Looking for a new car

[The Fatadder]

Probably jumping the gun a little bit given that I havent had the 2nd interview yet, but I've started to look for a new car to buy once I get the job. The current car (VW Bora) is starting to come up with too many problems, and has been seriously loosing power recently...

 

The short list is down either a Golf GTi on a 56, a 5 door 2lt MSport 1 series on a 56 or a 118 Sport 3door on a 57.

 

Having done a fair bit of research so far, theres one question I havent yet looked at: Can you fit a layout in the back! So I was just wondering if anyone on here has experience with these models, particually with getting 4ft by 2ft baseboards in the back! At the end of the day its not going to be a deal braker if you cant get them in there (at the moment I'm favouring the BMW), but it could be a factor.

Thankfully now im 25 van hire wont be such a pain, so that is an option if I cant fit the layout in the car....

 

 

The other question is that I am looking to probably pay for half - 2/3 the value on finance (be that from the dealer or a bank), again something I've never done before, and would appropriate any advice on what to look out for etc. Unfortunatly with the cash budget I have available I just can't afford anything interesting (and I dont think the Bora is going to last out until the money would be saved!)

[edcayton]

I would expect the front-drive Golf to have better load-carrying capacity than either of the BMW's, and you wouldn't be dismissed as a rich chav! However, if you've got a thick skin and you don't really want to get a car to use as a van, then lok to Bavaria! I would go for the 6 cylinder engine coz it's sooooo smooth.

[steve1]

Rich, have a look at a Saab Estate. The 9-3 version is fairly roomy but the 9-5 will give you acres of room. They're tough cars, great to drive & very comfortable on long journeys.

 

steve

[sjp23480]

If you need finance - I would get an unsecured loan from the bank. Rates are just as good as car finance - if not better - unless you can get a 0% which I doubt unless you buy a new car.

 

Also, if you need to sell the car before you have finished paying for it - you can do so without recourse to the finance company or risking a failed HPI check by any potential buyer.

 

I also would go for the BMW or perhaps an Audi A4 Avant - lots of deals now the new shape is out??

 

Steve

[The Fatadder]

If you need finance - I would get an unsecured loan from the bank. Rates are just as good as car finance - if not better - unless you can get a 0% which I doubt unless you buy a new car.

 

Also, if you need to sell the car before you have finished paying for it - you can do so without recourse to the finance company or risking a failed HPI check by any potential buyer.

 

I also would go for the BMW or perhaps an Audi A4 Avant - lots of deals now the new shape is out??

 

Steve

 

Hadnt really thought about resale so much, probably aught to give it a bit more consideration given theres a reasonable chance that within the life of this car I will end up moving to London.

 

Not a massive Audi fan tbh, dosnt really have the badge to go with the price tag in my mind (not to mention that for a premium brand they have a horrid fixation with front wheel drive.

 

I would say that the cars badge is an important consideration, as is the quality inside and how good to drive it is. Ability to hold the layout is more something that I am consideration in the case that I find the cars short listed at a similar level. Certainly at the moment things are looking pretty even, with the BM coming out top on quality and being RWD, while the golf is better looking and has better audio equipment inside (where as the 1 series is apperently shockingly bad unless fitted with the premium speaker setup (which is a bit harder to find in budget)

[skipepsi]

Rich, have a look at a Saab Estate. The 9-3 version is fairly roomy but the 9-5 will give you acres of room. They're tough cars, great to drive & very comfortable on long journeys.

 

steve

just don't buy a 2 litre turbo model they are so bad gm had to give an 8 year warranty in the us to get anyone to buy one 9 year old Saab anyone? thought not.

[The Fatadder]

just don't buy a 2 litre turbo model they are so bad gm had to give an 8 year warranty in the us to get anyone to buy one 9 year old Saab anyone? thought not.

 

Afraid my thoughts on Saabs is pretty much a Vetra in drag. not exactly desirable.

[skipepsi]

Afraid my thoughts on Saabs is pretty much a Vetra in drag. not exactly desirable.

 

I think you might be being a bit generous!

[Ron Ron Ron]

Hadnt really thought about resale so much....

Rich, that's one of the first things you should consider when buying any car; whether it's secondhand or new.

 

 

The Fatadder said:

"Afraid my thoughts on Saabs is pretty much a Vetra in drag. not exactly desirable".

I think you might be being a bit generous!

 

 

.

[Adams442T]

Golfs are excellent for carrying all sorts of kit. With the folding rear seats and plenty of headspace through the hatch (more important then you might think when trying to manouvre a heavy, but delicate layout section IMHO) I've found our VW takes some beating.

