4 door fun for 4k - Page 1 - Car Buying

Scottchester

Original Poster

1,671 posts

90 months

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Saturday 23rd March 2019

Hi all
Been lurking a while but first time posting.
After having some fun cars over the years, including abarth 500, Clio 172, golf GTi, Celica etc our 2nd child and a much longer commute led me to a PCP on a very boring diesel family car, my commute is now <20 miles so I no longer need the boring diesel and have decided to pay a little bit to get out of the PCP early. I do a 200 mile round trip every 6 weeks back to my home town though so do need to keep half an eye on mpg.

Anyway, I'm about a month away from chopping in the dull car so started looking at options and reading up as much as I can so i'm aware of know faults when I start the actual search.
So, what I'm looking for is suggestions for a car which meets the following criteria please:
- 4 or 5 door
- automatic
- <£4k
- capable of 30mpg a motorway run
- something reasonably quick
- not a ford or vauxhall (just personal preference and previous experience)
- something reliable

High mileage doesn't worry me so long as it's been serviced etc nor does age. I want something I can keep for 4 or 5 years though.

So far I've been thinking:

Lexus is250
Volvo V50 or S40 T5
Seat Leon fr tsfi
Skoda octavia vrs

Are there any others I should be considering and are any of the above best avoided ?

Any advice would be much appreciated, as a petrol head the discussion, learning about the cars the buying is something I really enjoy, hoping some fellow petrol heads will share there knowledge please

Thanks

Edited by Scottchester on Saturday 23 March 18:24

lcs_turbo

103 posts

127 months

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Saturday 23rd March 2019

E90 BMW 330i. I’ve had one and it was a brilliant all rounder. Amazing engine too

Mr Tidy

31,246 posts

156 months

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Saturday 23rd March 2019

What he said - I'm going to look at a BMW E90 330i tomorrow (but it's a manual)!

ZX10R NIN

30,528 posts

154 months

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Saturday 23rd March 2019

ninjag

1,878 posts

148 months

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Saturday 23rd March 2019

SAAB 9-5 2.3 HOT Aero 256bhp with amazing in gear acceleration.

SAAB 9-3 2.0T Aero 207bhp and a cheeky remap.

Honda Accord 2.4 is pretty quick if you work the gears and very reliable, but no good in auto guise. Being n/a limited tuning potential.

Scottchester

Original Poster

1,671 posts

90 months

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Sunday 24th March 2019

Th

Thanks all, sorry for the delay in responding I was blocked from replying.

The BMW 330i looks interesting, prices seem to vary alot, £3k to £5.5k for 06 models with similar mileage from what I can see.
What are these like for rust though ? I had an 04 plate E46 320d a few years back and moved it on when the rear arches rotted out. They went from minor to major pretty fast too.

Those mercs look good but a guy I worked with had a similar age clk and that rotten away in front of us. Shame cos I was rapid and super comfortable

Saab's aren't something is considered but looks like alot of bang for your buck and the reviews suggest that other than the odd electrical issue they are pretty robust.

Scottchester

Original Poster

1,671 posts

90 months

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Sunday 24th March 2019

ZX10R NIN said:

Is the water pump issue on the is250 anything to worry about or just something to check it's been changed on time ?

A Passat with the R32 engine... Didn't even know that existed. Looks like a awesome sleeper

ZX10R NIN

30,528 posts

154 months

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Sunday 24th March 2019

Scottchester said:

ZX10R NIN said:

Is the water pump issue on the is250 anything to worry about or just something to check it's been changed on time ?

A Passat with the R32 engine... Didn't even know that existed. Looks like a awesome sleeper

Mercedes of this era are fully Galvanised I'd say that if your friends CLK rusted away in front of you it was either a W208 model or the victim of a bad repair I have had a lot of 209 CLK's & major rust hasn't been/isn't (on my current CLK) an issue, so don't discount them.

The waterpump is something that seems to go array from around 80k but I wouldn't consider it a deal breaker.

Edited by ZX10R NIN on Sunday 24th March 14:39

Scottchester

Original Poster

1,671 posts

90 months

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Sunday 14th April 2019

Okay, so having triple checked the numbers I'm gonna be pushing the button on this adventure very soon.

However, £4k was a little optimistic so £3k is now my budget but all other criteria remain the same.

Seems like most of the suggestions still fall into my budget but just means a little older or little higher milage.

With a reduced budget would you be looking at different cars ?

Also, my 66 plate jeep renegade 15k miles looking like a £10,250 price from the dealer or same from motorway.co.uk any other suggestions for maximising the sale price, it's £2k negative on finance so suspect a private sale is it of the question as hpi will show as o/s finance