New(Used) car for Motorway - Work Commute - Which one?

chouglez

chouglez

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Hey TPles,

Starting a new job in a week's time which is 45 miles commute each way including 20 on motorway. :eek:

Wanted an economical option with a new(used) car and wondering if anyone has any suggestions around here? :thinking:
 
Budget and what size would help, is it just for commuting :shrug:
 
Gremlin said:
Budget and what size would help, is it just for commuting :shrug:
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Upto 10K and mid size saloon or hatchback. Mostly commute and used over the weekends locally
 
Something VAG TDI

Skoda Octavia or Superb come to mind first as an amazing value, but there are passats and audis to choose from also

avoid petrol as hell. Expensive to run and not fun to drive unless you go for a very big engine
 
daugirdas said:
Something VAG TDI

Skoda Octavia or Superb come to mind first as an amazing value, but there are passats and audis to choose from also

avoid petrol as hell. Expensive to run and not fun to drive unless you go for a very big engine
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2nd the VAG TDI.

Had a skoda Octavia TDI and did 150,000 miles, now on a seat Leon.

Great cars, great engines.
 
another vote for the VAG 1.9 TDI. Mrs Lynton has a Skoda Octavia Estate... in the 1,9 TDi version....

It's a passat estate without the posh frock, but 50 in 6th, and need to overtake... just boot down, and soon doing 70ish! ..
 
Thanks guys. What is VAG?:thinking:
 
Another vote for a VW diesel. I can easily get 60mpg averaging about 60mph on a run to work in my 1.9TDi Jetta (46 miles the majority of which are on motorways/dual carriageways)
 
rssmrry said:
Another vote for a VW diesel. I can easily get 60mpg averaging about 60mph on a run to work in my 1.9TDi Jetta (46 miles the majority of which are on motorways/dual carriageways)
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My Mondeo will do the same with ease and it's a 2.2 TDCi, it averages 53-55mpg to a tank on a mixture of driving.
 
Crikey, We're on our third new Golf, I've got a Caddy van for work and my daughter has a Polo....never heard of VAG!

Anyway, yes, a Golf TDI would be perfect.... over 60 mpg and £30 a year road tax.
 
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Colleague used to have a similar commute (Taunton to Bristol), he bought a Skoda Fabia VRS for that year, did the job well enough, was frugal on the diesel.
 
Do you need space for family, kids etc? Volvo V50 estate is a good call - great range of diesel engines that will return 50+ mpg, probably more, especially the DRIVe models.

If you want a bit of left-field exec-type saloonage, then have a gander at the S60.... Mondeo-sized, great kit, beuatifully comfortable. I have a 2005 version that has a 2.4 deisel that returns 55mpg without fail doing 50-mile communte to Redditch from Rugby; 15 miles in town and A-road traffic, the rest on dual-carraigeway and the M40/M42.

If you go VAG, have a look at the SEAT Leon diesels or one of the newer, super-efficient petrols if they're in the budget. The Leon is a really good car with ample space for family living and good to drive too. Plus, the don't carry quite the premium that the Golf and A3 do in terms of cost.
 
I have just got a megane, same length commute as you the 105bhp 1.5 diesel does 65mpg (if you stick to 70 which I do on way to work) but comfortably get 55mpg including all other journeys. £30 tax a year if you get one without a sunroof, (it is 1co2 under the next tax bracket and a sunroof puts it just over with the extra weight)
 
Many thanks for all your great advice.

Needless to say if anyone of our trusted TPles have a car to sell please do PM me. :)
 
: pedant : VAG = Volkswagen AktieGesellschaft : pedant off :

You don't want a diesel! you might need one, but no one in their right minds Wants one - even the more recent BMW diesels sound like tractors on start up. Far too much to go wrong with them these days thanks to all the emissions gear fitted..

Get something like a Volvo with a 5-cyl engine or a Saab Aero. not that thirsty
 
welshwizard645 said:
You don't want a diesel!
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You want full electric with good range battery except they do not yet exist.

I can not think of a worse choice than petrol engine. Expensive, low torque, noisy at higher revs, stinks of petrol, more dangerous in case of rear end crash, lower power and so on. Awful out of date nonsense.
 
daugirdas said:
You want full electric with good range battery except they do not yet exist.

I can not think of a worse choice than petrol engine. Expensive, low torque, noisy at higher revs, stinks of petrol, more dangerous in case of rear end crash, lower power and so on. Awful out of date nonsense.
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:eek: Thank you for sharing your knowledge of all things motoring! :cuckoo:
 
daugirdas said:
I can not think of a worse choice than petrol engine. Expensive, low torque, noisy at higher revs, stinks of petrol, more dangerous in case of rear end crash, lower power and so on. Awful out of date nonsense.
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You are misinformed.
 
daugirdas said:
You want full electric with good range battery except they do not yet exist.

I can not think of a worse choice than petrol engine. Expensive, low torque, noisy at higher revs, stinks of petrol, more dangerous in case of rear end crash, lower power and so on. Awful out of date nonsense.
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Oh yes, so many more diesel supercars because nothing powered by petrol can be torquey or powerful...

