What car?

[Janesy B]

That Parkers crap said £389 for an exhaust, I'll try and find my invoice and scan it, £84 inc Vat for my new exhaust repair (back box, full system is £160).


There are some Clarkson clones in here taking ****ing rubbish.

Those are average warranty replacement costs, they could be for things from a 1.5DCi Clio or a 3.0 TDI Audi A6. I gave you your credible source of information, I don't care if you got your exhaust for £160, you can spend much more on one.

As for your Clarkson clone accusations, I have suggested diesels have their place, if the OP does 25k going up and down the motorway then I have no qualms with diesel but the guy is going up some hills and is looking at 10k p.a.

Can you also enlighten us to what car you have that does 105MPG as not even hybrids manage to get that much. I could tell you my car emits chocolate from the exhaust and get upset and say WELL YOU DON'T KNOW MY CAR when questioned, lets work with facts not fantasy, I know it's hard but lets give it a go.

Le Mans need I say more

Do you want to tell me how the Audi TDI 5.5 litre V10 engine in their R15 race car bears any relevance to this discussion?

 

[The Greek]

Depreciation on the Alfa would wipe out any savings made on fuel IMHO.

 

[Strangways]

Depreciation on the Alfa would wipe out any savings made on fuel IMHO.

At this age and price of car there is little difference in depreciation between petrol/diesel or Alfa/other makes.

 

[Strangways]

Do you want to tell me how the Audi TDI 5.5 litre V10 engine in their R15 race car bears any relevance to this discussion?

Just pointing out how much faster, more relable and quieter a dieslel is over a petrol equivilent. :shrug:

 

[Janesy B]

Do you want to tell me how the Audi TDI 5.5 litre V10 engine in their R15 race car bears any relevance to this discussion?

Just pointing out how much faster, more relable and quieter a dieslel is over a petrol equivilent. :shrug:

Ironically the V10 TDI is the quietest car on the track at lemans, however that's because it doesn't rev to 15k RPM. That's another discussion, the TDI does especially well because it has an advantage in the fact that it can go longer without stops, an obvious advantage in an endurance race and the regulations give diesels a further advantage.

HOWEVER, we are not talking about endurance racing, we are not talking about 250k race cars, the OP is not Allan McNish. He wants to lug his gear around and get to work and has £4k to spend. Get real.

You can't say diesel is quieter, it's a statement of fact to say petrol is not as noisy. However you appear to be completely delusional and don't live in the real world so I'll probably fail in being able to reason with you.

At this age and price of car there is little difference in depreciation between petrol/diesel or Alfa/other makes.

There really is. People are rightly or wrongly scared of Alfa reliability, you'll find a Passat/Octavia will hold more of it's value due to perceived reliability.

 

[Strangways]

Chill out Bryan, it was a tongue in cheek comment. I have got real and made my recommendation to the OP.

You know as well as I do the Diesel/Petrol issue all comes down to personal preference and the OP wants diesel.

 

[The Greek]

At this age and price of car there is little difference in depreciation between petrol/diesel or Alfa/other makes.

Well I'm not sure about that, pretty much everything holds their value better than an Alfa, including my Mountfield Lawnmower. Lol

 

[Grendel]

Bryan, enough with the attitude ok? If you can't make your point in a civilised manner then don't make it at all.

Yv has already warned that this thread will be closed if it doesn't get back on topic. So less of the willy waving please. Final warning.

 

[Janesy B]

Bryan, enough with the attitude ok? If you can't make your point in a civilised manner then don't make it at all.

I'm not being funny but I have been civilised, nor have I made any insults but I won't be bothering to argue any fruther here because my point is being lost.

For uncivilised see:

You calling me a liar, were your there, have you driven my car , do you know how I drive NO, so shut the **** up until you have a clue what your taking about.



That Parkers crap said £389 for an exhaust, I'll try and find my invoice and scan it, £84 inc Vat for my new exhaust repair (back box, full system is £160).


There are some Clarkson clones in here taking ****ing rubbish.

The OP has had his question answered many times but then you have people trying to blatantly troll the thread with stupid remarks about race cars.

