Ford or a Jaguar.
Equally on, "known faults" on cars. A repair to a BMW heating system will be 15 minutes to change the hedgehog; a first timer fixing an Octavia heater will be a day hauling the crazily designed dash apart.
By all means have a personal choice, but don't for a second believe they are all the same under the bonnet. We have already had the disastrous scrappage scheme in this country that managed to persuade people that buying new, nasty, cheaply produced tat from Korea made more sense than repairing and maintaining better engineered, better quality second hand European cars. That hiatus in the market will be with us soon when second owners find their cars are net zero trade-ins.

jase1

colino wrote: »

We have already had the disastrous scrappage scheme in this country that managed to persuade people that buying new, nasty, cheaply produced tat from Korea made more sense than repairing and maintaining better engineered, better quality second hand European cars. That hiatus in the market will be with us soon when second owners find their cars are net zero trade-ins.

Yeah, those 12 year old Fiat Puntos and Citroen Saxos were certainly better quality than the cars that replaced them.

jase1

colino wrote: »

Lovely how opinion is reconstructed into fact. BMWs and Mercedes, for example, are better designed and engineered than run of the mill cars.

Define "run of the mill", in context of the fact that BMW and Mercedes are themselves producing mundane hatchbacks such as the A-class and Mini, the latter being a car riddled with design faults and with a notorious reputation for leaving owners stranded.

WellKnownSid

colino wrote: »

... buying new, nasty, cheaply produced tat from Korea made more sense than repairing and maintaining better engineered, better quality second hand European cars.

A lot of which were/are based on older, proven, Japanese designs. The problem with the Korean models is that they're more suited to the American market which is less demanding on things like fit and finish, shut lines, etc.

That doesn't make them less well engineered... Just differently engineered.

For example, do you build a car to run flawlessly for seven years - or do you build a cheaper car which you accept might have flaws but then stick on a seven year warranty for peace of mind. One isn't better than the other, just different,

jase1

It also depends on which Korean cars we're talking about here. The Chevrolets were subject to US GM standards, which are lower than Korean generally and drag down the reputation of the latter.

Hyundai build quality and design is not materially worse than Ford/Vauxhall, and hasn't been for some time.

DKLS

daveyjp wrote: »

Compared to the Mercedes taxis I was in last week its not even run in.

Lowest was 270,000 km, most were around the 500,000 km mark, the highest was a W124 Merc which had done 1.2m km. No doubt the W123s I saw had done even more.

I asked the driver of a 450,000 km E class how the car was. It drove like new and had never let him down.

They were all manuals too.

Likewise some of the Merc Taxis at Schipol have massive mileages yet don't feel tired at all, although depending on time of flight I get a Tesla into town, if its quiet enough the drivers are happy to put it into insane mode and give it the beans.