What Car? Fun or Sensible?

[lew92]

In about 3-4 months time i'll have saved up enough money for a new car but i'm not sure whether to go for the sensible cheaper option or the fun expensive option.

I do about 20,000 miles a year, 10,000 of these are driving to uni and back (40 miles each way) for about 24 weeks in the year.

The other 10,000 are from my job at pizza hut doing deliverys, generally about 50 a week averaging 4 miles each.

Currently I have a 2007 Fiesta 1.25, its perfect for doing deliverys but its slow and abit boring on my commute, mainly country and A roads with abit of motorway and city driving.

The sensible thing to do would be to get a good all rounder that can cope with everything i need it to, a Diesel Skoda Fabia VRS would seem to cover this.

The fun option would be to run my fiesta for work and buy a quicker car for uni, either a Civic Type-R or a Mini Cooper S are my favorites at the moment.

Budget is about £5k at the moment with the fiesta being worth about £2.5k, ideally i'd like something that'll do 30+ mpg on my commute and being 21 insurance is a factor. As an example I can insure a Civic Type R and my Fiesta for £1150 for 12 months.

So what option should i take and what car should i buy?

[mikeplayer]

Why ask here? Expect Totaly biased answers

Buy the most powerful car for your money and deliver pizzas is that.

[nagsheadwarrior]

Decent mx5 will tick all the boxes.

[Raize]

mmm... porsche 924S

[greggy50]

I don't see why owning both the fiesta and a type r would save you money
Extra Insurance, Tax, Servicing etc... you may as well run just 1 car for the sake of 10mpg probably work out cheaper overall and people will get a warmer pizza as well

[0a]

As above you need to work out the total cost of running the car or cars. In my experience people tend to overestimate the fuel costs in terms of the proportion cost, leading them to make strange statements about spending tens of thousands on a diesel, or running multiple cars...

[deltashad]

I think your finances are going to restrict you to one car. You also need to be thinking about reliability as you rely upon your car for both uni and pizza delivering. I was silly as a kid running a delta I couldnt afford to fix doing pizza deliveries. I had a toolbox keeping the accelerator depressed in a rough and dodgy area, couldnt turn the engine off as I couldnt afford to replace the fked starter motor.
Buy sensible for now. Sometimes basic cars are more fun.

[Speed addicted]

Surely a civic type R is still a reasonably sensible car? Why not just use that for everything? It'll be much cheaper than running two cars.

[lew92]

Realistically how abusive is doing deliverys going to be to a car, what could it damage?

The main reason i'm happy to do deliverys in the fiesta is because I know if anything breaks its fairly cheap to repair, what would a civic type r be like in that respect?

Oh and the other thing is I get 80p per delivery towards fuel so ideally i wouldn't want to be spending more than that

[greggy50]

lew92 said:

Realistically how abusive is doing deliverys going to be to a car, what could it damage?

The main reason i'm happy to do deliverys in the fiesta is because I know if anything breaks its fairly cheap to repair, what would a civic type r be like in that respect?

Oh and the other thing is I get 80p per delivery towards fuel so ideally i wouldn't want to be spending more than that

Drive normally and don't see what delivering a pizza will do should be fine with fuel a type r will do 30 ish a fiesta 40 ish so you are talking maybe
25k miles a year @ 30mpg = £5,000
25k miles a year @ 40mpg = £3,750

So saving £1250 in fuel or £25 a week but then you take into account extra insurance say £500 tax £200 servicing £300 and you are only £200 or so within having two cars. A type R will be very reliable and to be honest when driven sensibly probably get more like 35mpg anyway

[xRIEx]

What's the insurance hike going to be like for something with a bit of warmth to it (I mean the car, not the pizza)? Insurers never really liked delivery/courier risks.

[lew92]

xRIEx said:

What's the insurance hike going to be like for something with a bit of warmth to it (I mean the car, not the pizza)? Insurers never really liked delivery/courier risks.

The insurance surprisingly isn't too bad for me, in 3 months i'll be able to insure my Fiesta for about £650, and a Type R for £900, Pizza hut also cover me whilst i'm making deliverys so i'm effectively double covered (must cost them a fortune)

greggy50 said:

Drive normally and don't see what delivering a pizza will do should be fine with fuel a type r will do 30 ish a fiesta 40 ish so you are talking maybe
25k miles a year @ 30mpg = £5,000
25k miles a year @ 40mpg = £3,750

So saving £1250 in fuel or £25 a week but then you take into account extra insurance say £500 tax £200 servicing £300 and you are only £200 or so within having two cars. A type R will be very reliable and to be honest when driven sensibly probably get more like 35mpg anyway

Yeah Fiesta averages 44 mpg on my normal week so 30 mpg average would be great if i could get a type R to do it

I guess the only other question i have is, is there anything else out there that would make more sense than a CTR?

[greggy50]

lew92 said:

Yeah Fiesta averages 44 mpg on my normal week so 30 mpg average would be great if i could get a type R to do it

I guess the only other question i have is, is there anything else out there that would make more sense than a CTR?

I can easily average 40mpg in my clio 172 have you considered a 182 trophy?

You could get a nice one for 5k and they hold the value quite well and are imo the best handling hot hatch ever made...

Either way you should not struggle to average 30mpg in a type r delivering pizzas for your information I average 36/37 in my 172 driven pretty hard and can get about 43/44 on a run if you sit at around 75ish...

[greggy50]

Oh and the R53 Mini Cooper S is pretty thirsy I am afraid may average 30 if drive like a saint but more like mid twenty's from what I have read if you have a heavy right foot...

Another option maybe a nice E46 330ci should average 30 - 35mpg and get a nice example for 5k similar insurance to a type r I would have thought if not less even