 

[hcanning]

I'm not sure what part of his posts are uncivilised? It's people like whiteflyer who are throwing their toys out of the pram and swearing every other word.

It's a perfectly sensible debate, and may I add that I have posted more than once in this thread attempting to answer the OPs questions. There's no need to close a thread just because a bit of healthy debate has ensued.

You know as well as I do the Diesel/Petrol issue all comes down to personal preference and the OP wants diesel.

The thing is, it's not. You buy whatever is suitable for the task at hand. I hate diesel engines (as you may have gathered) but I can still subjectively discern whether one is suitable or not for someone's requirements, and if I had a job where I had to drive 20k+ a year then I'd agree that a diesel would suit my needs. It'd just mean I could buy an even more bonkers weekend car

 

[LongLensPhotography]

Well I'm not sure about that, pretty much everything holds their value better than an Alfa, including my Mountfield Lawnmower. Lol

I am with you here. I am not a mechanic, and certainly wouldn't fancy a third "unstable" car in a row. There is a law of statistics, and there good and bad ones. I was always unlucky at lottery. There are things you can do yourself cheaply in a workshop if you have one, which doesn't apply in my case. So no more Merc's, BMW's, etc.

In camera analogy, I'm looking to change my special edition of 350D (polished, but aged, and lacking underneath) for a scuffed but strong 1D mk2 (i.e. scratches, mileage, noise, but strong and totally reliable - and by now very affordable) and get the job done.

 

[whiteflyer]

I drive a Nissan Micra 1.5 Dci 82bhp

I reset all trip computer on 12 July at the start of my Warwick trip, this is a photo taken today of my AVERAGE fuel consumption since then, which included my daily commute, shopping trips and runs out at weekends.

I did once checked the cars read out with the normal manual method you would use to check MPG and it was a tad out (car said 73, I worked it out at 70)

 

[hcanning]

Nissan's combined figure for that car is 62MPG. If it did 80-100MPG combined, I think they'd want us to know about it

 

[Matt]

Nissan's combined figure for that car is 62MPG. If it did 80-100MPG combined, I think they'd want us to know about it

and the photo shows 81mpg average...:shrug:

 

[hcanning]

Which can easily be achieved by resetting the counter and driving at 40mph in 5th for a couple of miles. I'm not saying that's what he's done. Posting a picture like that on the internet is just no way of proving it really.

If a car is able to consistently achieve 20MPG more than published, wouldn't Nissan's marketing department want to use this to their advantage?

I don't use the average MPG readout on my car to accurately gauge it. They're not always accurate. I simply brim my fuel tank each time and work it out that way.

 

[Janesy B]

Fuel computers are generally inaccurate anyway, the only accurate way is to brim the tank each time and divide the miles driven by the amount of gallons you've used. It's not a very complicated bit of kit and only works off fuel flow measurements and the odometer and is often found to be wrong as even whiteflyer found out when he worked it out manually.

 

[Matt]

are you 2 an item?

 

[Janesy B]

are you 2 an item?

Two people in agreement = being an item? :shrug:

 

[Matt]

Two people in agreement = being an item? :shrug:

and having websites registered with the same company
and having wesbites using amazon cloud hosting
and having near identical coding
and being friends on 500px
and in the same location..?

 

[hcanning]

Yeah we're secretly lovers. Problem?

 

[Janesy B]

Yeah we both use 500px. London is the same as Surrey? Now who's going off topic... I don't think checking up on me online adds anything to this discussion? Are you going to clarify this?

 

[Spuff]

Well it seems the OP has given an indication of the cars he likes. Why not take one of the models and compare petrol and diesel.

For example - and this is back of a fag packet stuff - the Skoda Superb diesel should average around 48mpg whilst the Skoda Superb 2L petrol would be about 33mpg. Based on today's prices and 10000 miles per annum the diesel fuel cost is £1305 and the petrol cost is £1830, so give or take, £500 difference per annum or if you intend to keep the car for 3 years £1500.

Looking at the initial purchase cost it looks like your £4K budget would buy you a 53 reg 70K mile 1.9 diesel whereas the equivalent petrol would be nearly £1.5K less. So it looks like the cost of ownership over 3 years is the same (excluding service costs).

