Choice of car

shazrobo

i love ford fiesta's great cars to drive, do not like the clio, my dad has one, and there hardly enough space to get in, saying that i am 6 2" tall
shaz x

missmom

alastairq wrote: »

For a novice/new driver , I would recommend looking at the Citroen C1/Toyota Aygo/Peugeot 106 range.

These are basically the same car, built on the same production line, but with detail differences.
[I feel the Citroen C1 range offers the best of options]

Although small on the outside, they do seat 4 grownups without hassle.

But, from a NEW driver's point of view, I feel this range offers far more, in terms of keeping said driver safe and out of trouble.

They come equipped as standard, not just with ABS, but with what I believe is called, ESP...ie, if the driver does go round a corner a bit too fast...a common trait amongst new drivers, not being able to judge appropriate speed in a lot of situations.....then the individual brakes operate to prevent an sort of skid or loss of control.

the range comes equipped with airbags all round, a special steel passenger safety cell, etc etc.

Since statistically a new driver is one heck of a lot more likely to crash in their first 3 years of driving, than at any other time...any attempt to mitigate what may be the inevitable is, in my eyes, a good thing.

However, more important than any of the above stuff, is that they all come as standard, with an Ipod connection!

and they're cheap to boot.

Thanks, i am not exactly a novice/new driver. I used to drive abroad on th e
other side of the road!

I drove a Toyota Corolla (saloon) most of the time, occasionally a Toyota Rav4


I am just in the process of passing my test in th eUK, so i want to get my 'first car' in the UK, but I want something smaller that what i used to drive. And something that will have low running costs. I am thinking of getting an auto transmission and diesel engine.

Sorry for not explaining that earlier.

TiTheRev

With £3000 you should be able to get a very nice first car, (mine was a £20 Austin Metro, lol!). My two penneth worth would be Fabia or Golf. Being a VW employee I am biased but I have also been in the motor trade for about 13years now, so have seen all that the others have to offer too.

A post above mentioned that every brand has a "friday-special" where it seems that the car was left half built when it left the production line! This is sadly very true, but not so much with the aforementioned models. I recently sold my '99 Mk4 Golf TDi for £2900 and that gave an average of 35-40 to the gallon, and was a joy to own/drive without any major hiccup in over 3years of driving...

I would say though, auto AND diesel is not usually a good combo unless its the newer type gearboxes that have dual mass flywheels etc. For a decent ride and performance I would personally go for petrol and auto, or manual and diesel otherwise you may be disappointed!

The real answer is, to test-drive lots of cars and get a feel for what you want/like happy hunting!

BillScarab

How many miles a year do you expexct to do? It's pointless getting a diesel if you don't do many miles. Also what type of miles will you do? Diesels are better suited to motorway/ A road driving than pottering around town. If you will be mainly driving around town then automatics can make a lot of sense, a lot less hassle when you're stuck in traffic jams.

AdrianHi

It's fast becoming questionable whether it's cheaper to fuel a diesel vs. petrol equivalent now anyway.
I tend to beat petrol official combined mpg figures by 8% with my driving pattern and fall just short on diesels. This week the price differential between petrol and diesel hit a level where a petrol and diesel equivalent of most cars on the market has just broken even for me. The way prices are going it will most likely turn this way for most people over the coming year. It's always been hardest to justify diesel on small light cars better suited to getting more economy out of a small petrol engine. On top of this the used car market is over valuing diesels in my opinion.
Nissan Micra auto another to consider
http://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/used-prices/Valuation.aspx?deriv=24336&plate=71

cyclonebri1

In answer to the last couple of posts, and no disrespect to the guys here, are there any petrol engined cars that will ever deliver 60 to 70 mpg whilst still being driven at a reasonable ie + 60/70mph speed.

I don't feel the gap has been closed yet.

plus the only additional cost to owning a diesel is in the "loaded" initial purchase price, the service costs are no higher. Skip this by carefull purchase and you will be quids in, imho of course :money:

AdrianHi

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

In answer to the last couple of posts, and no disrespect to the guys here, are there any petrol engined cars that will ever deliver 60 to 70 mpg whilst still being driven at a reasonable ie + 60/70mph speed.

