Higher mileage 1 or 3 series?

[farbbm]

I'm currently driving a 53 plate 1.4 petrol Golf mk4 on my daily commute of 120 miles, and with the mileage getting ever closer to 140,000 I was considering changing it in the new year for either a 1 or 3 series diesel with around 70-80,000 miles on it from some sort of car supermarket.

Does anyone have any experience of running one of these onto a higher mileage because if I was to keep it 4 years doing my current commute it would be up to nearly 200,000 and would it be fair to say that the car would cope with it well enough or should I expect some big bills along the way?

For the record the Golf has been very reliable but I just worry that being a petrol engined car it won't last as long as a diesel would.

[dooosuk]

Petrol engined VWs can go on for 100,000's of thousands of miles. It's highly likely it won't be the engine that packs up and needs replacing first.

[farbbm]

I was more just interested in a change of car rather than the longevity of the Golf as I've been driving it 4 years and fancied a change.

[wobert]

farbbm said:

I was more just interested in a change of car rather than the longevity of the Golf as I've been driving it 4 years and fancied a change.

My 2005 120d went through 100k a few weeks back - other than routine servicing, service items such as brake pads, discs and tyres I've not anything major go wrong.

I drives as well as the day I picked it up with 7k miles on in 2006. Most miles I did in a year was just over 30k. It still averages 45-48 mpg.

I recently treated it to some new floor mats and alloys to "freshen" it up, but nothing else.

Edited by wobert on Saturday 13th November 17:04

[soda]

There are plenty of old E46 out there that have done 200k plus, mine will be hitting 100k this week at some stage and still feels tight.

Preventative maintenance is a good idea if your after big miles from one. Change the gearbox and diff oil, suspension will need renewed at some stage ( next on my list), more regular oil changes etc

[Sir_Dave]

Far less to go wrong on a NA petrol than a modern derv though. A lot more potential for the derv to be a time-bomb waiting to go off imho.

I do 35k a year & have just picked up a 330 petrol.

That was instead of an A3/Golf Tdi or 320/330d.

[farbbm]

Well that's another thing to think about. What mpg would I get out of a 318 or 320 petrol as opposed to the diesel equilivants?

[TonyF55]

Sir_Dave said:

Far less to go wrong on a NA petrol than a modern derv though. A lot more potential for the derv to be a time-bomb waiting to go off imho.

My sentiments exactly, i've had a modern derv self destruct on me ! puts me of modern diesels now, so the next car had to be a NA petrol engined, in the future i would like to stick to this formula but is becoming difficult looking at modern cars nowadays, even superminis have turbo's and superchargers, all waiting to go bang when about 5 year old !

As for MPG, my 320i E90 gets around 26-28mpg around town or as good as about 38-40mpg on a long motorway run and mine has 107k on the clock ! so not really that bad.
Tony

[jw golf mk4]

good news about the Golf seeing as i have the same model only a 51 plate as opposed to you're 53 plate! out of a 1 series and 3 series i would go for a 320d. Just make sure you get the swirl flaps changed to blanks otherwise you could be looking at a new engine That goes for all BMW diesels!

[farbbm]

I thought the E90 versions were immune from the swirl flap issue that affected the earlier E46 3 series and E39/E60 5 series models.