Something other than Astra /Focus/Golf?

JustAnotherSaver

Only because she doesn't want to limit her options. 
Sister has pretty much decided to replace her diesel Golf. She's come away from the £8k finance idea on an older car to just getting one about the £4k range. 

Her searches have been on the 3 mentioned so far. Wondering if something is more suitable. Plus a bit of a criteria list:

- 5 door
- reasonable boot (so no Mini's) 
- says she doesn't want to live in the petrol station (complained about her last car - a 1.6 Astra H) but doesn't want to take all week getting to 60mph. A decent balance. This will be harder to call because one person's good is another person's bad. 

She doesnt drive too fair to work I think, which is mostly A and some B roads. She does a bit of motorway driving also.

Her annual mileage seems to be in the 7750-8500 area. 

I suggested a Honda Civic 1.8 around the 2008 shape but not sure how good that'll be on the fuel front. They say mid 40s but I doubt that. Especially with her journeys. She liked the look of the car OK enough. 
I went against my own anti-Citroen stance and suggested the DS3 which she liked but then we didn't see any in 5 door and there's questions over the boot size. 

Oh and she carries a car load of passengers at the weekend some times - hence she's not looking at Corsa's, Firsta's, Polo's. Mini's (so the DS3 was probably a bad idea looking at it). 

Anything worth a look ticking these boxes? 

fred246

Just looking at your previous thread. So basically your sister is replacing her car because the garage she takes it to are incompetent at fixing her current car.  It reminded me of a colleague at work. "Fred would you buy this diesel for £40K or petrol for £35K? "What's wrong with your current car?" Oh the clutch has gone. It went and I took it to a back street garage that replaced it cheaply but it's gone again 8 months later and I am fed up of it. I directed him to the transmission specialist that had done my clutch. Whenever you went they had a row of about 4 cars with engines out having replacement clutches. There was a skip full of worn out clutches. He took it there instead of buying new. I saw him recently. Still driving the old car about 6 years later. Sometimes it's all about finding a competent repairer.

photome

Seat Leon
we have loads on our fleet some with over 150,000 miles on (up to 5 years old) and pretty much faultless
just realised 4k budget , so not sure about older leons

AdrianC

fred246 said:

Whenever you went they had a row of about 4 cars with engines out having replacement clutches.

Thank you for confirming what we've long suspected.
Almost no cars have the engine taken out to replace the clutch.
Almost every car has the gearbox taken out.

fred246

OK gearboxes. Does it really matter.

AdrianC

fred246 said:

OK gearboxes. Does it really matter.

Can you not tell the difference?

Stubod

Octavia 1.4 petrol...

fred246

AdrianC said:

fred246 said:

OK gearboxes. Does it really matter.

Can you not tell the difference?

Both big heavy lumps. I looked at doing the job myself but it involved an engine hoist from above and a transmission stand below. I didn't have either or the time to do it.

TimSynths

Surely the correct answer is simply another Golf - all the car you will ever need.

JustAnotherSaver

The Octavia seems a heavy thing. Does the 1.4 have enough go? At work so don't really have the time until later to go checking.

The Golf would be fair enough though what engine really? Have had experience of the older 1.4s and the 1.6 and they're gutless and awful economy for what they are. The 1.9 I've had experience of was fine enough but it's a diesel and she's against that now. No experience of the modern ones and by modern I mean MK6 onwards so I don't know if any of them fit the bill. 

Out of curiosity do any of you have experience of the Civic? Are they fairly reliable? Have no experience or any Honda at all myself. 

Were_Doomed

Left-field suggestion, but .... what about a Honda Jazz? (I know they're seen as old people's cars). You can get models with a 1.4 petrol engine. The boot is huge* for such a relatively small car, without compromising much the cabin space - you can still get a full complement of passengers in relative comfort.

* On a holiday one time we drove our Jazz to the airport. (Me, Mrs and 2 kids - 15 & 11). All our luggage was in the boot. When we got to the other end we picked up our hire car - Renault Laguna. We couldn't fit all the luggage in the boot.