£4000 Do i buy an X type, 3 series, or something else?
£4000 Do i buy an X type, 3 series, or something else?
Author
Discussion

magnus911

584 posts

212 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
I wouldn't touch that 3 series! Nice alloys but it just screams 'my owner has no mechanical sympathy'.

How about an RX8?

d parry

Original Poster:

39 posts

171 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
magnus911 said:
I wouldn't touch that 3 series! Nice alloys but it just screams 'my owner has no mechanical sympathy'.

How about an RX8?
i have just had a look. nice but group 15 for a 1.3 confused

Edited by d parry on Wednesday 1st February 19:22

magnus911

584 posts

212 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
d parry said:
yeh they are nice them. Whats the insurance like on them??
haha no shortcuts! You have to do what the rest of us had to do when we were your age! Spend all afternoon on admiral.com and moneysupermarket smile

By the way, adding your mum or dad to your insurance as a named driver on admiral will likely drop your quote by 15-25% if their history is clean.


d parry

Original Poster:

39 posts

171 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
magnus911 said:
haha no shortcuts! You have to do what the rest of us had to do when we were your age! Spend all afternoon on admiral.com and moneysupermarket smile

By the way, adding your mum or dad to your insurance as a named driver on admiral will likely drop your quote by 15-25% if their history is clean.
Is there a reason they are so cheap?? as they certainly look the part and i could pick a 05 plate up for around £3000 eek

Six Fiend

6,067 posts

238 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
Jag costs the same as a Mondeo on service parts. All very affordable indeed.

Only prob is if the transfer box or diff go. If it whines on a test drive factor in up to £1500 for a fix to get both done.

Plenty of Jags in breakers so other parts easy to source and cheap too.

That fully specced up one in your post had all the right toys. You can get an 01/02 plate 3.0se for around £2k in fab condition privately if you search and are patient. The early ones have a viscous coupling AWD system, better than the later ones. Also more likely to have had the big transfer/prop done, some taken care of under warranty.

My view - buy for £2.5k and enjoy a good one with more spare cash in the bank smile

Scott888

32 posts

171 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
d parry said:
i have just had a look. nice but group 15 for a 1.3 confused

Edited by d parry on Wednesday 1st February 19:22
I suggest you get a quote - I found Rx8's to be cheaper than anything else in that category. Groups mean sod all most of the time, crash statistics etc mean more I believe.

miln0039

2,013 posts

181 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
d parry said:
Is there a reason they are so cheap?? as they certainly look the part and i could pick a 05 plate up for around £3000 eek
Search hot starting issues and compression issues. A lot of scare mongering for sure - but there's no smoke without fire etc.

smugglersvin

1,944 posts

217 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
I have a friend who had a 2'5 petrol 4x4 estate X type and it was a great car, as good as any 3 series and the interior quality was lovely, he did over 50.000 miles in it and didn't have a single bit of trouble with the car.
All he would do with the car was get it serviced once a year, and the jag dealers were fantastic and it was really cheap for servicing costs.

garos

867 posts

182 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
I've just downsized from expensive monthly payments to paid in full 325ti, great spec car, no CD mind, for 2300 and couldn't be happier. Look around and you should get plenty of car for your budget or less.

Chrisw666

22,655 posts

222 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
d parry said:
i have just had a look. nice but group 15 for a 1.3 confused
Classed as a 2.6 AFAIR due to being a turbo, the capacity has the square root of fk all to do with the ins grouping anyway.

redgriff500

28,982 posts

286 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
X types are utter st the mondeos they are based on are better in every way (except the interior)





xRIEx

8,180 posts

171 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
d parry said:
i have just had a look. nice but group 15 for a 1.3 confused
How much have you looked? The power is >200bhp, not exactly Ka territory.



Chrisw666 said:
Classed as a 2.6 AFAIR due to being a turbo, the capacity has the square root of fk all to do with the ins grouping anyway.
It's classed as a 2.6 because it's a wankel. AFAIK the RX-8 doesn't have a turbo as standard.


Six Fiend

6,067 posts

238 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
redgriff500 said:
X types are utter st the mondeos they are based on are better in every way (except the interior)
Why's that then oh wise and learned one and speaker of great truth and wisdom?

FreeLitres

6,121 posts

200 months

Wednesday 1st February 2012
quotequote all
redgriff500 said:
X types are utter st the mondeos they are based on are better in every way (except the interior)
Oh really? How may miles have you covered in an X-Type? I did about 60k miles in mine and I think they are very good indeed.

