VW Emissions

bigjl

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Having seen 500k+ mile Octavias and Superbs, that were sold purely because they hit the council age limit for a taxi plate, I'm not sure I'd have the work too if I had one of the affected cars.

Why turn a decent engine into something that may not be as reliable?

How many of those were 1.9 diesels?

PCMcGarry

bigjl wrote: »

How many of those were 1.9 diesels?

Why not tell us, you're an expert at everything.

bigjl

PCMcGarry wrote: »

Why not tell us, you're an expert at everything.

Looks like I have a Stalker.

Lol.

Funny how you, Byker and Hermoine or whatever those other two are called all seem to be online at the same time?

Weird or what?

CKhalvashi

bigjl wrote: »

How many of those were 1.9 diesels?

All but an '05' plate one that's just been decommissioned. That is 2.0, with 420k, about 400k of which are taxi miles.

They're being replaced with Ford Galaxies, in black, around 3 years old (I'll leave you to guess, but should be easy)

bigjl

CKhalvashi wrote: »

All but an '05' plate one that's just been decommissioned. That is 2.0, with 420k, about 400k of which are taxi miles.

They're being replaced with Ford Galaxies, in black, around 3 years old (I'll leave you to guess, but should be easy)

Makes sense to buy ex fleet with known history.

And for a third of new cost.

Very good business sense.

The 2.0 tdci engine is a strong unit.

Maybe not as good on fuel as the 1.6 tdci but much more reliable.

Would have another car with that engine without hesitation. Wether that be Citroen, Peugeot, Volvo or Ford.

CKhalvashi

3 years old, all about 120k miles, all with the auto gearbox.

We use a small garage for servicing, and a uniform fleet means that parts are kept in for them, including a reconditioned box unit, which bearing in mind the history of the cars before us is probably a good idea.

The history comes with every nut and bolt that's ever been removed from the car, making planning easy.

bigjl

The only common issue with the Powershift box is the judder when pulling away, often with a little bit of steering lock on.

Ford did try and sort out a software patch but I don't know if that ever materialised.

Very good on fuel with the Powershift box aswell.

As long as you avoid the ones that have been abused they will give good service for another 3/4 years without major problems.

AddLee may well run their drivers hard, but they do know how to properly maintain a fleet of vehicles.

Bulk purchases for consumables and always buy the crashed ones for dismantling and keeping as spares. Easy to do when you also own the Insurance Co that sells the policies to the drivers!

CKhalvashi

bigjl wrote: »

As long as you avoid the ones that have been abused they will give good service for another 3/4 years without major problems.

I'll always try to drive something for an hour before buying it, on a range of roads from London traffic to 10 miles up/down the M11 to see how something performs.

They're cheap for a reason, but get it right and its really good VFM

Bulk purchases for consumables and always buy the crashed ones for dismantling and keeping as spares. Easy to do when you also own the Insurance Co that sells the policies to the drivers!

Exactly.

We'll spend the money keeping them as they were bought for that exact reason.

Not expecting them to last as long as the Octavias, but far better vfm overall than an ex-24/7 fleet car, a number of which are popping up for sale now.

If we don't earn £40-50k from each of them, I'd be surprised.

bigjl

There are loads of ex AddLee vehicles still being worked.

The older ones are becoming less common but you do still see the odd Sharan knocking about. You used to see loads of 06 and 56 plates about in East London but the oldest I have seen lately is a 57plate. The Galaxy from 08/58 is much more common, some look rough but other have been looked after.

Their main problem was the gearbox was not very strong and AddLee used to recondition them at around 80k wether it was going properly or not, I was told they actually had a bloke in house that did them at the time but that was a rumour and I can't substantiate it.

One interesting point is that they put Winter tyres in the VIP fleet (E Class Mercs, not sure about the S Class) but never used to put them on the Galaxys!

Hopefully you get a good return from your investment.

I reckon an easy 3 years.

AddLee did stretch out the service intervals after being bought out by Carlysle. The 5k service became an inspection and replace as needed with the oil changes stretched out to 10k. Still 2,500 short of what Ford say.

They used to use Castrol oil but don't know if that is still the case as they used Petronas on the E Class Mercs with all the parts coming from EuroCarParts.

I have always recommended ex AddLee Galaxys if bought with care.

The only disadvantage is that they don't have a consumer credit licence (caveat, info is over a year old) which means you have to arrange your own finance.


One small point that I thought I would add.

I drove for AddLee for 6/7 months after I retired, during the lead up, during and after the Olympics. (It was crap and I very quickly started doing Medical cover work at the same time.)

I found that fuel economy was good but on a few occasions I used Tesco diesel and found that the DPF would Regen an awful lot more with Tesco diesel. I never tried Asda or Morrisons and went back to Shell as there is one on the A13 that price matches local supermarkets. I never had any DOF problems though, a Regen was easy to spot aswell. On the one I used anyway.

I did loads of miles in mine, never had a single problem, only needed two front tyres and some pads.

They used Hankooks then, I believe they use Michelins now.

I used to get 45mpg out of mine, though I would often start my day with a good book on the Stansted Airport rank so that will likely have pushed up my average a bit.

I did experiment a few times to see what mpg I could get on a slow cruise round the M25 a few times and I could get the readout to show around the 60mpg mark at a steady 60/65mph.

jase1

Strider590 wrote: »

VW Golf = VERY highly overrated.

I would suggest doing real research and not listening to social gossip propagated in the 1980's. The modern cars are totally different to the cars of that era.

Even the 80s cars were just stripped-out shells of cars with nothing to go wrong. Any monkey can build a car like that and charge as much as the other manufacturers were for more fully-featured vehicles.

Modern VWs aren't like that. They cost the same as a Ford/VW, have the same features as a Ford/VW and consequently have the same reliability as a Ford/VW. Then they spend an extra £20 on some 'premium' materials on the dashboard and fool people into thinking the cars are still steps ahead.