Please put DH out of his misery!

[higgle]

DH has a 200 Honda Civic 2.2 diesel ES. he bought new and he uses it mainly for a long motorway commute and it is our "best" car for outings. We only have one DS at home now and he is off to uni in the autumn, so the car ( apart from having enough space for DS and his stuff to go to uni) only has me and the dog and odd bits in it at anyone time, with DH.

Honda has now done 97,000 and DH thinks it is time to change it but he can't find anything else he likes and can afford. So far he has looked at:

Another Honda Civic - the new range isn't as nicely finished as his, can't get leather seats as an option.

Hyundi 130 (?) not nice to drive

Audi A1 - cramped, sales staff not interested in talking to us

Ford Fiesta top of range - still in the runing but no one can say if we can fit a tow bar

Toyota Auris - not nice inside, not very nice to drive.

Volvo 40 something - didn't like it.

He says he is not a "Golf person" and is going to test drive a Seat Leon next week. He is driving me mad constantly internetting getting quotes and being unable to decide what to do. We can't afford a merc or a BMW, he doesn't like minis and the main criteria is that it should be reliable and do oodles of miles to the gallon of, preferably, diesel. Do I have to call the vet in or are there any other options we should look at?

Why change it? I assume it's still reliable? No point spending a load of money for something that's a bit more economical as the fuel savings will never meet the additional expenditure. I'm guessing he's not a keen driver as he wants an economical diesel. Japanese is usually the way forward for reliability so the Civic makes sense, just keep it.

Why change?
My Peugeot has done almost 200,000 and still drives perfect.
Now whet ever budget you have put £500 under the bed to keep the Honda going and blow the rest on a holiday

The Civic EX comes with leather interior.

Fiesta - you can fit a towbar. car-towbars.com/towbars/product.php?vtId=238

Although, when you say "top of the range" is it the ST? I don't think the ST was type approved for towing so it wouldn't be able to. If you go for a Zetec S it would (should) be fine.

thanks for all the replies - I think he should keep this car and save up for a Civic EX, which we can't really afford at the moment. The Fiesta was a diesel, one of the new super economic ones and in the top trim - I've seen so many cars over the last few weeks I've forgotten the proper names of most of them.

Has he ever tried a Golf? He's missing out.

Golfs are seriously boring however can be pretty good if you just want transport and don't really care about cars.

I think he is in denial about how nice a Golf is, just says he is not a Golf sort of person. The thing is that all of these cars are £16-20K + (except the Fiesta)and the EX is even more. His problem is that he wants a new car, but for that money it has to be exactly right for him, and none of them are quite what he wants. He is a bit like the people on Location x3 who can't accept compromise.

I have a civic 2.2 diesel EX,2006 ,and its fantastic.Fast when I need it to be,but still gives me 45mpg round town,.

Astra?

we have an Audi A3 Sportback diesal and it's great plus really economical. I've had it since March and filled it up 3 times. I use it every day to and from work plus any running about for the kids. £60 per month for fuel has over halved our fuel bill

Don't change it. Hondas are among the most well-made cars in existence and 97,000 miles is nothing. It's probably good for 300k if you look after it. Unless you actually want a different car for its own sake (a perfectly reasonable reason for getting a new car), it is almost never worth changing your old one on economic grounds until it is starting to cause real trouble. Remember that the depreciation on even a nearly-new 2-year-old family car is several hundred pounds a month. That pays for a lot of repairs. And hanging on to an old car is greener, too.