 

Reasonable fuel consumption, good resale values and main dealer servicing cheaper than some general garages, especially for tyres.

[(The) Youth]

Rich

 

Get van then you can transport layouts in it

[cutting42]

My opinion is that both the Golf and Bimmer are excellent drives but nothing compares with the M sport rear wheel drive for a sporty drive. If that is what gets you going, without a doubt you need the 1 series. However is much less practical than the Golf and will be pricier to service and buy. Resale is pretty good on both but be aware you will find it easier to sell a good spec BMW. There will always be a mrket for a low end Golf but people buy BMW for the image and a bit of luxury as well. Do your best to get Leather and decent alloys as a priority. After that a good sound system and xenon lights are good sellers. Sat nav is extremely expensive new (2K) and does not really help resale that much, also iDrive is not the most intuitive system but better than Clarkson says.

 

Saab turbos are fine, I have had 6 over the years of all varients; 99, 900 classic, new 900, and old 93 and they have been excellent. The later ones are a bit GM but more than a breathed on Vectra. However they do not compare with a BMW for handling. I have had 3 3 series, 2 320d, an SE and now a fully loaded M Sport as company cars, I also have a 56 plate 335i coupe as a family fun car which I allow my wife to have as her daily driver.

 

I am a complete convert to BMW having been a firm disliker of the brand before but once driven, forever smitten.

[The Fatadder]

My opinion is that both the Golf and Bimmer are excellent drives but nothing compares with the M sport rear wheel drive for a sporty drive. If that is what gets you going, without a doubt you need the 1 series. However is much less practical than the Golf and will be pricier to service and buy. Resale is pretty good on both but be aware you will find it easier to sell a good spec BMW. There will always be a mrket for a low end Golf but people buy BMW for the image and a bit of luxury as well. Do your best to get Leather and decent alloys as a priority. After that a good sound system and xenon lights are good sellers. Sat nav is extremely expensive new (2K) and does not really help resale that much, also iDrive is not the most intuitive system but better than Clarkson says.

 

Thats pretty much what I was thinking,

more likley than not going to end up going for the Bimmer, unless I end up deciding the slash the budget and go for a 1.6 mkV golf (and a couple of weeks skiing powder in Canada.)

 

The sound system is pretty important to me (and I've heard that the standard BM system is truely awful and dosnt even come with tweeters in the front.) To make matters worse they use very thin speakers in the front making replacement with non OEM parts more difficult (the only option being an approved Alpine system thats pretty costly, and I've never been much of a fan of Alpine's sound quality.)

Given I tend to listen to music more in the car than at home, I prefer to try and get as near to the sound quality of my HiFi as possible. The bora did rather well with what was origonally in it (to the point that I havent bothered playing with it), where as the Fiat I had before used a set of high quality component speakers powered by an amplifier. Most annoyingly while I still have these bits at home, they wont fit in the 1 series!

Still not had the 2nd interview for the job yet, so theres still a fair chance that none of this will happen.....

[invercloy]

Easily fit a 4x2 board in the golf, I've had Dunbracken which is 4x1 (almost) and 3 operators as well as stock and gubbins in mine at the same time.

 

I drove a 120d (177bhp) and honestly thought the only good thing about it was the engine, the gearbox is one of the worst i've used (including my 1970's British Lelyand Triumph one on my other car!), rear space is smaller than the Golf, storage in the door pockets and glove box is ridiculously small, and in my opinion it's not as good looking. Golf all the way I say, but then I am about to receive delivery of my second one!

[The Fatadder]

Easily fit a 4x2 board in the golf, I've had Dunbracken which is 4x1 (almost) and 3 operators as well as stock and gubbins in mine at the same time.

 

I drove a 120d (177bhp) and honestly thought the only good thing about it was the engine, the gearbox is one of the worst i've used (including my 1970's British Lelyand Triumph one on my other car!), rear space is smaller than the Golf, storage in the door pockets and glove box is ridiculously small, and in my opinion it's not as good looking. Golf all the way I say, but then I am about to receive delivery of my second one!

 

What BL gearbox would that be?

Always rather liked the 'box in the Spitfire.

[BOARD OF TRADE]

For the last 2 yrs. or so I've driven one of two Renault Megane diesel Estates.Both had about 60,000 on the clock when I first drove them,this week with about 240,00 on the clocks they've gone and in the morning I go into work to drive one of the two '09 models they've replaced them with.

I'm gutted.

It really is like losing an old friend,rock solid whatever the road conditios,never let anyone down,plenty of poke when you needed it and with a steel safe in the back end it was never tail end happy.Great brakes,very comfortable which you need when you drive circa 1000 miles per week,and despite hard usage about 57 m.p.h.(very hard usage about 54 m.p.h.).

