What 2nd hand car should I buy ~3k

[Trumptwat]

I know next to nothing about cars, and am in need of a new one. I'm looking for something economical I was thinking of a BMW 118d, what do you guys think? My thinking is there are a few cheap ones because they rack up a lot of business miles while commuting which are easier on the car than city miles, but make it look bad. Also only £30 a year tax. Any other cars I should look at?

[wiliferus]

Advice will very much depend on what you use it for? How long is your commute? What toys/options do you seem to be necessary.
I'm guessing as you are considering a 1 series any mainstream hatch is in the running? 3 or 5 door?

Then we can get started

[Trumptwat]

wiliferus said:

Advice will very much depend on what you use it for? How long is your commute? What toys/options do you seem to be necessary.
I'm guessing as you are considering a 1 series any mainstream hatch is in the running? 3 or 5 door?

Then we can get started

It's not for commuting (work from home, most of the time), just day to day usage. Well the appeal of the car is the mpg and low tax. 5 door is a must. I have found one for £3k. It is a 1 series hatch, 09 plate and nearing 150k miles. What do you think? I check the reg and it's damn near perfect. I do worry about the millage though.

Edited by Trumptt on Sunday 12th February 14:06

[Willy Nilly]

Trumptt said:

wiliferus said:

Advice will very much depend on what you use it for? How long is your commute? What toys/options do you seem to be necessary.
I'm guessing as you are considering a 1 series any mainstream hatch is in the running? 3 or 5 door?

Then we can get started

It's not for commuting (work from home, most of the time), just day to day usage. Well the appeal of the car is the mpg and low tax. 5 door is a must. I have found one for £3k. It is a 1 series hatch, 09 plate and nearing 150k miles. What do you think? I check the reg and it's damn near perfect. I do worry about the millage though.

Edited by Trumptt on Sunday 12th February 14:06

The cheap tax is because it's a diesel. Unless you are doing enough long trips to get it hot, you may well run into expensive, diesel related issues that will kick large holes in any savings on you VED (road tax).

If you want a 5 door car, it implies you need a practical shaped car, you might want to look at the BMW along side a front wheel drive car like a Golf, Focus, Civic etc before you buy it. They never look very spacious to me.

For your budget I'd pay more tax and buy a petrol car, probably a Civic, Focus, or a Toyota.

[Trumptwat]

Willy Nilly said:

The cheap tax is because it's a diesel. Unless you are doing enough long trips to get it hot, you may well run into expensive, diesel related issues that will kick large holes in any savings on you VED (road tax).

If you want a 5 door car, it implies you need a practical shaped car, you might want to look at the BMW along side a front wheel drive car like a Golf, Focus, Civic etc before you buy it. They never look very spacious to me.

For your budget I'd pay more tax and buy a petrol car, probably a Civic, Focus, or a Toyota.

Aaah I see. Man this is hard. I've been looking at the mazda 2 1.5 seems alright, the diesels always look so much better though (mazda 6 2.2 is nice). What is considered a short journey, that would impact a diesel engine? If I do a monthly long drive, would that keep the engine happy?

[LandRoverManiac]

Trumptt said:

Aaah I see. Man this is hard. I've been looking at the mazda 2 1.5 seems alright, the diesels always look so much better though (mazda 6 2.2 is nice). What is considered a short journey, that would impact a diesel engine? If I do a monthly long drive, would that keep the engine happy?

While it can vary, Diesels take a while longer to warm up than a petrol of the same size/type - sometimes up to 20 minutes of driving (longer if not under load). All the while the engine is cold - you are using more fuel than an engine that is at operating temperature sooner and earlier in your journey. That isn't even going into things like EGR valves, DPFs and all the other emissions gubbins that tend to play up if the car isn't used for decently long journeys regularly.

If you regularly do trips where you get from A to B in under half an hour - I'd go for petrol. It's cheaper to buy in the first place and cheaper to fix if it goes wrong - diesels can be liable to big bills when they let go that can write off the value of the car. MPG and VED costs are only part of the overall cost to bear in mind.

[Willy Nilly]

Trumptt said:

Willy Nilly said:

The cheap tax is because it's a diesel. Unless you are doing enough long trips to get it hot, you may well run into expensive, diesel related issues that will kick large holes in any savings on you VED (road tax).

If you want a 5 door car, it implies you need a practical shaped car, you might want to look at the BMW along side a front wheel drive car like a Golf, Focus, Civic etc before you buy it. They never look very spacious to me.

For your budget I'd pay more tax and buy a petrol car, probably a Civic, Focus, or a Toyota.

Aaah I see. Man this is hard. I've been looking at the mazda 2 1.5 seems alright, the diesels always look so much better though (mazda 6 2.2 is nice). What is considered a short journey, that would impact a diesel engine? If I do a monthly long drive, would that keep the engine happy?

I think, and will stand corrected, that a lot can depend on how close the diesel particulate filter is to the engine, the closer the better. But that doesn't stop the exhaust gas recirculation vavle clogging up with soot, or the dual mass flywheel failing.

My car predominantly does sub 6 mile journeys around town and only clocks up an annual mileage of about 5500a year. You'd need to do the figures yourself, but this sort of mileage is bad news for a diesel and the total mileage wouldn't be enough, when comparing equivalent diesel cars, to recover the extra purchase price of a diesel.

I drive a tractor and it will often run for 10, 12, 14 hours without being switched off. However, it never gets much hard work (tractors are designed to work very hard) so it never really gets hot. I have had emission controls issues with it due to the catalytic convertor and the NOX sensor getting clogged with dirt. The remedy was having the machine on a dynomometer (like a rolling road) under full load for over 3 hours.

Your long monthly drive may well be enough to keep then engine happy, but if it isn't, it may get expensive. I would really look beyond the low road tax and fuel economy and look at the overall ownership costs. Petrol cars retain less of their value used because people like yourself see low tax and low fuel consumption, which is bad news for people that buy them new, but great news for those of us who buy used.

My Jazz (which is deceptively spacious) is doing about 48mpg, there is 65 there if I want to take ages getting anywhere, for example. I had a new Citroen C4 as a courtesy car for a couple of weeks. The Citroen was about 8mpg better and felt like to accelerated better, but was very noisy inside, it took ages to warm the interior up and I think the jazz could ultimately keep up with it, because it makes its power at high revs rather than low revs.

[ZX10R NIN]

If you want a 1 series then get a petrol one yes you'll pay more on road tax but overall they'll be a better fit for you.

116i Sport

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2017...

120i Sport

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2017...

318i M Sport

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2017...

[Trumptwat]

Hey cheers guys! you have been a real help in clearing this up. I take a better look at the petrol cars recommended.