Might be time to change the car blues

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

My car is 6 years old so might be time to change or just carry on running it, 46,000 miles so should be able to get another 3 years out of it easily. The only major thing that may crop up in circa another 40,000 is brake discs. Clutch just done. I'm more likely to do circa 20 odd k over the next 3 years.

Just had my first valuation. I usually buy pre register or very low mileage demonstrators. Sales man say why buy used when we will sell you a new one discounted for the same amount. Straight face Ok says me. They did discount it a bit and made what I suspect is a below auction valuation on the car. I had noticed a used one at the same place. 16 plate, 1000 miles so then asked about that one. Circa 5k cheaper but all of a sudden £100 less on the part exchange. I just pointed out that in just about all respects it was no better than my current car.Ride slightly worse, touch down on power and noise levels off the road about the same and a touch more off the engine. Trim worse really but heated seats and a rear view camera. Not excited about either.

Looking at cars has been interested. I've always been interested in how they play with prices. 1st problem is I must have my 150 bhp. It must be good cross country on a and b roads. It's not unusual to see the price jump from 20 to 30k to just get the 150 bhp. As a 4×4 might make a change took a look at a Yeti. Built one on the web. At the end it came up with recommended extras – no chance of buying one without I suspect and then loads and loads more, Buy the lot and it would probable be possible to buy a huge Mitsubishi for less. It reminds me of going with my father to buy a car when I was about 8. Heater, carpets and over riders for the bumpers were extras.

Last time I bought I looked at Kia. Very impressed with the engine management in them. It was well ahead of most but no suitable cars so this time took a look at their new Sportarge. Interesting car but who would want a low horse power one? This time it goes up to 180 bhp as they have remapped the engine. Those can be 30K plus. Seems they are very competitive against Range Rovers. There bottom end is sub 20k if I remember correctly. There are also a lot of the previous model about which is a couple of inches shorter.

I always wonder if the buying public is aware that the only markedly change in engine costs is the number of cylinder over rather a large range of sizes and power levels.

John

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[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

[Dinosaur EngineerParticipant @dinosaurengineer]

Model/Workshop engineering ?

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I'm just glad there are people willing to buy new cars so I can get affordable, reliable second hand ones at realistic prices

Neil

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I thought this might be about "what makes are good for ME's" like no lip on the boot so you can get a loco in, seats fold down flat including front so you can get a 6ft display track in etc.

My tiny Perodua Nippa can have back and passenger seat completely removed so I have at times loaded it with a floor standing pillar drill and a lathe and biggest cast iron garden roller ever made. 59 mpg on motorway.
Recently acquired nearly new Fiesta is too shiny for such things and the seats too firmly fixed. Luckily I realised in time that some other small cars didn't allow a towbar to be fitted. 54mpg on motorway but faster than Nippa.
I do a lot of miles so needed economy but otherwise would have considered one of those bigger square backed things that dog owners seem to like.

[donkeyParticipant @donkey]

like mine

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

My dad has got a Sportage and it drives very nicely and seems solidly built with lots of accesories as standard (petrol 4×4) I like it more than the two qashquis he had before. I also drive a commercial Mitusbishi Outlander for work which is very nice, goes well and even with teh basic spec of teh commercial is well equiped, The PHEV is supposed to be good too.

If you want an AWD that goes round A & B roads then get a subaru, those are what I have driven since 1997

 

Edited By JasonB on 18/06/2016 14:54:49

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

My last car (Vauxhall Vectra) was 14years old with 160,000 miles on the clock when I got shut. It was still reliable, only went because of government scrapage scheme. 6 years old and 46,000 is nothing, keep it a bit longer!

Edited By duncan webster on 18/06/2016 15:23:35

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

This is the sort of thing I meant by dog car. Anyone got one or equivalent and perhaps a picture of it loaded with loco plus driving trolley?

[frank brownParticipant @frankbrown22225]

I am that sort of quandrary, V W Passat Estate 190 K miles, 06 plate, Wife and mechanic (S-I-L), want me to, for myself, I am still putting building blocks , sand and cement in the back so am reluctant. My Passat is a nice drive, but unreliable but having sorted various things , I hope it improves.

Frank

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I think mr. ajohn is trying to wind us up.

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

I tend to run my cars until they fall to bits,if they are still reliable and cost no more than a couple of hundred quid to get through the MOT I keep them, on the basis I can’t get another for that price. My last one I had for 8 years and had done 170K miles.
Mark P.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Dog car sums it up – space for a dog cage. Funny some one mentioned Subaru. I should be trying a Forester tomorrow. I tried a petrol one and it's as a Suburu aught to be be. My last silly car was a Wrx, a long time ago now. It was a last fling in the direction of cars I like to drive. One problem with it over a fairly long mileage. At 145mph the hatch in the thing that seals off the underside of the engine bay flies open and wont stay shut there after. Sorry sir they said if we knew you would do that we would have fitted a special washer.

The Forester can be bought with the wrx engine – for fast farmers I assume but I must be sensible as mpg counts these days.

