Love is... a car that just works!

[Tractor lad]

We replaced an incredibly troubkesome VW California (bought new) camper with an 8 year old Subaru 2.5 petrol Outback in January; it falls very much into the "just works" category. With 165bhp it's not fast but it goes well enough, no turbo to break, an incredibly effective 4wd system, all weather tyres so we don't get stuck and it's pretty comfy over long journeys. We're getting very attached to it.

We have an M135i for fun/speed.

[bennyboysvuk]

GreenArrow said:

..Have you ever formed a strong bond for an ordinary car purely out if its ability to just "get the job done"? I bought my Mazda 6 a year and a half ago as a cheap family runabout. Its not fast, its not particularly sporting, but it just works. Its done over 100,000 miles, the interior and gear shift still feel new and the MOT emissions readout shows hardly anything.....its got a fairly simple n/a engine and I love how nimble it feels due to that light petrol engine and with no turbo diesel turbo lag, driving in urban conditions is a doddle....it cost me £1600 so owes me nothing really and I have no worries about pesky DMFs, DPFs, injectors, cambelts or high pressure oil pumps and the like. sometimes, the feel good factor comes from cars that just get on with the job without any fuss.....in fact its a shame that the race for diesel engine cars has killed off old school 2 litre petrol cars like this which just fit into family life so well. Anyone else got a strong bond for an ordinary car like this?

Good choice going for the petrol version. A close friend had the diesel which had some serious engine issues including blocked DPF and was using over a litre and a half of oil every 3 weeks. He spent around £1000 on it and it still wasn't right, so gave up and sold it cheaply.

As for me, I loved my Volvo 460. It was £325 and ran for a year with the kind of problems that you can fix with gaffer tape and cable ties (pretty much). It was brilliant for what I used it for.

[toon10]

Yup I ran a 2.4 Honda Accord Exec for 4 years and the only thing that went wrong was a bulb went on the heated seat button. It had a nice engine, OK handling, was comfortable and well specced but I didn't love the car because it was the best in class at most things, it wasn't. I loved it because it never let me down.

[RGambo]

Our old 2006 ford S-max titanium X
3 kids, 2 dogs, mountain bikes, holidays abroad, back and forth the shops, up and down M5 to visit in-laws, 6 years faultless.

[moustache]

I feel you OP.

I bought my wife a 2.0 petrol Mk4 Golf (same reason as you - no DMF, turbo etc) for £750. Great condition, well looked after but 156k miles. Took a punt on it as it drove great and now it just feels solid and dependable. It's great knowing that if it only lasts us for the duration of its one year MOT, then it has been cheap motoring. I could weigh it in for £100 or probably break it for bits and make a bit more.

My wife thinks it is great and the best thing of all? The air con is ICE cold (even in 30+ heat!). How many £750 cars have working air con!

[StoatInACoat]

foggy said:

mike80 said:

GreenArrow said:

..Have you ever formed a strong bond for an ordinary car purely out if its ability to just "get the job done"? I bought my Mazda 6 a year and a half ago as a cheap family runabout. Its not fast, its not particularly sporting, but it just works. Its done over 100,000 miles, the interior and gear shift still feel new and the MOT emissions readout shows hardly anything.....its got a fairly simple n/a engine and I love how nimble it feels due to that light petrol engine and with no turbo diesel turbo lag, driving in urban conditions is a doddle....it cost me £1600 so owes me nothing really and I have no worries about pesky DMFs, DPFs, injectors, cambelts or high pressure oil pumps and the like. sometimes, the feel good factor comes from cars that just get on with the job without any fuss.....in fact its a shame that the race for diesel engine cars has killed off old school 2 litre petrol cars like this which just fit into family life so well. Anyone else got a strong bond for an ordinary car like this?

We've got a 2005 Mazda 6 2.0 petrol as a work car and it's as described. Don't think we've ever had a problem with it, and it's had a hard life!

My missus also bashes about in a 2006 Mazda 6 2.0 petrol, currently on 110k miles. I see a pattern forming here!

Another Mazda 6 here! Petrol, 2.0, 2006 estate with 126k this time. Ours replaced a car that had constant issues and needed fiddling with every weekend so I suddenly got all my Sundays back as the Mazda really does just work. Looks quite nice too for an estate.

