long daily mileage car - what to get next

[happyAvocado]

I drive to work every day doing 55-60 miles each way, so yearly mileage comes to about 32000 miles, mostly on motorway or A roads. On top of that I do perhaps another 8-10K of the usual family driving to classes taking kids there

I am seriously considering changing job as it looks like I am paying almost 20-25% of my salary for commuting :(

But if you had to choose economical car to cope with this long mileage and you had a choice of buying a car (new or second hand) what would you go for?

I am currently driving Vauxhal Vectra 1.9 diesel. It has 84K on the clock, 06 reg. Had to pay 1.5K for replacing clutch & service & a new tyre &MOT. I am not sure if this car will last more than another 3 years with mileage I am doing now.

When I am calculating cost without cost of replacing the car it comes to £400/month in fuel & service/replacement of parts.

So wise car owners - waht would you do (apart from changing job which is at the back of my mind, and I love this job, no stress & possibility of a promotion).

www.hybridcars.com/index.php

this is the way to go with a milage like yours.

With proper servicing and some mechanical sympathy there is no reason why it shouldn't be good for another 90000 (or more) miles. There was a recent article about a million-mile Mondeo.

I often drive 'enthusiastically' and tend to accelerate fairly quickly, flat-shift up gears (now and then, not all the time) and have managed not to shag a clutch in 90K miles in a diesel Passat.

There are lots of economical diesels around now (although real-world mpg will almost always be lower than manufacturers' claims). With that sort of mileage I'd go for a Merc C Class Blue EFFICIENCY.

thanks WMittens for your advice
my car mechanic actually recommended bmw A series as a very reliable car - what is your thought on that?

I guess I need to be more religious about servicing, I relied on the light to inform me, but it failed and I drove well over 10K between servicing

I guess I will drive it until I see it's current fuel consumption going up, I think as now mpg is about 47 I can't complain

BMW don't do an A series; Mercedes do the A Class though. I haven't driven an A class - the new one looks a lot like the BMW 1 Series. I've driven a BMW 116d and it was pretty comfortable, lots of seat adjustment on the model I drove so you'll be able to get it just how you like it. It wasn't particularly inspiring to drive, it was an eco model with Start/Stop so the engine was a bit bland, but was good on fuel.

The last couple of generations of Mondeos have a pretty good reputation, although Ford isn't the last word in reliability. Mazda do have a good name in that area though.

Don't necessarily get hung up on having the most reliable car - you've had the clutch replaced on the Vectra after 84K, and the new one should be good for another 84K (or more) - that's cheaper than a new motor. Just treat these things as consumables, replace them when necessary and the car will keep on going (cambelt may be due a replacement soon). Better the devil you know, sometimes.

sorry - I meant BMW 1 series :) (shows how little I know about cars :) )

we had this cad from day one so I agree - better the devil I know

recommendation of bmw over other makes was based on how well they are built, he said that Mercedes is went worst a few years ago as far as reliability goes whilst bmw still provides solid cars made to last, I think he mention that Merc is getting better but is nowhere near as good as they used to

I would not mind boring car if it provided reliability and a good mpg

40-42k miles for £4800/yr. 11-12p/mile. That's very good value, are you sure you worked it out right? I'm amazed if you're spending as little as that per mile. Best we have got was 20p/mile for variable costs on our old Passat (so not including insurance-MOT-VED or depreciation).

You haven't said how many DC or how old (do they need to be ferried in big seats)? 1.9 sounds awfully big engine for trying to get good mpg.

Do you have 1 or 2 cars in the household?

If 2 I would get something seriously small!

DH does 30K+ miles a year & we bought a slightly-used Kia Ceed diesel 2 & a bit years ago. The warranty is for 7 years/100K miles so the only costs are servicing & tyres, brakes etc - service interval 12.5K

mpg 50-55.

It has been very reliable (up to 85K miles now) - he likes it a lot, it might be a bit small for you?

Kia are Which's new motor manufacturer of the year

definitely worth a look with your mileage

Mini one diesel or bmw 1 series - generally get 60mph and have inclusive service packages
Otherwise a focus diesel or golf bluemotion or any size volvo edrive model .

move house? oj dp does that sort of mileage and his last two cars were peugeot 406 (p reg, picked it up for £800). Its a diesel obviously and his current one has almost 200,000 miles on it and still going strong.He said he is £95 a week for fuel and that is for about 650 miles/week work only, if that helps you compare costs. Had very little trouble with it and has been about £450 over the year for mot/tax/tyres etc. Car previous to that was an Astra and he sold it with over 250,000 miles on the clock and I still see that car out and about sometimes! Unfortunately neither of these are as good looking as a bmw. Have you also thought about car-sharing. Dp bought this car with 4 other people so they each pay £25/week and extra goes into kitty for mot etc.

AdventuresWithVoles fuel efficiency isn't wholly dependent on engine size - small engines are often overstressed; a 'medium'-sized engine tends to show better mpg figures. My 2.2 diesel can regularly manage 54mpg on a mainly motorway journey with a bit of concentration, even more with a bit of luck.

