Best smoker barges 1-5 large [Vol 13]

[Krikkit]

tobinen said:

I have neither the desire nor the deep pockets to go modern, but four-figure bills can be a test of resiliance

There must be a Losers' Conference soon to re-group...

Perhaps in the xmas-new year gap?

[SpeckledJim]

The Leaf is a good way to reduce bills, increase reliability, whilst also marking oneself out as a confirmed weirdo.

Sort of the same thing. A bit.

[slk 32]

Krikkit said:

slk 32 said:

0a said:

I’m looking at buying a little, simple car - a 205 diesel, AX or Yaris (my first car). I don’t think I’d give up barge ownership altogether though - for longer trips I’d rather switch to the train or plane.

The hum is only noticeable due to the general refinement, Lexus and v8ness :0

I'd give a serious look to the early polo bluemotion. I've had mine 4 years and love it, zero roadtax, 70+mpg, 14 inch wheels so Michelin tyres are only £60 each and a torquey little turbo diesel. I've done 30k in mine .

It's the automotive yin to my slk55 yang!

For me a small car should have a thrummy little petrol engine...

I know they're deeply uncool, but a 106 makes for a great runaround. Despite being French they're very reliable and have that Gallic 90s feel. £400 will get a nice one that Doris has been using to pop to the shops to buy a packet of biscuits and a tin of cat food every week for 20 years.

I hired a 106 in '93 for a trip from Norwich to London and return. It was a great handling little car (probably aided by the fact it weighed the same as a bag of crisps - not sure I'd want to crash one though!)

Conversely when I dropped my polo in for a service I got the same age / model only a 1.0 petrol. It was terrible, gutless and loud it struggled to do 80..I felt suicidal after 10 miles

[olly755]

SpeckledJim said:

CharlesdeGaulle said:

olly755 said:

r129sl said:

I thought this sort of thing only happened to me. I too am thinking of going modern...

Sadly me too. I love barging and old cars as much as the next man. But the fact that there is always some niggle to attend to or stress over becomes wearing over time.

For fks sake men, what's going on? The Empire wasn't built with this kind of attitude. 'Modern' ... 'stress' ... where's your phlegmatic spunk?

Exactly this. Give your heads a wobble.

A bad month in your barge is approximately the same cost as two ordinary months in a borrowed mugglemobile.

How often does that happen? Once or twice a year? And for that you get a life less ordinary, and the ability to embarrass your children at will, without even needing to access your wardrobe.

Precisely nobody is pleased to see you when you arrive in a new Audi A6. You won't even be pleased to be you. Surely this is obvious!?

Hold the line, brothers. Hold the line.

You’re right. Of course. The silly thing is that the LS has given no trouble whatsoever (as usual) and the Beemer is in good fettle. It’s the others in the “fleet” (I hate that wky term) that have bitten us in the arse. And running 5 private cars (plus 3 vans) can be an utter faff. It feels like we’re MOT’ing something every week or so.

I made the silly mistake of running a calculation or two. Turning our 5x bangers into cash would buy a brand new Land Cruiser outright (great bit of kit, no other new car would suit me better), and the money saved in MOT’s, insurance policies, maintenance and repairs would lease a new Golf GTi for herself. Forever. In fact I think we’d be saving money. I think man maths played a part.

The only additional cost to consider is depreciation of the LC, which (if kept for a l-o-n-g time, immaculate and low on miles, which it would) would happen very slowly. They hold onto their money.

Of course, a very enjoyable experience in the E39 530i yesterday made things. no easier. We have too many choices in life.

[Krikkit]

slk 32 said:

I hired a 106 in '93 for a trip from Norwich to London and return. It was a great handling little car (probably aided by the fact it weighed the same as a bag of crisps - not sure I'd want to crash one though!)

Conversely when I dropped my polo in for a service I got the same age / model only a 1.0 petrol. It was terrible, gutless and loud it struggled to do 80..I felt suicidal after 10 miles

They're town cars really, useful for popping around town, going to the tip etc when warming up the barge isn't worth it.

[slk 32]

SpeckledJim said:

CharlesdeGaulle said:

olly755 said:

r129sl said:

I thought this sort of thing only happened to me. I too am thinking of going modern...

Sadly me too. I love barging and old cars as much as the next man. But the fact that there is always some niggle to attend to or stress over becomes wearing over time.

For fks sake men, what's going on? The Empire wasn't built with this kind of attitude. 'Modern' ... 'stress' ... where's your phlegmatic spunk?

Exactly this. Give your heads a wobble.

