Which would you buy and why???
Which would you buy and why???
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saxon

Original Poster:

437 posts

280 months

Saturday 18th January 2014
quotequote all
Hello there,

We've been on the hunt for a nice Mitsubishi Outlander around 4-7 years old in the UK and have a budget of around £11000 The car will be my wife's car and she commutes to work 20 miles each way mostly motorway around 4x per week. We would also use the car for hauling our mountain bikes around on a towbar bracket at weekends and also for annual camping trips around the UK in the Summer. Annual mileage 9000-10000 p.a.

We're being quite specific on colour and mileage so only really looking at vehicles with less than approx 60 000 miles on and the car must have the subwoofer and music server, cream leather and ideally be navy blue with a decent service history.

It's amazing how few of these are around and how quickly they sell!

I have a choice between a petrol and a diesel both dealer sales priced at £11000 - both the 'elegance' spec in the right colour combo

The petrol car is a Nov 2007 2.4 litre Elegance with just 17000 miles on it from new!!! Serviced on the button every 12 months at around 3000 mile intervals and owned by one older chap from new.

The diesel car is a 2009 registered 2.0 litre Elegance with 63000 miles and full service history with I think 2 owners from new.

Manufacturer figures quote 40mpg for diesel and 30mpg for petrol but what is a realistic real world average?? My calculations imply the petrol would cost around £600 a year more to fuel over 10 000 miles but maybe a petrol car with lower mileage would cost a little less on repairs and clearly the low mileage makes the petrol seem very attractive as we tend to buy 5 year old cars then keep our cars for 7-8 years, only changing when they fall apart!

Which would you buy and why??

Also having just parted with our V8 Landy Discovery which we had converted to LPG we found LPG to be brilliant but does anyone have any views on running an Outlander with it?? I read some conflicting views on whether the Outlander has hardened valve seats??

I would be very grateful for any views before we choose and would love to hear views from fellow PH ers!!

Thanks,

Saxon
PS We loved our Series 2 Disco but frankly it's cost us £11000 on garage repair bills and maintenance in just under 8 years which has begun to wear us down!! Time for a change and the idea of a smaller more economical 4x4 is appealing. If we won the Lottery we'd have a later Discovery or a Shogun but of the soft roaders the outlander is our favourite...

Meltham Terrier

382 posts

163 months

Saturday 18th January 2014
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You could also look at the Citroen and Peugeot versions, same car different trim and bumpers etc, This will give you a wide selection of cars to chose from.

Deerfoot

5,250 posts

214 months

Saturday 18th January 2014
quotequote all
The diesel achieves around 35mpg if the figures on the real mpg section of the Honest John site are to be believed. I can't see the petrol car averaging over 30mpg if that's the case.

If you can stomach the fuel costs I'd buy the petrol out of the two.

Fleckers

2,880 posts

231 months

Saturday 18th January 2014
quotequote all
if it were my cash

Petrol

less to go wrong when it gets older

ritch

744 posts

217 months

Saturday 18th January 2014
quotequote all
FWIW a while back, I had the previous version outlander with 2.4 petrol & lpg. on petrol 28mpg was average and on LPG was around 20 - 24mpg depending. Not great but not bad for all wheel drive and auto. I'd image figures for the new one will be similar. If the petrol one has switchable 2wd to 4wd you might get better mpg.


saxon

Original Poster:

437 posts

280 months

Sunday 19th January 2014
quotequote all
Chaps,

Thank you so much for all your advice - it's of great value to canvass a range of opinions and we've put a small holding deposit on the petrol one until we can test drive it.

Will let you know which we choose but so far petrol is winning! I have come to conclusion that we're likely to achieve 26mpg average ish in the petrol and perhaps 36mpg in the diesel. Some of this will be offset though by the fact that the petrol might cost a couple of hundred a year less to run and will almost certainly hold its value better due to significantly lower mileage.

Anyway - I'm also about to check out the Citroen and Peugeot versions, although I think I looked a while ago and we really love the idea of the music server/subwoofer thingy and I don't think they have those (my wife is a complete nightmare with my CD's being left in cars without cases etc and I'm a hi-fi nut so fastidious with my discs!! I'm hoping the music server may save our marriage!! ;-))

saxon