Comfort, economy & reliability. Can it be done for £3k?
Discussion
Hi all
After the sad news that my Octavia needs £2k's worth of repair following a recent crash, I fear it will be a total loss.
I will have a budget of around £3k and the car will cover moon miles. The Octavia has consitently done 35k a year for the last 3 years! I love it, it serves the purpose of work hack very well. However, on the longer journeys the seats are awful. A run up to Scotland tends to leave me with huge back-ache. So, on to the what car. All my mileage is motorway, very little outside town work, apart from finding the next customer. Requirements below stated in order of importance.
Comfort is key though, I spend A LOT of time in this car. 
After the sad news that my Octavia needs £2k's worth of repair following a recent crash, I fear it will be a total loss.
I will have a budget of around £3k and the car will cover moon miles. The Octavia has consitently done 35k a year for the last 3 years! I love it, it serves the purpose of work hack very well. However, on the longer journeys the seats are awful. A run up to Scotland tends to leave me with huge back-ache. So, on to the what car. All my mileage is motorway, very little outside town work, apart from finding the next customer. Requirements below stated in order of importance.
Comfort is key though, I spend A LOT of time in this car. - Comfort - must be nice, sick of back ache!
- Economy. Skoda gets a reliable, calculated 50mpg. Needs to be 40mpg MINIMUM
- Reliability (and ideally inexpensive to repair)
- Easy of self-servicing - this is how I keep my costs down
- Must have a Diesel range-topper so I can get cruise/aircon/good stereo
I love the 5 series idea. I do wonder just how much of the work I could do myself. I do everything except the cam belt on my Octavia. Does anyone have any experience on the relative difficulty of the BMW unit. I have considered the Rover/MG with the same Diesel lump in it. BMW/Merc to me just big bills when I have to find a specialist...
Tallbut Buxomly said:
This. Check my profile for an idea of running costs and maintenance. Mine is on 331k miles with only 1 official breakdown when my alternator seized and ripped a pulley from its mounting.
Tyres man specified michelins are 90 quid a corner and will do around 30k rear and 20k front. Front Disks and pads will be a set of disks per 60k miles and a set of pads every 30k or so. Disks and pads are roughly 100-130 quid and take around 10 mins a corner to change.
I use my local halfords autocentre previously nationwide and they charge 200 quid for a full service every 60k miles and 380 for a cambelt and waterpump every 60k.
Its quiet and comfy. It will sit at upto 90mph happily all day every day and return in excess of 40mpg. Or put another way originally i got 750miles per 65l tank of fuel i now average for some odd reason around 650miles per 80 quid tank iirc.
Other than that it costs nothing to run.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2011...
A4 is on my list. Thanks. Tyres man specified michelins are 90 quid a corner and will do around 30k rear and 20k front. Front Disks and pads will be a set of disks per 60k miles and a set of pads every 30k or so. Disks and pads are roughly 100-130 quid and take around 10 mins a corner to change.
I use my local halfords autocentre previously nationwide and they charge 200 quid for a full service every 60k miles and 380 for a cambelt and waterpump every 60k.
Its quiet and comfy. It will sit at upto 90mph happily all day every day and return in excess of 40mpg. Or put another way originally i got 750miles per 65l tank of fuel i now average for some odd reason around 650miles per 80 quid tank iirc.
Other than that it costs nothing to run.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/2011...
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