I would be amazed if you have never owned one yet have such a stong opinion on them. Top gear?

redgriff500

28,982 posts

286 months

Thursday 2nd February 2012
quotequote all
Six Fiend said:
redgriff500 said:
X types are utter st the mondeos they are based on are better in every way (except the interior)
Why's that then oh wise and learned one and speaker of great truth and wisdom?
My wife liked the look of them so I bought her one.

She'd had a Mondeo previously which was a nice car that went and handled well.

We bought an X type with a failed DMF (as they go anyway I thought I may as well get one with a broken one so I know its been fixed correctly)

It has had further multiple problems - all researched and fixed by using the forums where such problems are VERY frequent.

It is far slower than the equivilent Mondeo.

It handles far worse than the equivilent Mondeo.

It has far more issues, yet costs more !

As soon as I can sell it I'm getting her another Audi or BMW I would happily buy another Mondeo except the quality of the interior is so poor - that is the ONLY area where the X type is better.

magnus911

584 posts

212 months

Thursday 2nd February 2012
quotequote all
d parry said:
Is there a reason they are so cheap?? as they certainly look the part and i could pick a 05 plate up for around £3000 eek
They use a rotary engine which is unlike most other cars out there. The displacement seems small but these cars produce between 231-280 hp I think. Also, they have suicide doors and were generally very well received by the motoring press. (Yes, the motoring press can be said to include JC)

anonymous-user

77 months

Thursday 2nd February 2012
quotequote all
d parry said:
magnus911 said:
I wouldn't touch that 3 series! Nice alloys but it just screams 'my owner has no mechanical sympathy'.

How about an RX8?
i have just had a look. nice but group 15 for a 1.3 confused
Don't look at it like that, look at it as a 190/230bhp car. Insurance groups don't tell the whole story, but if you're restricting yourself to approx 2.0 cars then I'd guess RX8's are quite a way over your insurance budget.

schmalex

13,616 posts

229 months

Thursday 2nd February 2012
quotequote all
FreeLitres said:
redgriff500 said:
X types are utter st the mondeos they are based on are better in every way (except the interior)
Oh really? How may miles have you covered in an X-Type? I did about 60k miles in mine and I think they are very good indeed.

I would be amazed if you have never owned one yet have such a stong opinion on them. Top gear?
I really must agree with RedGriff. I bought a 51 plate 2.5 SE back in 2003. It was the most awful car I have ever owned. Granted, nothing went wrong with it, but it was gutless, unbelieveably thirsty, had the most uncomfortable seats of any car I have driven, the headlights were awful - for some reason, in winter, they got covered in road salt much quicker than other cars. I kept it for 12 months, covered 30k in it & couldn't wait to get rid.

Just a truly horrible car IMO

D1bram

1,518 posts

194 months

Thursday 2nd February 2012
quotequote all
redgriff500 said:
My wife liked the look of them so I bought her one.

She'd had a Mondeo previously which was a nice car that went and handled well.

We bought an X type with a failed DMF (as they go anyway I thought I may as well get one with a broken one so I know its been fixed correctly)

It has had further multiple problems - all researched and fixed by using the forums where such problems are VERY frequent.

It is far slower than the equivilent Mondeo.

It handles far worse than the equivilent Mondeo.

It has far more issues, yet costs more !

As soon as I can sell it I'm getting her another Audi or BMW I would happily buy another Mondeo except the quality of the interior is so poor - that is the ONLY area where the X type is better.
Sounds like you bought a crap example though.

We had one for 3 years, it was great, only issue was the EGR valve needed cleaning out, I decided to blank it with a 50p plate and never had an issue again.

Not sure how you get that the equivalent mondeo is faster and handles better tbh.

Devil2575

13,400 posts

211 months

Thursday 2nd February 2012
quotequote all
Six Fiend said:
Jag costs the same as a Mondeo on service parts. All very affordable indeed.
Mondeo service parts?

Really?

I spoken to a few owners and apprently they share very little with the Mondeo and servicing costs aint that cheap. Although many people like to say the X-type is just a Mondeo with a Jag badge, from what I could gather this isn't actually the case.

RX8 is cheap because it has a thirst to match the late Oliver Reed and they have a reputation for engine trouble.