Nobody wants big engined petrols for trade-in.

[MercuryRises]

hornetrider said:

Because people are stupid. We as petrolheads should rejoice however, because it means we can get massive V8s for peanuts.

Good. I'm going to be looking for a new car in the next few months. I've also decided that at 30, it's time I owned a V8, as big as possible, with as poor MPG as I can squeeze out of it.

Sod saving the Polar Bears, they didn't lift a finger to help my mate when he got mugged a few months ago.

Mind, I'm only going to be in the UK for 6 weeks out of every 12, so it kind of evens out really

[GBB]

zakelwe said:

Yes my AMG C43 engine was ultra reliable. Unfortunately the £3300 gearbox wasn't. The front pads on the C43 cost more than disks and pads on a Clio I ran at the same time.

V8's are not cheap and cheerful cars for those clever people in the know, it's a myth perpetuated by folk who wish to convince someone else when actually it's just the big throbby engine that is the real reason. Well, it was in my case.

I'm not sure I'd put an AMG C43 in the cheap and cheerful category, at least not where my wallets concerned. For me you need to be thinking £1-£2K, the kind of level where if your gearbox goes then you just break the car - any £3-£5K car is a bad prospect, worth too much to scrap break but a serious problem may cost 50-100% of the value of the car.

If you can get C43's for £2K let me know as I do fancy one.

The other side of the coin is that after you've put a new box in (possibly the most expensive item that could fail) then you've got a car that will cost not a lot to run other than fuel for many more miles.

[jbi]

MercuryRises said:

it's time I owned a V8, as big as possible, with as poor MPG as I can squeeze out of it.

Get something with a big block then

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_H7UQjFkT4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tNj7HG5Ow4&fea...

[GBB]

zakelwe said:

Most cars will do long distances in relative comfort nowadays, some of them at over 60mpg. They will be cheaper to service and repair too. Didn't Garlick get a Lexus? How is his costing him?

It is a nice car though.

Not sure why they are cheaper to service and repair?

Friends has spent about £1200 in a few months on his A2FSI on various small things where the "technology" used to get higher MPG has failed. Yesterday's technology is cheaper to look after and fix very often.

If you bought a modern V8 or something rare then this might not apply though.

[zakelwe]

GBB said:

I'm not sure I'd put an AMG C43 in the cheap and cheerful category, at least not where my wallets concerned. For me you need to be thinking £1-£2K, the kind of level where if your gearbox goes then you just break the car - any £3-£5K car is a bad prospect, worth too much to scrap break but a serious problem may cost 50-100% of the value of the car.

If you can get C43's for £2K let me know as I do fancy one.

The other side of the coin is that after you've put a new box in (possibly the most expensive item that could fail) then you've got a car that will cost not a lot to run other than fuel for many more miles.

You may well be right with your thoughts there on the AMG not being typical, perhaps it was a bad example. Mind you I also had the crankshaft position sensor failed and that was £700. The back light on the air con controller failed too, now if it had been a cheaper car it would just have been a couple of knobs, here they wanted £600 so I just left it and put the reading light on at night. All this and £60 per 250 miles as well for fuel. The tyres were not cheap either.

Perhaps I am just a bitter man!

GBB said:

Not sure why they are cheaper to service and repair?

Friends has spent about £1200 in a few months on his A2FSI on various small things where the "technology" used to get higher MPG has failed. Yesterday's technology is cheaper to look after and fix very often.
If you bought a modern V8 or something rare then this might not apply though.

Well even the engines take more oil, typically 5 litres rather than 3.5, if you want to change the spark plugs on the old Merc V8's you were looking at 16 of them instead of 4. Tyres are typically wider and disks and pads are more expensive. Insurance tends to be more and VED also. Ok not a great amount but it all adds up.

You might wish to pay a specialist for servicing or main dealer with a V8, with a ratty old Japanese small car or Ford diesel you could take it down to Nev'll Fix it and get them to do it as they have seen a million of them.

V8's are a better drive though and have more cache, I think that tends to make people just remember the good times though. My mate had a Volvo T5 a while back. I do not know what they rub on the seats but everyone who has had one raves about them, I have no idea why. So it costs him an arm and a leg and finally it fails for good. So I tell him to get a diesel Clio. He buys it. It has saved him a lot of money over 2 years but all I hear is everytime something goes slightly wrong how crap the car is even though it costs peanuts to fix. He still talks about the T5 .. it could drive on water you know. He was recently talking about an old Audi S8 even though he can't afford to run it, because they are so cheap. People just kid themselves.

I'm sitting here, I have an 08 diesel Yaris, cost me £8500 with 9000 miles on the clock last year. It is now worth about £7500 with 24k on the clock. Nothing has gone wrong, I have a VED demand for £30 sitting on my desk, if you look at my trip computer it says 68mpg for the last 400 miles which is really about 65mpg. It hasn't gone wrong in a year and I can expect it to get me to work every day and if it needs a service it more than likely is guarranteed to be less than £200. Insurance is £150. Rather than £60 every four days for petrol it is £50 for 2 weeks. In a month you notice it with that sort of mileage. I pay £60 per year for Toyota club membership which includes break down recovery. No V8 that does 15k per year is likely to beat that total running cost even including the depreciation.