I don't feel the gap has been closed yet.

plus the only additional cost to owning a diesel is in the "loaded" initial purchase price, the service costs are no higher. Skip this by carefull purchase and you will be quids in, imho of course :money:

Ignoring other costs and considering fuel alone the gap is different depending on the cars your comparing and the gap between the price of unleaded and diesel where you live and the type of driving you do and the resulting fuel consumption you can get out of different cars.
I have a 14p per litre premium for diesel in my area, someone else I'm in touch with in Scotland has a 16p per litre premium for diesel.
Considering this a petrol car does not have to get up to 60 to 70mpg at 70mph for it to break even on fuel costs.
As an example going by official combined mpg figures:
New efficient dynamics BMW 320i 47mpg £135.41 a month in fuel
New efficient dynamics BMW 320d 54mpg £130.63 a month in fuel
Hardly anything in it.
Now lets translate this into the real world where my wife and I on a sample of 3 cars over the last 10 years beat official combined mpg figures on 4 and 6 cylinder petrol cars by 8%. Also account for the fact I fall short of official combined figures on my current 320d touring by 1 mpg getting 46mpg (2%).
Now look at the costs:
320i £125.38
320d £133.29
For me it is already cheaper to be in an equivalent petrol, in fact I worked out using the same metrics I can now fuel am efficient dynamics 330i (41.8mpg using my +8% rule) for the same money as my current "47mpg" 320d.

It will be different for different cars in different driving conditions.

cyclonebri1

AdrianHi wrote: »

Ignoring other costs and considering fuel alone the gap is different depending on the cars your comparing and the gap between the price of unleaded and diesel where you live and the type of driving you do and the resulting fuel consumption you can get out of different cars.
I have a 14p per litre premium for diesel in my area, someone else I'm in touch with in Scotland has a 16p per litre premium for diesel.
Considering this a petrol car does not have to get up to 60 to 70mpg at 70mph for it to break even on fuel costs.
As an example going by official combined mpg figures:
New efficient dynamics BMW 320i 47mpg £135.41 a month in fuel
New efficient dynamics BMW 320d 54mpg £130.63 a month in fuel
Hardly anything in it.
Now lets translate this into the real world where my wife and I on a sample of 3 cars over the last 10 years beat official combined mpg figures on 4 and 6 cylinder petrol cars by 8%. Also account for the fact I fall short of official combined figures on my current 320d touring by 1 mpg getting 46mpg (2%).
Now look at the costs:
320i £125.38
320d £133.29
For me it is already cheaper to be in an equivalent petrol, in fact I worked out using the same metrics I can now fuel am efficient dynamics 330i (41.8mpg using my +8% rule) for the same money as my current "47mpg" 320d.

It will be different for different cars in different driving conditions.

This is where I find the official figures and what happens in practice at variance. We both have diesel cars at present and equal, or better if really trying, the official combined figures. But, in previous petrol engined ones we have never been able to match official figures.

This is why I made the comment with a speed reference in there as the efficiecy of the diesel seems less affected by higher revs than does the petrol cars. Of course this is not based on any official figures or any physics that I know of, just my own personnel experience with recent cars

AdrianHi

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

This is where I find the official figures and what happens in practice at variance. We both have diesel cars at present and equal, or better if really trying, the official combined figures. But, in previous petrol engined ones we have never been able to match official figures.

This is why I made the comment with a speed reference in there as the efficiecy of the diesel seems less affected by higher revs than does the petrol cars. Of course this is not based on any official figures or any physics that I know of, just my own personnel experience with recent cars

I've found it, a graph I've been looking for with some MPG and speed research Auto Bild magazine did a while back. It demonstrates one of the reasons why it's so difficult to answer the petrol vs. diesel question.
I find it interesting that if you are going to be spending a lot of time driving at 100 to 120mph on the autobahn in Germany one of the most fuel efficient vehicles you cam have, more so than any diesel or hybrid, is a Mercedes C180K (Kompressor - supercharged) petrol.
Have a look:
http://www.metrompg.com/zoom_image.htm?H=437&W=640&ZoomFile=gcc%2Dautobild1%2Egif&Caption=%28%3Ca%20href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Egreencarcongress%2Ecom%2F2006%2F05%2Ffuel%5Fconsumptio%2Ehtml%22%20target%3D%22%5Fblank%22%3ESource%3C%2Fa%3E%29&title=GCC%20AutoBild%20graph