Dog cage problems are probably like loco's etc. One surprise car that has a decent boot is a Ford C Max. It can be bought with the 2l engine. Another the Ford Kuga which can also be bought with the 2l engine and even front wheel drive only. More bhp with 4 wheel drive but plus 2k which is better than many. There is also a longer C-Max but the boot floor is a bit lumpy with the 3rd row seats folded down – sheet of osb maybe ? Not that much extra space either. Not looked at prices yet so no idea. It does seem that Ford do the only people carrier with a decent sized boot. Less than my X-Type but the dog should be ok. She'd loose 3 in of paw space, cage same size. None of the garages want to px the dog for a smaller one. She's a lovely dog too.

A man at the Ford main agents suggested I should look at Hyundai. So will at some point. I got talking to some one that did work for them before moving to Ford.

The worse than an X-Type was a 308 or 508. All have big boots and in my view the X-Type does drive a bit better than the Mondeo, guess it's just difference in detail, shocks and spring rating. The 150hp out of 2.2L also feels better than the 150 out of the 2L 308 / 508 whose boots are identical. Gearing is very similar to the X-Type but not so much oomph in 4th,

One thing I have decided – can't really expect to buy an estate any better than the one I have in any respect by the look of it – even noise levels etc.

John

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[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

If your new car has SATNAV, be aware of how much map updates will cost and how they are achieved. I have a Renault with the NAVTEC system which can only be updated via a Windows M/c. I have an Apple MAC book Air and can't update the maps unless I run in Windows compatibility , which is a waste of precious 'disc space' etc etc.
Other ways around the problem, go to dealer, find a friend, buy an old Window M/c, but the point is why should I ?
BobH

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

I don't much care if a car has sat nav. I have a TomTom unit. I've changed the battery in it once and it did something recently fully charged that suggests it needs taking apart to do again. I did look at a new one a while ago and checked the maps and found one road that still hadn't been updated. I think I noticed that some cars, might just be Peugot offer free map updates but my bother once told me that an update on his Honda was something like £1k. They are a lot more common now so prices may have changed.

The TomTom has a pug in unit that listens in to the national traffic jam radio. Not so good as hooking it up to a mobile phone but has been of use a couple of times. It's slow to update so only jams that have been around for a long time show up – Radio 2 is better really. I usually have that on while travelling about.

John

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[NJHParticipant @njh]

Do you need the load carrying capacity just for the dog cage?

We have a Staffie ( as you might have gathered <——— ! &nbsp and she sits on the back seat. She has a special harness which clips into the seatbelt socket. and holds her securely. We used to have two Staffies so both could be accomodated. The good point is that the harness can be used in any vehicle with seat belts and no special modification is required.

Norman

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

VW are doing price cuts now, maybe worth a visit. All VW new have been re-programmed now, secondhand maybe not.

Clive

[not done it yetParticipant @notdoneityet]

My view? Duncan is on my wavelength. 46k miles is nothing. Little more than 'run in'. All you are doing is lining the pockets of the car salesman. If that is your aim in life – to give away money, OK – but I dont ascribe to that. They are just grabbing yor hard-earned money for very little. My motor is now over 150k and my wife's Peugeot 607 is coming up towards190k. Yes, some repair costs to keep them completely roadworthy, but still not paying the income of some car salesman's earning of 50k per annum, or more!

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I don't have a dog. My point about the dog was I see a lot of dog owners with the Peugeot and also Citroen Berlingo because there is no boot lip for the dog to have to scramble over. This is also desirable for a Model Engineer with a 3-4ft long loco, plus driving trolley, bag of coal, tools etc. A full estate is not always convenient when it is also a daily commute, restricted London parking and so on.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Some years ago I had a Land Cruiser with some years on it and another German Shepard in the back. Very good dog in most respects just like our current one. While parked up in Dartmouth for around 1/2 hr we came back to find teeth marks all along the back seat top and nicely bitten seat belt. We tend to take our dogs every where with us so some times they have to spend time in the back of the car. They tend to make far more fuss if left at home for even short periods. This particular one had spent much longer in the car without problem. After that I have stuck with dog cages just in case.

Also with our current one if she see a dog walking past she's very likely to dive at what ever is there to stop her getting at it. She's a bit of a problem dog in that respect. I suspect many people would give up on her.

Odd thing on the Land Cruiser was that the dealer I bought it off pointed out that he would never put a dog like that or others in the back of a car because of the damage they might do. I just laughed, I've since found out that serious internal damage to the seats etc isn't that unusual. From the dogs point of view rather than lying down when we are driving about she sits and looks around – even sways with the bends and uses the cage to keep herself upright. On very windy roads like the A40 going down to LLandovery she does lie down usually but keeps her head up so she can see out of the window.