On the downside it's a really really boring car. :sob sob:

Having had a C43 V8 and then this car I can tell you which is most fun and which is cheapest to run. I don't think your cheap V8's could touch it unless you don't drive it much. However with a V8 you might not want to touch it, I don't blame you

Edited by zakelwe on Thursday 9th June 19:25

[NoelWatson]

GBB said:

Friends has spent about £1200 in a few months on his A2FSI on various small things where the "technology" used to get higher MPG has failed. Yesterday's technology is cheaper to look after and fix very often.

Agreed^100

[With these feet]

NoelWatson said:

GBB said:

Friends has spent about £1200 in a few months on his A2FSI on various small things where the "technology" used to get higher MPG has failed. Yesterday's technology is cheaper to look after and fix very often.

Agreed^100

Saw a friend of mine yesterday who's wife has an '06 A4 diesel Avant. Lovely looking motor, they have owned it just under a year. He explained to me that he was disappointed with the car as it had just come out of warranty and one of the injectors failed. The dealer (who had serviced his previous 2 VAG's) declined a goodwill gesture, failure is apparently a common happening with these injectors, saying the car has not been serviced by us.
In the end he is around £600 out of pocket. Add to this that he gets pretty similar economy from the Tdi that he got from his turbo petrol Passats. He didnt look too happy when I said that thats the fuel saving gone this year then!

[daemon]

With these feet said:

Add to this that he gets pretty similar economy from the Tdi that he got from his turbo petrol Passats. He didnt look too happy when I said that thats the fuel saving gone this year then!

He was getting mid 40's in his turbo petrol passats? Thats very impressive.

[B'stard Child]

The Crack Fox said:

Crombers said:

CDP said:

Certainly why the BMW dealer wasn't selling petrol 7 series. How many people buy them privately?

Me!



(there's always one!)

And me. So that makes two

Three

Edited cos I missed the two post

Edited by B'stard Child on Friday 10th June 00:09

[B'stard Child]

Willy Nilly said:

Those of you saying you are getting circa 30mpg out of V8's, frankly I'm not sure I believe you and if you are doing so, I'd like to witness the driving style that is required to get these figures. If I got my "stbox", as some people so eloquently put it, to do 30mpg I would be in ban territory, or at least a big fine and shagged brakes. It's a pity someone doesn't invent a cruise control when one sets the desired economy to travel at instead of the forward speed. Then we could all set our cruise' at 30mpg and us "stbox" drivers would be steaming past all the V8's.

Happy to help - if you are local feel free to drop in and experience it

99 BMW 740 V8 overall mpg across 5 years of ownership is 27.2 (not trip computer but total mileage and total fuel calculated) On a run at M-way speeds it easily returns better than 30mpg - motorways are stty places with speed cameras, congestion, drivers with poor lane control and can't hold a consistant speed. Trying to make progress is just way too stressfull and IMO frankly pointless. Stick some decent tunes in the CD changer, set the AC to a comfortable temperature and just enjoy a smooth (if slightly fiddly) ride and waft along stress free.

I will state it's not my only car and driving style depends on car and route/roads but my other big saloon whilst not being a V8 (3.6L six banger with a couple of turbos) will also return similar mpg under the same M-way circumstances. (it will unfortunately do sub 15mpg when driven with some enthusiasm - horses for courses as someone said earlier)

[GBB]

B'stard Child said:

Happy to help - if you are local feel free to drop in and experience it

99 BMW 740 V8 overall mpg across 5 years of ownership is 27.2 (not trip computer but total mileage and total fuel calculated) On a run at M-way speeds it easily returns better than 30mpg - motorways are stty places with speed cameras, congestion, drivers with poor lane control and can't hold a consistant speed. Trying to make progress is just way too stressfull and IMO frankly pointless. Stick some decent tunes in the CD changer, set the AC to a comfortable temperature and just enjoy a smooth (if slightly fiddly) ride and waft along stress free.

I will state it's not my only car and driving style depends on car and route/roads but my other big saloon whilst not being a V8 (3.6L six banger with a couple of turbos) will also return similar mpg under the same M-way circumstances. (it will unfortunately do sub 15mpg when driven with some enthusiasm - horses for courses as someone said earlier)

I think that highlights the true MPG issue quite well.

If driven in a relaxed manner at low MPG big engines are capable of good MPG....but with so much power there and so easily accessible there is a big temptation to floor it....at which point MPG takes a tumble. In a 1.2 litre car the effort to thrash it is so much more that most people end up not bothering and drive more sedately, thus seeing better MPG figures.

