Choosing the proper car/engine size for 50-mile commute in London highways

macman

 For 12,500 miles plus weekend/holiday use, it's on the cusp of diesel or petrol.
Your header is confusing, as you refer to 'London highways' but none of your routes take you any nearer to London than the M25, and certainly not into the ULEZ extension zone inside the North and South Circulars?

photome

OP I asked earlier, what happened to the car you already own.

ps I believe the smart car scores highly in safety tests and you dont get much smaller than that

alihd

NBLondon said:

As for the OP...  I second the question of what happened to the car you already had before passing your test?  Is that not suitable?    Otherwise, I agree with AdrianC -  to beat the ULEZ, petrol gives you more options so a petrol Fiesta or equivalent.  How tall or broad you are may be a factor that pushes you up to Focus/Astra/Golf size.   If you fit a smaller car OK - then you can maybe look for a higher trim level for improved comfort.

I hadn't bought the car when I asked that question, but I was investigating whether I can use the car for the exam without an accompanying friend. I eventually passed the test on my instructor's car so I didn't buy the car. Indeed if I had bought the car I would have definitely changed it as I eventually needed a manual licence and an automatic car. (I might hire vans later on with the manual licence).
Changing of the instructors was actually good in that I tried different cars. My other instructor had a tiny Vauxhall Agila and she was much into bringing me to the motorways. I felt the car struggles to accelerate when I wanted to build up speed to change lanes / overtake, and it made me more nervous to stay in the motorway. Obviously I am not much proficient, but I wonder if getting comfy with the busy motorways is just a matter of practice OR the car actually mattters.

The point about Focus/Astra/stuff is that it is harder to find a fuel-efficient one and the insurances are much higher compared to the small ones as I have just got my licence. I wonder those mid-sized cars are really worth £300-400 more on insurance.

alihd

Thanks to wongataa & AdrianC for introducing and investigating EuroNCAP.
Indeed, larger cars have a generally higher score for the adult occupant according to the EuroNCAP list.  
For larger / family cars:

• Ford Fiesta: 87% (2017)
• Ford Focus: 96% (2019)

And the small ones:

• VW up! 81% (2019)
• Peugeot 108: 80% (2015)

Not sure how important should they be to me.

AdrianC

alihd said:

Thanks to wongataa & AdrianC for introducing and investigating EuroNCAP.
Indeed, larger cars have a generally higher score for the adult occupant according to the EuroNCAP list.  
For larger / family cars:

• Ford Fiesta: 87% (2017)
• Ford Focus: 96% (2019)

And the small ones:

• VW up! 81% (2019)
• Peugeot 108: 80% (2015)

Not sure how important should they be to me.

Look more deeply at the links I gave...
The scores are relative to the then-current scoring system. That system changes over time.

Very simply - You have not been able to buy an actively unsafe car in the UK for many, many years. The EuroNCAP scores are tiny shades of difference between "very safe", "really safe", and "incredibly safe".

What's safest of all is NOT CRASHING IN THE FIRST PLACE. And the best way you can do that is to look where you're going - properly - and assume that every other idiot on the road is out to get you.

macman

To put it in perspective, motorways and high quality dual carriageways are the safest roads around, many times over. Statistically, you are far more likely to have an accident on the local roads near your home.
Obviously, the larger the car, the more kinetic energy it's structure can absorb, before you absorb it. 

alihd

macman said:

 For 12,500 miles plus weekend/holiday use, it's on the cusp of diesel or petrol.
Your header is confusing, as you refer to 'London highways' but none of your routes take you any nearer to London than the M25, and certainly not into the ULEZ extension zone inside the North and South Circulars?

It is a commute from White City to Staines; and back. Not sure why the header is misleading.
The area will be well inside ULEZ from October 2021 and diesel cars in my budget (£2-3K) are not for ULEZ.