There's £100 per year saving in VED in favour of the diesel - I don't know what the insurance implications are for you if any.

I do agree that for 10K miles per year petrol engines are less costly to maintain than diesels and unless you particularly like the way a diesel drives (and a lot of people do) you can get a lot more (and newer) petrol car than diesel.

I noticed a nice 55 reg Superb petrol with 35K miles on the clock on Autotrader but all said and done I would avoid VW group products anyway if you want reliability - stick with Japanese or Korean.

 

[cowasaki]

I can get 70+ mpg from my 2010 VW Golf 1.6 SE TDi and this is on a mix of town and out of town. It depends on how you drive it! (This figure is above VW's combined figure and the blue motion model is even better)

Diesel itself contains more energy than petrol per ml and diesel engines are getting more efficient all the time.

Personally I only usually drive cars under 3 years old and I have not had a car break down on me in over a decade (either fuel and I do 100K+ per year). I drive and have driven dozens of different cars through work (Astras, Vectras, BMW 3 series (petrol and diesel), Focus, ST220, Volvo S series and several other cars and vans) and to be honest they all have their advantages and disadvantages. My personal car, the Golf, is ideal as a private car for me, it is quiet, economical, reliable, good quality and handles very well.

There are few bad cars out there now and to most people it does not matter much between petrol and diesel in the actual driving. Most modern diesels are quiet and as powerful as their equivalent petrol (by equivalent I mean the same slot in the manufacturer's line up). Also the price of a diesel is not much more than a petrol. Clearly the fact that it is often more expensive means that the lower mpg of the petrol still works out more economical until you reach a certain number of miles per year and eventually sell it BUT the diesel may well attract a higher trade in too so again this needs to be taken into account as does any difference in servicing.

There is a lot of negative press going both ways. Lets hope petrol v diesel doesn't go the same way as Mac v PC and Nikon v Canon !

For ultimate power, at the moment, petrol wins but if you drive so that that becomes an issue anywhere other than a track then you deserve to loose your licence.

 

[Matt]

Yeah we both use 500px. London is the same as Surrey? Now who's going off topic... I don't think checking up on me online adds anything to this discussion? Are you going to clarify this?

I can take it off topic if I think there is trolling afoot. :razz:
I also dont have to clarify, we've had a lot of reports about trolling, so we're checking it out.

and london appears to be the same as surrey when the 2 IP, although different, both point to the same location.:nuts:

 

[Matt]

my focus will return 60mpg if driven sensibly, and between 50 and 55 if not.

 

[hcanning]

Trolling? What? Because I've offered my opinion, which happens to not be unique?

We're not in the same location, either. Feel free to look up the geolocation of both IP addresses I've logged in to this site with, one being my work (84.19.x.x) and the other being my home (86.31.x.x) and you'll see they're near Teddington and near Addlestone respectively. In fact the work one may show up as being located in Manchester due to the location of our ISP. But hey ho.

 

[Janesy B]

I can take it off topic if I think there is trolling afoot. :razz:
I also dont have to clarify, we've had a lot of reports about trolling, so we're checking it out.

and london appears to be the same as surrey when the 2 IP, although different, both point to the same location.:nuts:

I think the problem is people don't like being told they are wrong and get especially upset when you post proof and actual facts that they asked for so you just get called up for trolling. I'm not trolling because I've made a point and given evidence and I'm going to stand by it.

Trolling it making stupid points about race cars and swearing at people and saying they don't have a clue and should **** off.

As for the IP thing, you'll find most IP location finders are useless and only pinpoint at city level.

 

[Gary]

Ironically the V10 TDI is the quietest car on the track at lemans, however that's because it doesn't rev to 15k RPM.

No, its because the exhausts have compulsory massive particle collectors which act as silencers.

 

[Gary]

these 'which car shall i buy' threads always end up in tears, and always end up full of nonsense written by people that think they know more than they do.

 

[Janesy B]

these 'which car shall i buy' threads always end up in tears, and always end up full of nonsense written by people that think they know more than they do.

Yeah like people who swear blind that diesel engines are quieter than petrol engines.