A bad month in your barge is approximately the same cost as two ordinary months in a borrowed mugglemobile.

How often does that happen? Once or twice a year? And for that you get a life less ordinary, and the ability to embarrass your children at will, without even needing to access your wardrobe.

Precisely nobody is pleased to see you when you arrive in a new Audi A6. You won't even be pleased to be you. Surely this is obvious!?

Hold the line, brothers. Hold the line.

The way I see it is we have three options:

1. Buy new / nearly new. This should buy you reliability (but no guarantee) with the concomitant trade off of massive depreciation. Then after 3 years repeat the process and take another kidney punch to the wallet.

2. Lease something. Anything vaguely interesting is circa £350-400 a month for something you have to hand back after 2-4 years with nothing to show for it. I'm not sure I'd be willing to see this leave my account each month just to have something new sat outside my house

3. Carry on barging. Older, larger engined cars that outside this thread have very little appeal to 'normal' people but have hit the bottom of the depreciation curve and aside from the occasional large bill (and fuel) are pretty good value compared to options one and two.

[slk 32]

Just noticed the large number of Monday morning posts - does anyone actually work in Bargeland?

[SpeckledJim]

slk 32 said:

Just noticed the large number of Monday morning posts - does anyone actually work in Bargeland?

Pretending to be really into £1-5k barges is a good way to disguise the sad reality of us all having no money, by 'virtue' of our all being inveterate shirkers.

[Krikkit]

Rumbled!

Back on barges, I like this 124. Toppy at £5750 asking, but a lovely spec and low miles if the 76k is genuine.



https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1042869

[phil_cardiff]

slk 32 said:

SpeckledJim said:

CharlesdeGaulle said:

olly755 said:

r129sl said:

I thought this sort of thing only happened to me. I too am thinking of going modern...

Sadly me too. I love barging and old cars as much as the next man. But the fact that there is always some niggle to attend to or stress over becomes wearing over time.

For fks sake men, what's going on? The Empire wasn't built with this kind of attitude. 'Modern' ... 'stress' ... where's your phlegmatic spunk?

Exactly this. Give your heads a wobble.

A bad month in your barge is approximately the same cost as two ordinary months in a borrowed mugglemobile.

How often does that happen? Once or twice a year? And for that you get a life less ordinary, and the ability to embarrass your children at will, without even needing to access your wardrobe.

Precisely nobody is pleased to see you when you arrive in a new Audi A6. You won't even be pleased to be you. Surely this is obvious!?

Hold the line, brothers. Hold the line.

The way I see it is we have three options:

1. Buy new / nearly new. This should buy you reliability (but no guarantee) with the concomitant trade off of massive depreciation. Then after 3 years repeat the process and take another kidney punch to the wallet.

2. Lease something. Anything vaguely interesting is circa £350-400 a month for something you have to hand back after 2-4 years with nothing to show for it. I'm not sure I'd be willing to see this leave my account each month just to have something new sat outside my house

3. Carry on barging. Older, larger engined cars that outside this thread have very little appeal to 'normal' people but have hit the bottom of the depreciation curve and aside from the occasional large bill (and fuel) are pretty good value compared to options one and two.

My Dad typically goes for option 1 but then runs the car for years and years. Works reasonably well.

[BlueMR2]

Krikkit said:

Rumbled!

Back on barges, I like this 124. Toppy at £5750 asking, but a lovely spec and low miles if the 76k is genuine.



https://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C1042869

Showing some corrosion in recent times, you’d need to check the sills and suspension mountings well and may as well replace the corroded springs as well.

[dbdb]

phil_cardiff said:

slk 32 said:

The way I see it is we have three options:

1. Buy new / nearly new. This should buy you reliability (but no guarantee) with the concomitant trade off of massive depreciation. Then after 3 years repeat the process and take another kidney punch to the wallet.

2. Lease something. Anything vaguely interesting is circa £350-400 a month for something you have to hand back after 2-4 years with nothing to show for it. I'm not sure I'd be willing to see this leave my account each month just to have something new sat outside my house

3. Carry on barging. Older, larger engined cars that outside this thread have very little appeal to 'normal' people but have hit the bottom of the depreciation curve and aside from the occasional large bill (and fuel) are pretty good value compared to options one and two.

My Dad typically goes for option 1 but then runs the car for years and years. Works reasonably well.

My late father tended to do the same: buy new, then keep it for a long time.

