Re: PH Blog - Passat Power
Discussion
This is a very timely piece. Only yesterday I was thinking along the lines of two cars rather than one. I have had one car for quite a few years, but used to have various weekend 'hobby cars' (Mk2 RS2000 etc). I have now run a Volvo V70 T5 as a big family load lugger and it's served very well for several years.
Pros - big, comfy, anonymous, pretty fast (in a straight line)
Cons - bit of a wallow barge, thirsty, terrible traction.
I am now toying with (AHHH - kill me) a Galaxy diesel type thing for load lugging and family stuff (7 to the pub at weekends, trips to France etc) and supplement it with a gas guzzling four seater coupe to squeeze the kids in at weekends and when a bit of showing off is required. (M3, S5, 996 C4S...)
Any thoughts? Am I mad?
Pros - big, comfy, anonymous, pretty fast (in a straight line)
Cons - bit of a wallow barge, thirsty, terrible traction.
I am now toying with (AHHH - kill me) a Galaxy diesel type thing for load lugging and family stuff (7 to the pub at weekends, trips to France etc) and supplement it with a gas guzzling four seater coupe to squeeze the kids in at weekends and when a bit of showing off is required. (M3, S5, 996 C4S...)
Any thoughts? Am I mad?
I ran a toy & an everyday for a couple of years- in fact I have done it twice now, about ten years apart & both times I have ruined it for myself- the toy had to go (on both occasions) I could always find a reason not to drag the toy out of the garage....car-parks (someones bound to ding it)... salt on the roads (must preserve it) Long run (save a lot of fuel in the daily) Really hot sunny day (The 20 year old red paint WILL fade & I bet the dash cracks!) Year two, I think I did about 600 miles in it... I know these examples are totally pathetic, but thats humans for you....crap design 
On the plus side, my paranoia kept them mint & with the most recent toy ownership I had the previously un-experienced (to me) phenomena of making money on a car....
On the plus side, my paranoia kept them mint & with the most recent toy ownership I had the previously un-experienced (to me) phenomena of making money on a car....
Chris Harris said:
The Mercury connection is made quite frequently. Even by family. Luckily I'm a fan: will now listen to Don't Stop Me Now to honour my first Freddie reference on PH!
Bloody Hell, poor Chris. First blog and the 'shopping has already started...Being used to magazines where readers can't talk back so quickly, I hope you take all the humour as it's meant!
I'm doing this on a budget:
Audi A2, which is returning 58.7 MPG as calculated be fully.com, but remapped and driven like it was stolen.
Audi TT mk1, re-mapped and suspension, tuned to give a great combination of security, handling (yes, I said it a TT that handles-ish) and GT ability - also that the wife is happy to drive
An original, carbon-laden Ducati 916 for the few days when the sun shines and i'm allowed out to play....
Add all three together and they total value is around £11k, cost below £300 a year to tax and insurance comes in at just under £520 for all 3.
Cheap thrills.
The funny thing is the A2 with Koni FSD and tweaked springs, recaro's and sub 960kg weight is one of the nicest ways to enjoy cheap, economy motoring...
J
Audi A2, which is returning 58.7 MPG as calculated be fully.com, but remapped and driven like it was stolen.
Audi TT mk1, re-mapped and suspension, tuned to give a great combination of security, handling (yes, I said it a TT that handles-ish) and GT ability - also that the wife is happy to drive
An original, carbon-laden Ducati 916 for the few days when the sun shines and i'm allowed out to play....
Add all three together and they total value is around £11k, cost below £300 a year to tax and insurance comes in at just under £520 for all 3.
Cheap thrills.
The funny thing is the A2 with Koni FSD and tweaked springs, recaro's and sub 960kg weight is one of the nicest ways to enjoy cheap, economy motoring...
J
Hooley said:
I'm doing this on a budget:
Audi A2, which is returning 58.7 MPG as calculated be fully.com, but remapped and driven like it was stolen.
Audi TT mk1, re-mapped and suspension, tuned to give a great combination of security, handling (yes, I said it a TT that handles-ish) and GT ability - also that the wife is happy to drive
An original, carbon-laden Ducati 916 for the few days when the sun shines and i'm allowed out to play....
Add all three together and they total value is around £11k, cost below £300 a year to tax and insurance comes in at just under £520 for all 3.
Cheap thrills.
The funny thing is the A2 with Koni FSD and tweaked springs, recaro's and sub 960kg weight is one of the nicest ways to enjoy cheap, economy motoring...
J
Great pairing with the Audis. A2 and the mk1 TT are in prime buying territory now. Audi A2, which is returning 58.7 MPG as calculated be fully.com, but remapped and driven like it was stolen.
Audi TT mk1, re-mapped and suspension, tuned to give a great combination of security, handling (yes, I said it a TT that handles-ish) and GT ability - also that the wife is happy to drive
An original, carbon-laden Ducati 916 for the few days when the sun shines and i'm allowed out to play....
Add all three together and they total value is around £11k, cost below £300 a year to tax and insurance comes in at just under £520 for all 3.
Cheap thrills.
The funny thing is the A2 with Koni FSD and tweaked springs, recaro's and sub 960kg weight is one of the nicest ways to enjoy cheap, economy motoring...
J
I agree with the article totally. I bought my 10 year old TDi130 wagon (actually chipped nearer 160) 2 years ago as a stop-gap after writing off the last one.
It has just tipped over the 171,000 mark on the original engine, gearbox and even windscreen and uses little oil and still returns a genuine 48mpg average. The trip said 63.4mpg with the tail-wind on the A3 this morning. Boring as anything, but can't think of much else that fits the bill as well.
The 13,000rpm red-line on my GSX-R cures the boredom problem, when it's dry at least.