I couldn't recommend it any higher.

P.s. Very popular with private hire taxi drivers and they know a thing or two.

[cutting42]

For the last 2 yrs. or so I've driven one of two Renault Megane diesel Estates.Both had about 60,000 on the clock when I first drove them,this week with about 240,00 on the clocks they've gone and in the morning I go into work to drive one of the two '09 models they've replaced them with.

I'm gutted.

It really is like losing an old friend,rock solid whatever the road conditios,never let anyone down,plenty of poke when you needed it and with a steel safe in the back end it was never tail end happy.Great brakes,very comfortable which you need when you drive circa 1000 miles per week,and despite hard usage about 57 m.p.h.(very hard usage about 54 m.p.h.).

I couldn't recommend it any higher.

P.s. Very popular with private hire taxi drivers and they know a thing or two.

 

They must have changed radically as the Megane diesels my company used to get were the biggest bags of spanners ever. The most unreliable cars we ever had, even to the degree where the car manager banned them as they spent more time off the road than on. I am glad they have turned around as apart form the reliability they were cool cars I thought.

[Andel]

Look for a used manual volvo v70 or a Merc E320 estate. I can honestly say you can't go far wrong.

[BOARD OF TRADE]

The two I used were '06 and '07 respectively,I can only speak as I found,very very impressive.

Drove the new '09 today,they've tweaked everything and it was a quiet day so I'll reserve judgement.

My wife drives a Meganne and I drive a Focus,not for any patriotic reasons but because the parts,servicing and hence Insurance is cheaper than a "foreign car".

[cutting42]

The two I used were '06 and '07 respectively,I can only speak as I found,very very impressive.

Drove the new '09 today,they've tweaked everything and it was a quiet day so I'll reserve judgement.

My wife drives a Meganne and I drive a Focus,not for any patriotic reasons but because the parts,servicing and hence Insurance is cheaper than a "foreign car".

 

This was back in 02 so a few years ago now, clearly early day blues. Glad they sorted them.

[87023Velocity]

Hi Rich,

 

Have you thought about a Skoda Octavia VRS Hatch? Same engine as the mk5 GTI, the boot is huge with the seats up never mind with them folded flat. I tried out the PD170 VRS last year when we wear looking for a bigger family car and thought it was great, its all VW/Audi engineering. The only reason I did'nt buy was because we only needed the extra boot space 1-2 times a year, so we bought a roof box - cheaper option for our situation.

 

Cheers

 

Simon

[Ron Ron Ron]

.....My wife drives a Meganne and I drive a Focus,not for any patriotic reasons but because the parts,servicing and hence Insurance is cheaper than a "foreign car".

 

???????

Patriotic reasons?

Is your wife French (with regard to the Megane) ?

or are you an American, German or Spanish (regards the Focus)?

 

.

[Andy C]

Up to a year and a half ago I had a 1 series (116 SE on an 06) and had no problems fitting any one of New Heys boards in (the biggest is 5 foot by 3 at the widest point - it tapers back to 2 foot 6, total height with end protectors on is 22").

 

I never got chance to try Spotland Bridge in it (the layout had gone before I got the car) but i don't think I would have had a problem with it.

 

It was a good motor too, and I miss it - it had to go when because of the business mileage I was putting on it, I decided to bite the bullet and get a lease car from work. Mind you the Mondeo (you could have any car you like so long as it was Ford, vauxhall or Toyota and a diesel) fits a hell of a lot more layout its like sh*t off a chrome shovel from a standing start.

[The Fatadder]

Have you thought about a Skoda Octavia VRS Hatch

 

Dosnt quite do it for me, I am something of a brand snob (I would be one of those people that spends a fortune on designer clothes that railway modellers love to take the **** out of....) to me Skoda just says 'too cheap to buy a golf'

 

Up to a year and a half ago I had a 1 series (116 SE on an 06) and had no problems fitting any one of New Heys boards in (the biggest is 5 foot by 3 at the widest point - it tapers back to 2 foot 6, total height with end protectors on is 22").

 

 

 

Thanks, thats good to hear that the layout aught to fit. Still no news on the job front though unfortunately, so still going to be a fair while until I am able to buy...

[invercloy]

What BL gearbox would that be?

Always rather liked the 'box in the Spitfire.

 

Lots this thread for a bit...

 

Funnily enough, it's the BL box in a '74 Spitfire

 

Dare I open up the reliability comments and suggest a diesel Alfa 147?