I bought the first cage we had off a person who makes them to fit and loosely speaking lives off the M50. He makes them so that the back can be removed in case the car has a rear end shunt. I also carry a bit of bent 5/16 or so mild steel bar he sells that fits between the boot catch and the lid so that the car can still be locked but plenty of air can get in when the weather is warm so the dog doesn't get hot. They work rather well. Last time I wanted a new cage I bought some heavy steel mesh and made one up myself with some one tig welding and plastic coating it for me. Circa 2" mesh with 1/8" bars. Same sort of thing he used but the bars were a bit heavier. They are a lot better than the usual type and can be made to fit giving the dog as much room as possible. The current one is 3ft by about 22". The next one will probably be a bit wider as I may have to pinch a bit of her paw space – the "font door" stops about 3" short of the boot floor. The cage makers idea. A good one too.

John

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[Chris Evans 6Participant @chrisevans6]

What ever you do don't buy a Toyota Rav 4. After 35 years with a series 3 Land Rover I wanted to keep something 4×4 alongside a Passat estate. Bought the Rav and it was the worst car I have ever had,180HP is there but only at silly high revs. Poor handling/ride. Poor seats and trim quality. Best of 32MPG on a run from Midlands to Devon.

Sold it after 4 months and bought a Mondeo estate. Very good and 50+ MPG. Only downside is lack of height in the load area.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Posted by not done it yet on 18/06/2016 19:24:31:

My view? Duncan is on my wavelength. 46k miles is nothing. Little more than 'run in'. All you are doing is lining the pockets of the car salesman. If that is your aim in life – to give away money, OK – but I dont ascribe to that. They are just grabbing yor hard-earned money for very little. My motor is now over 150k and my wife's Peugeot 607 is coming up towards190k. Yes, some repair costs to keep them completely roadworthy, but still not paying the income of some car salesman's earning of 50k per annum, or more!

I know but in some ways I would like a change but not to another estate that offers diddly squat in real terms. If I can't find a suitable deal that doesn't suite cash wise I wont be changing and that does damage their pockets because low mileage near new always drop by the tax at least although some try to avoid selling that cheaply. It's a case of finding the right car really. The advice from a friendly dealer is to sell mine privately. There latest trick for some time has been to give poor part exchange deals even when I bought my current one.

I haven't looked at Citroen. I may do but had an unpleasant warrantee problem years ago. The dealer I bought it off was privately owned. I had the problem when Citroen UK took over. They even started only filling oil to the min level during services as well at the same time. Take a car in for service and it might come back with something not working especially while it was under warrantee – probably removed and fitted to another car. There were other odd things about the car which as it all upset me I managed to get mentioned on the TV. I'll bet that caused them some worry at least.

A replacement cam belt etc on a V6 Passat didn't work out well. I can only assume that the parts fitted on replacement at 60K were not as good as the originals. It went at 95K and fortunately I did know a mechanic who was capable of fixing things like that – new head etc. I'd guess they may all be chain now should = 100k plus.

A Saab proved to be ok. When I had a problem it was fixed. If expensive – a new clutch was, a man from GM turned up looked and it was replaced FOC. Sadly they have gone but in some ways the X-Type is a better car. The clutch lasted for 42k rather than 26. It's a bit quieter too.

John

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[VicParticipant @vic]

I expect most older cars don't have the features of new models, burn more fuel and give off more pollution.

[AjohnwParticipant @ajohnw51620]

Don't Vic most if not all of the things I want in a car have been about for a long long time. Fuel consumption is an interesting one. Deisels are great but if they are only used for short trips the particulate filters act up and having to have one of those changed can make the fuel savings a bit of a joke. Mine has a little red light which comes on if there are signs that this is happening and there are instructions on what to do. Go drive at a certain speed for a certain time till it goes out. Seems this is unusual and it never has come on due to my driving profile. Just like petrol engines and catalisers they probably periodically dump excess fuel down at times to get them very hot. it's done because they can't have them failing too soon.

Electric power steering is pretty new but the idea has been kicking around for some time. It was reckoned that cars should shift to 24v batteries when it came in. I suspect that will happen at some point.

Electric parking brakes are around and nice to use but that could also be done with the ordinary brakes and may be. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a cost saving as well from a manufacturing point of view.

Hooking a mobile phone into the sound system isn't new either. Just more widely spread. Lots of things are much the same.

A lot of the bells and whistles are pretty cheap as far as making them goes but a good way of pumping up prices. Things like keyless ignition etc probably save money but is sold as an extra.

Stability control just uses the ABS controller and doesn't add much cost in real terms. Neither does the same style of traction control. I've designed software into them to do that several times.

One interesting fact is that some will find their road tax bill going up next year. I'm told that the min rate will be £120 per year. Not sure about higher rates but one dealer reckoned that all will be £120. Another reckoned that it will still be CO2 based. The problem with diesels isn't CO2 as has been recently mentioned on the news.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 18/06/2016 21:19:38

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Still got my SAAB 93 – bought new circa 18 years ago, 110k miles and runs like a dream . Was thinking of getting rid of it but decided instead to give it some TLC . A couple of jobs to do yet and I hope we will be together for a few years more! It is a very comfortable car with a bit of "grunt!" ( A bit thirsty though ….. and the right pedal is very inviting…….!

Norman

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