It has just tipped over the 171,000 mark on the original engine, gearbox and even windscreen and uses little oil and still returns a genuine 48mpg average. The trip said 63.4mpg with the tail-wind on the A3 this morning. Boring as anything, but can't think of much else that fits the bill as well.
The 13,000rpm red-line on my GSX-R cures the boredom problem, when it's dry at least.
The MR2 MK2 was an excellent all-rounder: great handling, performance, good boot and really comfortable on a motorway, even decent fuel economy for what it was: keep it under 75 and it's fairly quiet and does 37mpg, cane it and halve that figure.
Unfortunately commuting at 600 miles a week on B roads meant new set of rear tyres every couple of months and fronts every quarter. Whenever I replaced the rear tyres I got it serviced at the same time. It also started racking up massive repair costs (brakes, suspension, gear linkage, engine, steering and a couple of split alternators). I went through 4K in one year, then 4K the next.
Then I realised that for the cost of running the Toyota I could buy my Vectra diesel (£8K for 8 months old) and take up motor racing...
Unfortunately commuting at 600 miles a week on B roads meant new set of rear tyres every couple of months and fronts every quarter. Whenever I replaced the rear tyres I got it serviced at the same time. It also started racking up massive repair costs (brakes, suspension, gear linkage, engine, steering and a couple of split alternators). I went through 4K in one year, then 4K the next.
Then I realised that for the cost of running the Toyota I could buy my Vectra diesel (£8K for 8 months old) and take up motor racing...
My boss has a manual one of these which I drove the other day.
Nice interior and thought the ride was good (didnt find it too hard- although my car is a 106 rallye) but other than that I found it pretty tedious. The things that annoyed me most are that to start it you have to piss about with pushing the fob into the dash while pressing the clutch (it took me about 10mins to figure that out!) and to turn off the electric hand brake (which I think are bloody horrible things) you have to have your foot on the brake, for what reason I do not know. I can imagine hill starts are a right pain.
The 6 speed ratios are nice although 2nd I found pretty long for trundling about in. Didnt need to go beyond 4th for the whole journey which was mainly fairly twisty roads. Would probably be a better all-round drive with the DSG box Harris drove.
Nice interior and thought the ride was good (didnt find it too hard- although my car is a 106 rallye) but other than that I found it pretty tedious. The things that annoyed me most are that to start it you have to piss about with pushing the fob into the dash while pressing the clutch (it took me about 10mins to figure that out!) and to turn off the electric hand brake (which I think are bloody horrible things) you have to have your foot on the brake, for what reason I do not know. I can imagine hill starts are a right pain.
The 6 speed ratios are nice although 2nd I found pretty long for trundling about in. Didnt need to go beyond 4th for the whole journey which was mainly fairly twisty roads. Would probably be a better all-round drive with the DSG box Harris drove.
I ran a 1998 Passat (2ltr petrol manual though) estate bought as an ex-demo with 5,000 miles on it for 5 years and added another 165,000 miles including towing my racecar to sprints and hillclimbs, taking two huge dogs around and moving house 3 times, nothing fell off and it felt solid when I p/x'd it for a 2 year old 330d Touring - that was the different animal costing me loads when the autobox overheated and failed and the engine ingested part of the inlet manifold... swapped that for a Skoda Octavia 2.0TDi with DSG and that has been fine for 75,000 miles so I'm sticking with VAG products
thiscocks said:
My boss has a manual one of these which I drove the other day.
Nice interior and thought the ride was good (didnt find it too hard- although my car is a 106 rallye) but other than that I found it pretty tedious. The things that annoyed me most are that to start it you have to piss about with pushing the fob into the dash while pressing the clutch (it took me about 10mins to figure that out!) and to turn off the electric hand brake (which I think are bloody horrible things) you have to have your foot on the brake, for what reason I do not know. I can imagine hill starts are a right pain.
My misses has one of these passats as a co car. Everytime I get in it I winge about the startup procedure. It too really annoys me that VW (assume this is the same in all other VW's) don't think we are cabable of starting a car out of gear, taking the handbrake off without fear of rolling away. If people can't be trusted to do this they shouldn't be allowed out on the road.Nice interior and thought the ride was good (didnt find it too hard- although my car is a 106 rallye) but other than that I found it pretty tedious. The things that annoyed me most are that to start it you have to piss about with pushing the fob into the dash while pressing the clutch (it took me about 10mins to figure that out!) and to turn off the electric hand brake (which I think are bloody horrible things) you have to have your foot on the brake, for what reason I do not know. I can imagine hill starts are a right pain.
Mr Whippy said:
I used to think having a diesel car for the daily grind made sense, but it just makes dull driving even more dull.
Better to have something a bit silly, and then it makes any journey a bit more interesting.
Semi tempted by a VX220 Turbo again, mmmmm!
Have to disagree with that.Better to have something a bit silly, and then it makes any journey a bit more interesting.
Semi tempted by a VX220 Turbo again, mmmmm!
I sold my Cayman S a few months ago which I had for 4 years and did 55K in and replaced it with a nearly new, low miles BMW 320D M Sport.
The main reason was due to a longer commute of around 60 miles a day on motorway and dual carriageway with the usual rush hour stop start stuff.
Have to say I love it and as an everyday commute car its brilliant. I even went for the auto version as stop start stuff in the Porsche was a complete PITA.
The BMW is a lot more comfortable, loaded with toys and more importantly does at least twice the MPG.
I loved the Porsche and it was a great all rounder but could get tiring when used for slow everyday stuff.
I could have got an older one and a weekend toy but dont have a garage at the moment and if the last 12 months with the Porsche was anything to go by, not enough time for fun weekend driving either.
I'm still looking to get a fun car in the next year or two though. A proper Sunday morning blast car like another Elise or Caterham.
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