Winter car, up to 3k. Ideas?? ROI
Discussion
Hi all
We are selling our A3 and need a winter car.
Criteria:
Up to 3k
Cheap to run, Insurance fuel etc
not ancient
reliable
must be a decent motor
Not necessarily looking for a big off roader type thing, just something thats up to the job of an Irish winter.
So far, this is what I have come up:
Jimny - cheap off roader, ground clearance
Legacy - AWD car, japenese reliablitiy
Saab 95 - Swedish, comfortable and cheap over here but only FWD
Please help!
We are selling our A3 and need a winter car.
Criteria:
Up to 3k
Cheap to run, Insurance fuel etc
not ancient
reliable
must be a decent motor
Not necessarily looking for a big off roader type thing, just something thats up to the job of an Irish winter.
So far, this is what I have come up:
Jimny - cheap off roader, ground clearance
Legacy - AWD car, japenese reliablitiy
Saab 95 - Swedish, comfortable and cheap over here but only FWD
Please help!
wolfy1988 said:
Hi all
We are selling our A3 and need a winter car.
Criteria:
Up to 3k
Cheap to run, Insurance fuel etc
not ancient
reliable
must be a decent motor
Not necessarily looking for a big off roader type thing, just something thats up to the job of an Irish winter.
So far, this is what I have come up:
Jimny - cheap off roader, ground clearance
Legacy - AWD car, japenese reliablitiy
Saab 95 - Swedish, comfortable and cheap over here but only FWD
Please help!
What's wrong with the current car + a set of winter tyres?We are selling our A3 and need a winter car.
Criteria:
Up to 3k
Cheap to run, Insurance fuel etc
not ancient
reliable
must be a decent motor
Not necessarily looking for a big off roader type thing, just something thats up to the job of an Irish winter.
So far, this is what I have come up:
Jimny - cheap off roader, ground clearance
Legacy - AWD car, japenese reliablitiy
Saab 95 - Swedish, comfortable and cheap over here but only FWD
Please help!
wolfy1988 said:
TBH I don't know.... Its a good excuse to get a new car. The A3 is perfect.
But its €650 for winter tyres!
That's a lot cheaper than 3k, though.... and you'd still be wanting winter tyres for your new purchase.But its €650 for winter tyres!
Best to run the current car through the winter on winter tyres, then buy something nice in the spring.
Apologies for the non-specific nature of this post, but I wrote this a while back and was waiting for an opportunity to post it....
If, like me, your driveway is populated by a collection of vehicles which are (a) built in Japan prior to 1998, before they invented rustproofing, (b) fitted with tyres which could double as a cricket pitch roller, (c) lower then James Murdoch’s moral standards or (d) all of the above, then your thoughts have probably turned to how you are going to get around in winter when 2cm of light slush causes most of the UK to grind to a halt.
We are told by various organisations that we should fit our cars with winter tyres, and the vehicle manufacturers have quickly seized the opportunity to make a few quid by selling their customers a new set of wheels and rubber, while storing the old ones for you until spring. However, for the same price as a set of winter tyres and rims on your 520d you could buy a whole car, and as anyone who has petrol coursing through their veins knows buying a car is much more fun than buying tyres.
So what to buy? Well it must to have 4WD for starters. This is vital when persuading your significant other/parents/mates you actually need another car. ‘We need a 4x4 otherwise what happens if we need to take the cat to the vet/get some more milk/escape from an invasion of marauding polar bears’ is always a useful line.
Having narrowed it down slightly we now need to set a budget. As anyone familiar with the phenomenon known as ‘budget creep’ is aware, this is a fairly pointless exercise as you will inevitably spend more than planned so let’s just skip this bit. The next point to consider is the length of MoT on your prospective winter shed. If it runs out in January that isn’t going to see you through winter and believe me, blasting holes in the floorpan of a rusty Suzuki with a mig torch in Baltic conditions is not fun. Tyres are equally critical; remember you’re buying this car to avoid the need to buy a set of tyres so the last thing you want is to buy something needing replacement rubber of its own. They should be black, round, have some tread on them and ideally not be made by a company whose name sounds like the kind of class your other half goes to at the gym on a Tuesday night.
As it is winter, and therefore cold (unless you’re reading this in Australia, in which case g’day!) a working heater is vital, and heated seats are even better. Heated seats also provide hours of amusement when you switch them on without your passenger realising, and they momentarily wonder if they have wet themselves. This sadly rules out an old Land Rover, as the heater output is negligible and even if it was fitted with an industrial space heater the cold air entering around the panel joins would chill you to the bone unless you dress like Sir Edmund Hilary.
As you actually want to use the car it needs to be able to keep up with traffic, and offer fuel economy figures above 20mpg (both of which rule out the Landie again) and it needs to be reliable enough that you don’t spend half your time hitting it with a hammer to make it go again.
So now it’s narrowed down a bit what are we left with...