[E65Ross]

I think if you buy something 2-3 years old it SHOULD still be fairly reliable and not need much work and shouldn't cost too much, maybe £15k.....if you keep for, say, 4 years, it may have cost you £7k in depreciation, so under £2k/year for something that should still be quite reliable and, being 6-7 years old shouldn't need a great deal doing bar normal servicing. That's less than many barges can cost in additional repairs.

When looked at like that, it can be cheaper to barge on a budget, for sure, but a lot can be said for something stress-free and dependable. If you need to make a few trips to a garage each year on top of normal services plus MOT, it can get quite tiresome and time consuming.

[SpeckledJim]

There's some kind of weird group hysteria going on. I want to give everyone an e-shake.

A Jaguar XJ8 costs £1500 and is nicer than a new Audi A6 in every single way apart from headlamps and bluetooth.

If I was to say 'stay off the Esperanto, and don't go anywhere near the Despair Squid', would anyone know what I was on about?

Has some disgruntled moderator re-titled the 'Boring Boring Boring Wish I was dead £25-50k' thread as a wind-up?

[slk 32]

The real elephant in the room for me is all the tech modern cars have now. My mum bought a new mazda 3 a couple of years ago with all the bells and whistles, lane departure assist, blind spot warning, reversing camera etc etc and it's already been back twice under warranty with stuff not working.

I dread to think what the latest luxobarges are like when it comes to tech - in 10 years time it'll all be outdated or broken

[BigBen]

Milemuncher said:

For those considering ‘going modern’, I commend to you the Volvo V90. Ours arrived on Friday. High spec and small of wheel it is truly deserving of the term barge...and is costing not very much at all as Volvo seem determined to lease them for buttons.

I went to look at an S90 this weekend, very very nice cars and as you say can be leased for buttons. I have spent a bit of shirking time this morning on a spreadsheet of the various deals and you can lease an R-design (the nicer trimmed one) for about £3300 per year, this would have been a lot a few years ago when you could get a decent S140 for £2k or similar uber barge but does not seem so awful to me.

[E65Ross]

slk 32 said:

The real elephant in the room for me is all the tech modern cars have now. My mum bought a new mazda 3 a couple of years ago with all the bells and whistles, lane departure assist, blind spot warning, reversing camera etc etc and it's already been back twice under warranty with stuff not working.

I dread to think what the latest luxobarges are like when it comes to tech - in 10 years time it'll all be outdated or broken

Not a barge per-se, but my old mans M6 was owned from new (2013 or 2014, I forget!) and sold after 4 years, never went to the dealers for anything other than routine servicing. There are always going to be odd cases, of course, but to think that all cars have modern tech problems frequently isn't true IME.

There are pros and cons to everything.....we each choose what's right for us

[Motorrad]

olly755 said:

It’s the others in the “fleet” (I hate that wky term) that have bitten us in the arse.

May I suggest 'stable' or 'harem' as alternatives that you can start using?

[Prinny]

slk 32 said:

The real elephant in the room for me is all the tech modern cars have now. My mum bought a new mazda 3 a couple of years ago with all the bells and whistles, lane departure assist, blind spot warning, reversing camera etc etc and it's already been back twice under warranty with stuff not working.

I dread to think what the latest luxobarges are like when it comes to tech - in 10 years time it'll all be outdated or broken

Related, but it’s more about the toys, rather than them working, or not. My rental this week is nothing more than a ford c-max. It’s got stop/start, blind spot monitoring, hill-hold, BLIS (fuctifino) and some sort of ‘keep you in the lane’ thing which actively tries to resist you turning the wheel unless you indicate. It also has a myriad of parking sensors which go mental in a traffic jam when the car alongside you is moving, and you’re not (& vice-versa). It can supposedly park itself too. Oh, and the lane thing cannot be set to ‘off’, the options are ‘alert’, ‘vibrate’, ‘alert & vibrate’. (no sniggering at the back please).

Underneath it all is what seems a reasonable car, but I’ll never buy one due to all the sensor based driving ‘aids’ present. I don’t need or want any of it. It joins the Mokka, Qashqai, (just crap) Golf (can’t turn off the radar collision detection while on cruise), & anything PSA with touchscreen hvac controls on the ‘banned’ list.

That said, I’ve driven a few of the aforementioned V90’s too, and that has more tech, but it’s non-intrusive, and just works. I’d maybe have one of those (iirc the hvac is touchscreen again, so no in reality - it’s not sufficiently (fail)safe in my opinion).

[0a]

Motorrad said:

olly755 said:

It’s the others in the “fleet” (I hate that wky term) that have bitten us in the arse.

May I suggest 'stable' or 'harem' as alternatives that you can start using?

or Shed.