Sorry if slightly off topic as the OP isn't after a supercar.
 
ACW said:
Oh yes, so many more diesel supercars because nothing powered by petrol can be torquey or powerful...

Sorry if slightly off topic as the OP isn't after a supercar.
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remember we have 70mph max limit, and you could get away with 78 most of the time. The supercars are useless as supercars on the road [for going fast]. Now go back to my post and find "EXPENSIVE" at the very start. Audi R8 or Porche 911 is not exactly an affordable commuter car.

Diesel excels at the usual everyday grunt, where one would need an almost supercar to match some of that low end power.

Oh and didn't a diesel Audi win some very major races recently?

edit: there it is http://www.leftlanenews.com/audi-diesel-electric-hybrid-wins-24-hours-of-le-mans.html
I am sure I'd seen some more
 
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I think you find the Audi diesels have been winning for years.


Right fuel for the right purpose. Electric if you will never be more than 10 miles from home, petrol for pottering around with the odd long trip, diesel if you do regular long trips
 
daugirdas said:
Diesel excels at the usual everyday grunt, where one would need an almost supercar to match some of that low end power.
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Focus ST 2.0 Ecoboost petrol engine 247bhp 265lb/ft torque peaks @2700 rpm
Mondeo ST TDCi 2.2 diesel 153bhp 265lb/ft torque peaks @2500 rpm

Petrol's are certainly catching up with diesel
 
daugirdas said:
remember we have 70mph max limit, and you could get away with 78 most of the time. The supercars are useless as supercars on the road [for going fast]. Now go back to my post and find "EXPENSIVE" at the very start. Audi R8 or Porche 911 is not exactly an affordable commuter car.

Diesel excels at the usual everyday grunt, where one would need an almost supercar to match some of that low end power.
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The "grunt" is due to forced induction rather than the fuel, as the numbers posted by nilagin demonstrate. Note how the peak torque is similar for petrol and diesel but the smaller petrol engine has much higher peak power.

A colleague (the same one that had the diesel Skoda) now has a petrol Golf with a low pressure turbo. That produces tons of torque, and being a petrol engine revs cleanly and smoothly past 6000rpm with a very flat torque curve, so it keeps pulling and pulling. The Skoda vrs made masses of torque and accelerated very fast, but cried enough at 4000 or so and it was time to grab the next gear, and the next, and the next...


daugirdas said:
Oh and didn't a diesel Audi win some very major races recently?

edit: there it is http://www.leftlanenews.com/audi-diesel-electric-hybrid-wins-24-hours-of-le-mans.html
I am sure I'd seen some more
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Motorsport, my specialist subject ;) and what's more, endurance racing :thumbs:

The regulations in LMP1 at present favour diesels. The ACO still haven't got it right to achieve balance, although the fact that for several years the manufacturer teams were all been running diesels and it is only with recent the arrival of the Toyota TS030 that Audi and Peugeot have been shown some proper competition (Peugeot have stopped playing). With the Toyota programme entering its second full year this year and hopefully with the teething troubles ironed out, and Porsche also coming to play with their own LMP1 contender in 2014 we should get a much better idea of the diesel vs petrol equivalence in the LMP1 regulations. I can carry on talking about endurance racing for some time, if you wish, if I go to one motor race in the UK in a year it will be the six hours of Silverstone WEC round, and if I could stay awake for 24h straight I would watch the whole of Le Mans each year.

At a more amateur level, diesel vs petrol equivalence is something that I have been a party to making regulations about in the motorsport discipline I compete in (not racing, I don't have that much money) in my corner of the country over the last decade. In what's called the "roadgoing" category, which means MOTed cars in road legal condition, but engine tuning allowed (engine swaps not allowed), suspension improvements etc etc, in against the clock competition on sealed surfaces (race tracks are one example, but we also have events on uphill courses as well) for a long time we ran with up to 1400cc naturally aspirated petrol engined cars competing against up to 2000cc turbo diesel cars. Over the course of several years with a couple of dozen events a year at different venues, I think the class win went to a diesel once. With the advances in diesel engines it's now 1400cc natural aspirated vs 1400cc turbo diesel. Diesels are not as fast, despite being able to run as much boost / intercooling / etc as they want, while the petrol cars are moved out of the class if they fit a turbo into the next capacity class up.

Like for like, petrol engines win in motorsport, which is why diesels get a handicap advantage in direct competition, to help them catch up.
 
You say in a diesel you have to keep grabbing gears.


3rd goes to 80, 4th and over 100mph. So why grab gears?

The gears pull strongly throughout the rev range.

Change down to overtake? Never
Change gear while overtaking? Hardly ever

As I said before, petrol for ultimate performance, diesel for easy performance.
 
onomatopoeia said:
The Skoda vrs made masses of torque and accelerated very fast, but cried enough at 4000 or so and it was time to grab the next gear, and the next, and the next...
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Fortunately Skoda came up with a solution to that - the DSG gearbox :) (Actually they nicked it off VW or Audi but all's fair, right?)

My first Octavia vRS was a diesel manual and it was pretty nice - but now I have the auto and it's a lot more fun.
 
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