£750 cars

[stedaley]

Having just picked up a nice older estate from a friend, another mate has similar wants and was hoping the vast knowledge here would give many options for them!

£750
Can need some work.
Age no restriction
Abit of fun to mess around with.
Any mileage
Gonna be used for motorway/wafting longer distances. (south to North trips and longer holiday trips)
Some sort of mpg above 35 would be nice,
Petrol or diesel
Manual or auto

Give me options!
I've been looking at pd130 cars as they are pretty solid but are their any unusual cars out there.

Thanks!

[colin_p]

Passat B5.5 (2001-2004) Estate with the PD130 TDI engine.

Better still but exceedingly rare these days a Passat B5 (1997-2001) 110hp TDI, an AFN engine is the one to go for, super efficient and not too slow.

They have niggles like all cars do but are generally cheap and easy to fix.

[vtecyo]

Mid - late 90s A8 or 7 series.

[ucb]

Biased, but D5 (2.4D) engined Volvos will fit the bill and they are pretty easy to work on if that's your bag

[anonymous-user]

colin_p said:

Passat B5.5 (2001-2004) Estate with the PD130 TDI engine.

Better still but exceedingly rare these days a Passat B5 (1997-2001) 110hp TDI, an AFN engine is the one to go for, super efficient and not too slow.

They have niggles like all cars do but are generally cheap and easy to fix.

Another vote for a PD130 I have had several in the past and all were excellent.

[ninjag]

At that age and money the 7th Gen Honda Accord petrol is probably one of the safest bets. Japanese built (not Swindon) and pretty much bombproof engine.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

[p4cks]

MK2 Ford Focus can be had for that price, very reliable in any guise and parts plentiful and cheap.

[colin_p]

vtecyo said:

Mid - late 90s A8 or 7 series.

A bottle of brave pills required. Very nice though until they go wrong.

ucb said:

Biased, but D5 (2.4D) engined Volvos will fit the bill and they are pretty easy to work on if that's your bag

Is that the old Audi engined one? Again, brave pill territory if it goes wrong, very nice otherwise.

ninjag said:

At that age and money the 7th Gen Honda Accord petrol is probably one of the safest bets. Japanese built (not Swindon) and pretty much bombproof engine.

But don't they rust, like most Jap stuff?

p4cks said:

MK2 Ford Focus can be had for that price, very reliable in any guise and parts plentiful and cheap.

They do rust which is a shame as otherwise they are very good.

bulldong said:

Another vote for a PD130 I have had several in the past and all were excellent.

[irish boy]

Mk1 avensis. People say they have no character, but the character is they just keep going even after 20 years. Get a d4d for ultimate points, punchy and 60mpg.

[ninjag]

colin_p said:

ninjag said:

At that age and money the 7th Gen Honda Accord petrol is probably one of the safest bets. Japanese built (not Swindon) and pretty much bombproof engine.

But don't they rust, like most Jap stuff?

I've never seen any rust issues and we've had a fair amount of Honda cars throughout the family.

6th gen Accord 1.8
6th gen Accords 2.3 Type V
7th gen Accord 2.4
8th gen Accord 2.2d
7th gen Civic 1.6
8th gen Civic 2.2d
9th gen Civic 1.8
3rd gen CRV 2.2d
4th gen CRV 2.0

Inlaws had a Honda Jazz and it did have a little bit of rust but it was picked up at auction and looked like it had not been looked after, they never washed it or looked after it either.

Some of the Swindon built 6th gen Accords may be starting to rust now if not really looked after but so will most cars at that age.

[stevemcs]

Mondeo Mk 3

[carboy2017]

I had the 7th Gen Honda Accord and while it had all the bells and whistles and the engine was bullet proof the car tends to eat droplinks due to the heavy body and does have the ABS wheel speed sensor going off too (but a cheap fix as the part is £17 on eBay)

However the chassis sub-frame had corroded so badly on my otherwise perfect car (apart from a blister on the rear wheel arch) I had to scrap it as changing the sub-frame was not economical

ninjag said:

At that age and money the 7th Gen Honda Accord petrol is probably one of the safest bets. Japanese built (not Swindon) and pretty much bombproof engine.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201...

[l354uge]

7th gen accords like to pop a front lower wishbone when the ball joints are neglected too. But great cars.

[anonymous-user]

PD 130 cars are good, but I’d also look at E39s. Very comfortable and always give you something to fix!

[ninjag]

carboy2017 said:

I had the 7th Gen Honda Accord and while it had all the bells and whistles and the engine was bullet proof the car tends to eat droplinks due to the heavy body and does have the ABS wheel speed sensor going off too (but a cheap fix as the part is £17 on eBay)

However the chassis sub-frame had corroded so badly on my otherwise perfect car (apart from a blister on the rear wheel arch) I had to scrap it as changing the sub-frame was not economical

I didn't have a single suspension issue with my 7th gen Accord nor any sensors and I drove it pretty hard. All I had to do was regular servicing. I only got rid of it as I wanted something a little more powerful so I got a Mazda 6 MPS, now that had suspension issues! lol Bushes were very soft, so I started to replace with poly bushes but eventually sold it.

Why do you think the Accord has a heavy body? It weights 1,365 kg. A Passat of similar age weighs over 200 kg more.

[colin_p]

ninjag said:

I didn't have a single suspension issue with my 7th gen Accord nor any sensors and I drove it pretty hard. All I had to do was regular servicing. I only got rid of it as I wanted something a little more powerful so I got a Mazda 6 MPS, now that had suspension issues! lol Bushes were very soft, so I started to replace with poly bushes but eventually sold it.

Why do you think the Accord has a heavy body? It weights 1,365 kg. A Passat of similar age weighs over 200 kg more.

Blimey, a Mazda 6.

They really do like to rust. There is / was even a recall out on them for it!

[M4cruiser]

stedaley said:

£750
Can need some work.
Age no restriction
Abit of fun to mess around with.
Any mileage

Thanks!

You need to hop over to the "shedding" thread

[Old Merc]

What about a Peugeot 406 HDI, last of the real Peugeot's. Very reliable,easy to work on,inexpensive parts readily available.
My wife's old 1999 family hack 406 is still going strong,has never let us down, all major components still in perfect working order.

[mbwoy84]

MK3 Mondeo 1.8 Petrol.

[ninjag]

colin_p said:

Blimey, a Mazda 6.

They really do like to rust. There is / was even a recall out on them for it!

Mine was amazingly free off rust but it really freaked me out how many standard 6's of similar age barely had any wheel arches left! I enjoyed that car, a nice little sleeper but the suspension was no end of trouble. Replaced almost the whole lot.