The ULEZ-friendly diesel cars are those produced from 2015 onwards. I don't mind paying more for an the car (say, up to £5k). But the problems is that
1) a £5k car is risky to buy from private sellers and a good 2015+ diesel car from a reliable dealer (e.g. cargiant) is well above £8k for an automatic car.
2) Those expensive cars loose their value in the first few years, which I can't afford (e.g. buy a 2016 car, sell in 4 years, the price almost halves).

AdrianC

alihd said:

It is a commute from White City to Staines; and back.

Why on earth go anywhere near A40 and M25, then?

A30, A4, then a bit of a wiggle through from the Chiswick r'a'b, probably varying by traffic. 15 miles each way, and only the last 2 miles will be inside the ULEZ.

And don't forget petrol from 2004ish is also ULEZ compatible.

If t'were me doing that daily, I'd be seriously thinking about a 125cc. Or even a bicycle in the summer...

alihd

photome said:

OP I asked earlier, what happened to the car you already own.
ps I believe the smart car scores highly in safety tests and you dont get much smaller than that

I haven't had a car in the UK. This is going to be my first one.
I don't have a good memory of small cars TBH. I had a Ford Festiva (NOT fiesta; a.k.a Kia Pride, or SAIPA Pride) back in Iran and it was terrible on the road. This is the most common car in Iran and is responsible for our 52 death per vehicle record (which is 10 times more than that of UK).
Before my Festiva, I had a Paykan (derived from 1967 Hillman Hunter = Root's arrow).

AdrianC said:

Why on earth go anywhere near A40 and M25, then?
A30, A4, then a bit of a wiggle through from the Chiswick r'a'b, probably varying by traffic. 15 miles each way, and only the last 2 miles will be inside the ULEZ.
And don't forget petrol from 2004ish is also ULEZ compatible.

TBH A4 doesn't make much difference. I can't find a 15-mile path. It's at least 20 miles compared to the 25 miles if I pick A40 and M25, and it's a hell of a lot of traffic. Probably I should be less scared of traffic if I buy an automatic car, but the traffic is gonna be still nerve-racking in the long run, no?  
Also, I think petrol consumes a lot more in heavy traffic unless I buy a hybrid, which is beyond my budget. 

AdrianC said:

If t'were me doing that daily, I'd be seriously thinking about a 125cc. Or even a bicycle in the summer...

I have a wound on my throat from an accident I had in teenage days. The break handle almost cut my throat, but not completely! Thanks, I'm done with anything but cars and walking BTW, this was my motorcycle back then (in 2000's):

AdrianC

alihd said:
I don't have a good memory of small cars TBH. I had a Ford Festiva (NOT fiesta; a.k.a Kia Pride, or SAIPA Pride) back in Iran and it was terrible on the road. This is the most common car in Iran and is responsible for our 52 death per vehicle record (which is 10 times more than that of UK).

A mid 1980s original design...

AdrianC said:

Why on earth go anywhere near A40 and M25, then?
A30, A4, then a bit of a wiggle through from the Chiswick r'a'b, probably varying by traffic. 15 miles each way, and only the last 2 miles will be inside the ULEZ.
And don't forget petrol from 2004ish is also ULEZ compatible.

TBH A4 doesn't make much difference. I can't find a 15-mile path. It's at least 20 miles compared to the 25 miles if I pick A40 and M25, and it's a hell of a lot of traffic. Probably I should be less scared of traffic if I buy an automatic car, but the traffic is gonna be still nerve-racking in the long run, no?

A30 past the south of the airport, A4 at Hounslow, underneath the M4 from Brentford to Chiswick.

Yes, the traffic's going to be awful. It's going to be awful whichever way you go, especially if you're going with rush-hour flows. It's a while since I was round there regularly, but that south side of the airport always used to be a lot quieter, simply because you didn't get the big commuter volume coming in from outside the M25 - it tended to stick to the big trunk routes.

If you passed your test in a manual, then confidence should be no difference between a manual and an auto.
If you passed your test in an auto, you cannot drive a manual legally.

Small petrol autos in the £2-3k budget are few and far between, and mostly ex-Granny transport.