[Glosphil]

2005 Honda Civic Type-S bought in 2006 and sold in 2013 with mileage of 88K. Only non-service expense was new CVJs at a total cost of just under £300 fitted. Reasonable performance from its 2-litre 160hp but poor mpg of less than 33 average over my ownership. Inside trim and half-leather seats still looked like new and everything just worked.

[Durzel]

Have owned my 2004 Civic Type-R since early 2005, it's never missed a beat, nothing notable has ever gone wrong. Supercharged it over 4 years ago and it still has the original clutch etc.

I've had other cars in the meantime, a Porsche and most recently a Ferrari, and I've still not got the heart to get rid of it. Part of this I think is because when my father passed and my life was turned upside down I needed stability, and it came through for me.

Brilliant car.

Edited by Durzel on Thursday 2nd July 08:45

[Monkeylegend]

Tractor lad said:

We replaced an incredibly troubkesome VW California (bought new) camper with an 8 year old Subaru 2.5 petrol Outback in January; it falls very much into the "just works" category. With 165bhp it's not fast but it goes well enough, no turbo to break, an incredibly effective 4wd system, all weather tyres so we don't get stuck and it's pretty comfy over long journeys. We're getting very attached to it.

We have an M135i for fun/speed.

Welcome back Vlad old boy. Cash for both?

[Tafia]

toon10 said:

Yup I ran a 2.4 Honda Accord Exec for 4 years and the only thing that went wrong was a bulb went on the heated seat button. It had a nice engine, OK handling, was comfortable and well specced but I didn't love the car because it was the best in class at most things, it wasn't. I loved it because it never let me down.

Reading this thread puts me in a quandary.

I have an 2004 Accord Exec diesel on 84K which has been great with very few problems. Lately it has begun to lose power steering fluid and I have thought for a while that perhaps I should change it before something expensive breaks and leads to scrappage. At present it is worth perhaps £2K as a trade in.

Problem is, what to swap it for? As mentioned above, almost all modern cars have problems that the older ones did not. Particulate filters, dual mass flywheels, electronic parking brakes failing and costing £1000 to fix( Toyota Avensis price) and poor performance.

My wife has a 2012 1.6 Auris which is really sluggish compared to the Honda though it claims to have just 8 bhp less and is much lighter. Joining a dual road from a slip sometimes needs the car to be really revved in lower gears to get up to speed whereas the Accord takes off like an aircraft with a real push in the back.

Looking at the Reliablity Index it seems even the so-called premium brands have reliability issues and seem far more troublesome than the Accord. I had wondered about a Mazda 6, a Skoda Octavia or a 2014 Civic but they would all have to be petrol due to low annual mileage.

Should I keep the Accord until it fails and save £10K or swap for something more modern which may well be far less reliable? Perhaps I just answered my own question?

[Kj159]

I think it's a mix of it being my first car and the fact that it starts first time, does whatever you ask of it and doesn't really owe me a penny, but this car fits the bill for me. It gets mountain bikes piled onto a rack on the boot, used as a van for camping trips to Wales, left in airport car parks for weeks on end, left to fend for itself on the street for weekends when I go down to mates unis, I'm always happy to see it when I return and it still drives exactly how it should. Great little car

[Tractor lad]

Monkeylegend said:

Welcome back Vlad old boy. Cash for both?

But of course ;-)

[Roger Irrelevant]

V8Wagon said:

Yep. I'm gonna hit 100k in my 2004 Honda Accord soon and it really has lived up to Honda's reputation for reliability totally.

As a bonus it still feels bang up to date and modern with touchscreen sat-nav, Bluetooth, dual zone climate, parking sensors, heated leather.

I really can't see how spending £20k+ on a new car would be in any way an upgrade.

I recently bought a 2003 Accord Tourer with the 'Executive' trim and have since thought much the same - what more would spending 10 times as much as I did on a new model get me? The mechanic at my local garage who looked over it said that he'd trust it to do its current 100k miles again with no trouble at all.

I also have to mention my wife's Yaris. When she bought it new in 2008 I had a go at her for wasting money on a new car etc etc. However, it's now sailed past 100k miles and with only basic servicing the one thing that's gone wrong has been a blown bulb, which took 1 Euro and about 10 minutes to fix. Again, I see no reason why it won't carry on and on and on - great little car.

[With these feet]

Roger Irrelevant said:

I recently bought a 2003 Accord Tourer with the 'Executive' trim and have since thought much the same - what more would spending 10 times as much as I did on a new model get me? The mechanic at my local garage who looked over it said that he'd trust it to do its current 100k miles again with no trouble at all.