If, like me, your driveway is populated by a collection of vehicles which are (a) built in Japan prior to 1998, before they invented rustproofing, (b) fitted with tyres which could double as a cricket pitch roller, (c) lower then James Murdoch’s moral standards or (d) all of the above, then your thoughts have probably turned to how you are going to get around in winter when 2cm of light slush causes most of the UK to grind to a halt.
We are told by various organisations that we should fit our cars with winter tyres, and the vehicle manufacturers have quickly seized the opportunity to make a few quid by selling their customers a new set of wheels and rubber, while storing the old ones for you until spring. However, for the same price as a set of winter tyres and rims on your 520d you could buy a whole car, and as anyone who has petrol coursing through their veins knows buying a car is much more fun than buying tyres.
So what to buy? Well it must to have 4WD for starters. This is vital when persuading your significant other/parents/mates you actually need another car. ‘We need a 4x4 otherwise what happens if we need to take the cat to the vet/get some more milk/escape from an invasion of marauding polar bears’ is always a useful line.
Having narrowed it down slightly we now need to set a budget. As anyone familiar with the phenomenon known as ‘budget creep’ is aware, this is a fairly pointless exercise as you will inevitably spend more than planned so let’s just skip this bit. The next point to consider is the length of MoT on your prospective winter shed. If it runs out in January that isn’t going to see you through winter and believe me, blasting holes in the floorpan of a rusty Suzuki with a mig torch in Baltic conditions is not fun. Tyres are equally critical; remember you’re buying this car to avoid the need to buy a set of tyres so the last thing you want is to buy something needing replacement rubber of its own. They should be black, round, have some tread on them and ideally not be made by a company whose name sounds like the kind of class your other half goes to at the gym on a Tuesday night.
As it is winter, and therefore cold (unless you’re reading this in Australia, in which case g’day!) a working heater is vital, and heated seats are even better. Heated seats also provide hours of amusement when you switch them on without your passenger realising, and they momentarily wonder if they have wet themselves. This sadly rules out an old Land Rover, as the heater output is negligible and even if it was fitted with an industrial space heater the cold air entering around the panel joins would chill you to the bone unless you dress like Sir Edmund Hilary.
As you actually want to use the car it needs to be able to keep up with traffic, and offer fuel economy figures above 20mpg (both of which rule out the Landie again) and it needs to be reliable enough that you don’t spend half your time hitting it with a hammer to make it go again.
So now it’s narrowed down a bit what are we left with...
- Toyota Rav-4 – Not really butch enough to pull off the ‘grrrrr, I’m a man and I can go anywhere in this snow’ look we’re after here.
- Honda CR-V – See above.
- Suzuki Vitara – Erm, see above again, I’m not really very good at this.
- Daihatsu Terios – Is that the sound of a barrel being scraped I hear there?
- Land Rover Freelander – I can tell you from experience that this will be the most appealing to your other half, however it will also be the most appealing to your local garage and can suffer from a whole range of faults, one of which is usually fixed by removing the propshaft and converting it to front wheel drive, thereby defeating the object of the whole article so we’ll leave this one well alone.
- Jeep Cherokee – The diesel is awful and the 2.5 petrol provides diesel performance with large petrol powered economy so it has to be the 4.0, which conveniently just scrapes in above our 20mpg target too. Heated leather armchairs in the top spec models make this a very tempting prospect, especially if you can find one with a working LPG conversion.
- Fiat Panda 4x4 – This was going to be my choice, until I saw the J reg one I was watching on eBay sell for £3,900!
- Mitsubishi Shogun/Pajero – If your address contains the words ‘Dale’ and ‘Farm’ this is the one for you, it practically cuts down overhead cables on its own.
- Subaru Forester – Not the butchest looking 4x4 around, but at least it doesn’t look like something Barbie would take to a surfing competition. A lot have lived in the countryside, although if you buy one which smells of spaniel and dead pheasant don’t expect your significant other to be impressed, even though it makes it ‘more authentic’. There’s a turbo version if you want to go fast, a non-turbo auto if you want to go slowly and most have heated seats aircon and heated mirrors, the holy trinity of winter shedding.
What an excellant read! thanks for posting!
I agree on every front especially the Pajero/shoguns! haha
It funny you should mention the Forester as on my other internet tab I was just looking at them!
http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2594391
J
I agree on every front especially the Pajero/shoguns! haha
It funny you should mention the Forester as on my other internet tab I was just looking at them!
http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2594391
J
wolfy1988 said:
What an excellant read! thanks for posting!
I agree on every front especially the Pajero/shoguns! haha
It funny you should mention the Forester as on my other internet tab I was just looking at them!
http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2594391
J
Buy that one! Last year I had a 2.0 auto which was awesome in the snow and I'm looking for another but haven't found a good one yet. I agree on every front especially the Pajero/shoguns! haha
It funny you should mention the Forester as on my other internet tab I was just looking at them!
http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2594391
J
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