 

[specialman]

.......I suppose I need to do some road tests now somehow (who's in their sane mind gonna give me their car for a day?! renal - not sure I can find any that age). Going round the block isn't going to help much with my hills and motorway

I think you've summed it up in your first post - the cars you've put in the poll are sound buys and although there have been some other good options brought to the table, I think (going from my car buying experience last month) that just going for it and testing some is always going to bare more results than just asking for opinions. The main thing with car buying is that it's easy to get distracted from what you first wanted to go for.

In terms of test drives, I think you'll be surprised by some dealers' attitude; I've had a few recently (all fairly large independant dealers with 60+ cars in stock) where they just said to give it a good run out. With the Volvo I ended buying, the dealer just gave me the key and said go for it - no details, no security deposit. I was out a good half hour, doing dual-carriageways, back roads, accelerating up hills and generally getting a feel for the car.

Good luck with the purchase - I'm not sure this thread is helping you any more

 

[neil_g]

Yeah like people who swear blind that diesel engines are quieter than petrol engines.

to be honest i dont think anyone really cares how noisey any engine is, its how much of that noise is transmitted to the cabin that id worry about.

best of which in cars ive owned was the 406, but i think it was lead lined. which would explain why it was so slow.. shortly followed by works A3 TDI pool car. not so good is the ibiza but that was built by a lazy spaniard so probably forgot to put any sound deadening in but thats more road noise than engine noise.

 

[acetone]

I reset all trip computer on 12 July at the start of my Warwick trip, this is a photo taken today of my AVERAGE fuel consumption since then, which included my daily commute, shopping trips and runs out at weekends.

I think that's put's the "he fixed the read out" issue to bed.


You two sound like conspiray theroists, no mater what evidence is put in front of you, it can't be true and must be fake.

 

[Overexposed]

You seemed like a rational kind of person in your previous post, but now that you've posted this, I can see you're just another typical deluded diesel owner who thinks his car is a rocketship, trying to convince himself he didn't just buy it because he can't afford something better.

I suppose you think the BMW 330D M Sports are 'as fast as the M3 in real life usage init m8' too.

Ive been sitting smiling at all the hot air in this post but this one got me

A 330d is a rocket ship i drove one for 70k fast miles and averaged 40 mpg in it. Mid range ie 40 to 80 the 330d will eat an M3 alive as well as Evos, Imprezas, etc.( before someone really pedantic comes along im talking about the 6cyl M3 not the new V8)
The 330d in my mind is the best car for the real world available

 

[Janesy B]

Ive been sitting smiling at all the hot air in this post but this one got me

A 330d is a rocket ship i drove one for 70k fast miles and averaged 40 mpg in it. Mid range ie 40 to 80 the 330d will eat an M3 alive as well as Evos, Imprezas, etc.( before someone really pedantic comes along im talking about the 6cyl M3 not the new V8)
The 330d in my mind is the best car for the real world available

An E46 330d will take 10.5 seconds to go from 40 - 80. An E46 M3 will do the same in 4.9 seconds.

I obtained this from: http://www.torquestats.com/

 

[neil_g]

the torque on the derv is higher lower down so id expect it to be much more equal from 30-70 which is where most road drivers would care, rather than 0-60 etc.

 

[hcanning]

Perhaps if both cars had their gearboxes cemented into 6th.

In the real world, I'd be changing down in the M3 into 2nd gear and waving bye-bye to the 330D. The 330D won't be eating anything like an M3 or Impreza/Evo alive. Sorry.

 

[Janesy B]

the torque on the derv is higher lower down so id expect it to be much more equal from 30-70 which is where most road drivers would care, rather than 0-60 etc.

Which is why I compared 40 - 80 times

 

[neil_g]

answering each others point, how sweet

2000rpm is probably cruising revs for the derv, so itll already be on powerband. but either way i dont care in all honesty, the OP isnt going to be racing reps on the dual carriageways.

 

[dod]

Too much crap in here.

A guy asked for which diesel. Bill and Ben proceed to explain why petrol is the obvious choice but OP still wants diesel.

Suggestion, everyone shuts up about the merits of diesel and petrol and answers the poll.

That smiley is only being polite by the way.