I also have to mention my wife's Yaris. When she bought it new in 2008 I had a go at her for wasting money on a new car etc etc. However, it's now sailed past 100k miles and with only basic servicing the one thing that's gone wrong has been a blown bulb, which took 1 Euro and about 10 minutes to fix. Again, I see no reason why it won't carry on and on and on - great little car.

Must be a Honda thing.... Friend has a Tourer that I service - 04 with 120k on the clock, 80 of it his. Admittedly its has a new rad, (£120) clutch (£500) and exhaust (£165 - though this is crazily genuine Honda cat to tailpipe 1 piece! not bad for 120k?) in the last year but pretty much nothing prior to that other than consumables.
His wife wanted to change it when the clutch was on the way out, so I asked what did she think it would cost to replace? Its worth £1500 to £2k so youd have to put another £6 -£8k in to get something equivalent. She then hit the nail on the head and said "its boring"!

[J4CKO]

Yeah, our Galaxy, it leaves today to go to its new owner, I never wanted a people carrier but my fiercely fertile loins fathered three boys which made it almost mandatory, the first Sharan was a joyless thing, did the job and nothing more but the Galaxy actually managed to be pleasant, unobtrusive and capable, it has cost us very little aside from the oil changes and consumables.

[AW111]

My daily driver is a 1992 Mitsubishi Express 4wd van, which clocked 200,000 miles yesterday. About 1/2 of them are mine.
It's bouncy and noisy and rough around the edges, but for the 1/2 hr to work and back every day, I don't really care. You sit up nice and high, it has an insanely tight turning circle, and a white van seems to be given a fraction more space in traffic .

I think I respect the fact that it does exactly what it was designed for, and is as reliable as an old boot. The handling is poor, the aircon failing, and the rust that will finally kill it is taking hold, but it keeps on going for now.

[Limpet]

mat13 said:

Love my little diesel golf for this, its a 02 plate gt tdi, gave 1500 quid for it last september as i realised my various old 4x4s werent ideal to use at university, its reasonably nippy being the 130 horse version, never drops below 35mpg and if your sat on the motorway at 70 will easily do 60+ mpg. Servicing is cheap, so far apart from consumables all its cost me is hundred quid and a couple of hours to swap out a smashed sump.

Oh and the best bit that has come to light in the past couple of sweltering days, the aircon works brilliantly!

I thought immediately of ours as well.

52 reg GT TDI 130 which we bought in 2008 for £4k, intending to keep it for a couple of years. Still have it 7 years later, and with almost 150k on it. Still goes well, and apart from being alarmingly soggy in corners, drives well too.

I'm not too bad with the spanners, and a good mate of mine is a VW tech, so between us we keep it running for peanuts. Seems to run between services with very little trouble, and still returns high 40s average MPG with mixed driving, rising to about 60 on a run. In 7 years, it's had a clutch, some suspension bushes and a coolant hose alongside routine servicing and consumables.

Brilliant car. Not remotely exciting, but brilliant.

[rllmuk]

Am in exactly this situation at the moment. Had my Leon since new in 2008 and can't bring myself to change it. It has never let me down over the 90k it has covered to date, despite the fact it's VAG and should have destroyed the DSG gearbox many times by now it seems. I clean it and look after it, and it wears it's age very well, but I don't fret about having the kids in the back and doing what kids do. It's not a great car, it's a FWD family hatchback with a bit of a rubbish dash, hardly desirable to many...but what it's worth to me far out weighs its monetary value. Being fettled as it is helps too.

It's for this reason I just can't justify going out and getting something that is ostensibly the same, but newer. In fact I have no desire to at all, which I still find surprising. Hence, this car will be staying and am resisting the urge for something new till I can fund a car which is in another league entirely... (no jokes! )

[jelluzz]

E46 330D Saloon, just about to touch 200k miles, been mapped (266bhp, 390 lb/ft) and has only ever let me down once when it popped a radiator hose up the A1 (was brought on by my own stupidity tbh). Still has original clutch, DMF and turbo.

Fantastic car, comfortable, mildly quick and averages over 50mpg.

[Qubit]

Yep, the other half's old Nissan Almera. Great car, just kept going and had a decent enough turn of speed and despite being quite wallowy was actually a hoot to drive. I miss it.