Besides, 1.9 is small in diesel terms.

our diesel ceed (58 plate) is 1.6. Always gets over 50mpg, can get over 55, cruise control helps a lot when roads not congested

we also have an 04 2.0dti Zafira - best I ever get out of that is 45, but it's usually 42-43.

I am a single mum, this car was bought by us when ex got made redundant and was offered it for a good price (it was driven by us from day one)

I will do the calculations again, but what I saw last was about £16/day in fuel where I drive 53-57 miles each way and diesel costs 136.9 here

I am in a habit of resetting that little mileage clock every time I refuel so I never get below certain amount of fuel in the tank as I hate running on red light and knot knowing when I can stall due to an empty tank :)

I can go smaller but as you know - smaller engine doesn't mean better mpg

I feel like creating an online database where people could register put in details of their cars fuel consumption and track it with a graph :)

charlieandlola - Mini one diesel (this years model) or bmw 1 series was exactly what my car mechanic suggested

he said to wait when that mini's are over a year old and buy that for the fact of long journeys I make and the warranty in the second year which would cover anything broken

I wish I could put such mini via company accounts to save on VAT - is not going to happen :)

he told me just replaced gearbox for 2 fords focuses diesel after 30K miles each (newish cars) so that was a model not recommended by him - I wonder what age/models are those which are reliable as opposed to not reliable?

no, it's size of engine relative to size of car that matters - small engine in big car is bad for fuel consumption. DH's commute is 120 miles round trip so fuel cost is around £15 a day (he works in Liverpool & diesel is £1.35 there atm)

before the Ceed we had a 4-yr-old 2-litre Mondeo, which was great on paper but had perennial clutch problems - we paid around £3.5K, for it but it ended up costing us another £2K before we finally got rid & it made DH permanently twitchy about clutches (& other expensive faults )

the 100K mile warranty is such a massive reassurance

Our first Focus was petrol - excellent. Now we have a diesel and it's been nothing but trouble. I do 100 miles a day and in nearly 2 years i've replaced almost everything on it. I don't know how I got such crap.

DH has just retired a petrol Focus that had done 155000 miles (very similar commute to the OP), it's been very little trouble.
My 90000+ focus estate wasn't either.

He has a new focus, 2.6 petrol again (diesels are silly money at the moment), reckons he's getting almost 45mpg which is better than I get from my 1.8 diesel focus estate (horrible 3mile school run on narrow lanes).

My car will do 50mpg on a nice motorway.

DSIS gets 59+ out of her 1.4 diesel fiesta on reasonable quiet A roads.
It's a really sweet little car, but she does 12 miles each way not 50.

1.6 not 2.6

I am rather disappointed thast there's no way to check reliability of car batches - quality control for some manufacturers seem the be non applicable

yest it is combination of engine size/power, car's weight & shape - we do however trust manufacturers that all of those parameters are used to greatedt advantage of the consumer

I had a 2001 2 litre mondeo-£80 every four or so days.

Now I have a Mazda 2, 1.6 sport (pretty much the same spec as the big gas guzzler) £45 every four days. Three months old it cost us £10k

Result!

no, it's size of engine relative to size of car that matters - small engine in big car is bad for fuel consumption. DH's commute is 120 miles round trip so fuel cost is around £15 a day (he works in Liverpool & diesel is £1.35 there atm)

Again, that's not an absolute - the new Focus and Mondeo are going to have a 1.0 Ecoboost engine, with better mpg than the outgoing 1.6.

Now I have a Mazda 2, 1.6 sport (pretty much the same spec as the big gas guzzler) £45 every four days. Three months old it cost us £10k

Result!

Yeah, but remember you've gone from a non-depreciating car to a very quickly depreciating car. As a pure guess the Mazda may depreciate £2000 (or more) in the next year, which is about 57 weeks-worth of fuel difference, so it may be costing you more. No doubt it's better than the Mondeo, though.

I feel like creating an online database where people could register put in details of their cars fuel consumption and track it with a graph

I don't about the graph, but Honest John has a fuel consumption database - how accurate it is is debatable, however.

thanks WMittens for providing me with that link about fuel consumption/mph
it looks plausible what is written there about my model

I wonder what is going to be like for the longevity of the engine for those highly engineered cars - but we are heading oi nthe right direction :)

For a mileage like yours, you will get best results from a diesel engine. Forget hybrid / electric which are mainly suited to urban driving. BMW diesels are very good for economy vs performance but obviously pricey.

For the best economy vs price I would go for one of the VW group 1.6 Bluemotion diesels, which should easily see you exceed 60mpg. For example, a Bluemotion Golf. The same engine can be bought in a Skoda, Seat or Audi should you wish.

The most efficient diesel you can currently buy is in fact a Kia Rio which does nearly 90mpg apparently.

Someone else suggested Bluemotion diesel as well. I guess an engine 1.6 would be appropriate, and the cheapestmodel of those 4 makes.

I calculated a while ago that going from my current fuel consumption to 65 mpg wold save just over £5/day, in a year that saving would come up to around 1K, that would be worth taking into acocunt when buying my next car, not that important when the curerent one is bearable.

The cheapest with that engine is probably the Skoda Octavia Greenline at about £14k new - it does 75mpg combined allegedly.