The only truly like for like I can do is my S60 Petrol Turbo (overall average 25mpg) vs X Type 2.0D I had a for a few months as Company car (35mpg), if anything the Jag did more motorway work, so I'd only be 10mpg better in a diesel equivalent with a lot less power and maybe lighter weight. My 328 Average is 28mpg to compare to the other 2 but probably motorway work similar to Jag as a proportion. But I see massive swings between town/country roads (20-22mpg) and Motorways (32-40 at best).

Top Gear did a test on an M3 vs Prius where the Prious had to keep up with the M3 on the track. IIRC the Prious had worst economy than the M3 in that driving. (but it is Top Gear so may be not that accurate).

[JonnyVTEC]

GBB said:

Top Gear did a test on an M3 vs Prius where the Prious had to keep up with the M3 on the track. IIRC the Prious had worst economy than the M3 in that driving. (but it is Top Gear so may be not that accurate).

And the Prius would have had a full battery at the end of it due to the way the system works so to calculate the actual MPG the extra range in the battery would have been a little more representative.

Plus its an Atkinson cycle which makes the comparison even more irrelevant.

[DickSkruttock]

GBB said:

Top Gear did a test on an M3 vs Prius where the Prious had to keep up with the M3 on the track. IIRC the Prious had worst economy than the M3 in that driving. (but it is Top Gear so may be not that accurate).

They probably had the handbrake engaged on the Pious

[StottyZr]

GBB said:

328 is 5 speed auto, but it's higher geared than it's manual equivalent IIRC.

450 miles a week is a lot so I can see why you want to save money, what speed do you on motorways to get 50mpg from it?

I had presumed 328's were 6 speed tbh but as somebody pointed out only the E36 M3 is!

I sit between 65-70, 1st lane just move out to overtake lorrys really. In a 1.1 there's not much point going any faster, + the engine eats oil if I sit at 90+ :S (its old and nakered)

[Carrot]

Apart from an initial head gasket failure on my corsa (1998 1.4l Auto with 50k on clock), which cost around £400 to fix, it is one of the most reliable cars I have ever had.

Runs a teeeny bit lumpy at tickover but that's the only problem, and its not really a problem as it doesn't effect the driving of the car at all.

Cost of parts is bugger all, nothing expensive electronic in there and I can get a replacement engine for £250 with 6 months warranty if worst comes to the worst.

Driving a large luxury barge around may work for some, but whilst I am paying £23 for front discs and pads, im sticking with mine!

[kbee540]

Zwoelf said:

The older (pre 2007 model year) 2.9T6 has the dodgy gearbox, the 3.2 litre inline six (2007 model year onwards) was an all new engine and has the same six speed gearbox as contemporary D5s and V8s. The V8s have a habit of eating their gearboxes and steering racks a bit though.

Test drove the 3.2 and as you say, it's fine. Just couldn't resist the sound of the v8 though. Sadly, it's pretty much just sound that you get from it...not a great deal of speed. Don't think the gearbox makes the best of the power available and it's a pretty heavy beast. But I do like the noise...

And as stevieb noted, the D5 is far too weak for the weight it's trying to move around.

[renrut]

So how long before all these costly diesel bit failures combined with supply/demand start killing residual values and therefore the argument of less depreciation going out the window?

[thinfourth2]

Andrew_M said:

when I worked at a skoda dealer we had an orange Octavia estate 4x4 that we had in the show room for 6 months,!

thats almost my dream car a bright orange 4x4 Octavia estate

[renrut]

zakelwe said:

I'm sitting here, I have an 08 diesel Yaris, cost me £8500 with 9000 miles on the clock last year. It is now worth about £7500 with 24k on the clock.

Not quite as black and white as that. I was curious so I did a quick search and found many of them were around £7000-7500 from traders which isn't what you'd get if you sold it. So 15K miles has cost you near £1500 depreciation. That's quite a lot of petrol but admittedly nothing like 20Ks worth at 20mpg.

So you're right that it's often rose tinted glasses that make people think its actually cheaper but for me I account that extra cost in tyres (£80 against maybe £40) brakes and other bits and pieces as the price of having a fun car that I can also use for towing. A yaris wouldn't be able to tow a 1400kg car trailer, the minimum you can realistically get with a proper car on it, so I'd be looking at a minimum of something like a passat tdi, which makes all the tyres,servicing etc and such like pretty similar prices.

Best comparison with a diesel yaris would be something like a clio 172, same size cars massively different engine.

[GBB]

StottyZr said:

GBB said:

328 is 5 speed auto, but it's higher geared than it's manual equivalent IIRC.

450 miles a week is a lot so I can see why you want to save money, what speed do you on motorways to get 50mpg from it?

I had presumed 328's were 6 speed tbh but as somebody pointed out only the E36 M3 is!

I sit between 65-70, 1st lane just move out to overtake lorrys really. In a 1.1 there's not much point going any faster, + the engine eats oil if I sit at 90+ :S (its old and nakered)

I didn't ask just to make a point, but was genuinely curious, but if you're down to that kind of speed then there is only 10mpg difference between the 1.1 and the 2.8.

That 10 mpg gap will open up to a canyon if you floor the 2.8 though.