New car

[Irishgirl55]

Hoping someone could recommend a decent car.

Both mine and husbands cars have decided to breakdown, I'm due to start maternity leave soon and can do without a car for a while (parents live close and I am insured on their cars).

Husband drives a 2013 petrol astra. He drives 300+miles a week for work. His astra has just hit over 100,000 miles and totally gave up. It might be worth fixing for me to run about in but he needs something that is a bit more economical to run and doesn't have as many problems doing a load of miles. Hes currently spending around £360 on petrol a month.

Can anyone recommend a decent car?

Japanese (not fucking Nissan!) or Korean.

Honda Civic.
Toyota Corolla.
Kia C'eed.
Hyundai I30.

If the first priority is to reduce fuel costs, the most obvious thing to do - especially with that kind of mileage - would be to buy a diesel car. You should be able to knock anywhere between 25% and 40% off the current consumption so even allowing for the slightly higher price of diesel you're well ahead.

Then follows the question about the kind of usage. If it's going to be going into clean air zones such as London ULEZ then it needs to meet Euro 6 diesel emissions standards. If you're buying new then they should be all compliant, used ones were almost all compliant from September 2015 although a few Euro 5 ones were sold up until September 2016 if they had been manufactured before June 2015.

VW TDI engines are capable of colossal mileages and deliver pretty good fuel economy. For something similar to the Astra in size the Golf is the obvious choice, but also consider the Seat Leon and the Skoda Octavia which have the same mechanicals underneath but are probably cheaper on the used market. This is where I'd go.

PSA Groupe (Peugeot, Citroen, DS and now Vauxhall) cars running BlueHDI diesel engines also have a very good reputation for fuel economy and they are very clean engines too. Cars based on the EMP2 platform such as the Peugeot 308 and Citroen C4 are also apparently developing a good reputation for mechanical reliability which French cars never really had previously - this may still be reflected in residual values making these something of a bargain as used cars. I'd look at these too.

The family fleet are all diesel, petrol is just so uneconomical.
Depends on what you want
We tend to run four old ones and one newer.
Diesel K12 Micra its a Renault 1.5 diesel engine as fitted to lots or Renaults and Nissans, 59mpg around town from a 16 year old car with 140,000 miles on just can't fault it, loads forsake under £1000.
Newish diesel Golf, 50odd mpg, nice drive, slower than the older model we had
Citroen sara Picasso, well what a car we cant brake it, 165 000 miles still drives well, spent very little in 6 years mostly tyres as they wear out, its been all over the country, seats unclip and its like a van, Picnic tables for the kids its a tie cheap family car, boots massive too
We buy cheap run about and spend the rest on holidays

Forgot the point never heard one complaint about Kia, so buy one for hubby cheap run around for you

Skodas can deal with the miles. I had an Octavia for 8 years and when I replaced it, it had done 145,000 miles. It lasted another 4 years after that, so assuming it did average mileage over those years, it would have done around 190,000 miles .

"VW TDI engines are capable of colossal mileages and deliver pretty good fuel economy."

LOL

Just about the most overrated pieces of shit out there VWs are. Never once been in the top ten for reliability.

And with the OP's partner doing so much mileage, whats the point of a VW when its guaranteed to breakdown. Korean/Japanese cars will not.

Big difference.

Farting - the big difference is between "capable of" and "guaranteed to". Or, put it another way, between a considered suggestion based on my own experiences, and a sweeping statement based on bluster and hubris.

It's true that as a brand VW's overall reliability perhaps doesn't match its reputation, but if you delve down into the reliability surveys the problems with VAG cars tend to be in areas unrelated to the TDI diesel engines. 15 years ago it was coils on the 1.8T petrols that bumped up overall unreliability, more recently it has been the DQ250 automatic gearbox. Neither anything inherent in the TDI engines.

On all high-mileage cars the engines will eventually fail if they haven't been properly maintained, and non-drivetrain mechanical components like CV joints, suspension bushes and the rest fail with age as well as use. One of the problems that VW have is that repair costs tend to be higher, and there are many more of them on the road than Kias and Hyundais, so there are more stories of things that go wrong from disgruntled customers who perhaps had less realistic expectations.

My 3.0 TDI is 14 years old, on 96,000 miles (almost all in town) and it has never let me down. It still has the original glowplugs and apart from oil changes has never had any engine work done, not even a cambelt as it's chain-driven. My father's 1999 Passat TDI racked up 300,000 km with only routine servicing before he sold it in 2016 to someone still running it now, and my friend's A4 TDI has done 450,000 km. Not to mention all those quarter of a million mile Skoda taxis swarming around.

Contrast with my FIL's Hyundai which had to be scrapped at 80,000 miles because of a split hose. Hyundai UK couldn't supply a replacement part because according to their schematics no such hose existed despite the actual physical reality in front of them.

^

Thanks for highlighting my point - which was that German crapcars will invariably suffer some sort of mechanical failure - its as guaranteed as a broken clock that correctly tells the time twice a day - inevitability, as it were.

Note - I made no reference to the engines specifically.

That your FIL's car was scrapped due to a hose is NOT a mechanical failure.

Big difference.

Both of us drive Renault Lagunas, mine is a 1.5 diesel on 137000, dw's is my old one, a 2.0 diesel on 221000, 2.0 far superior to drive, far more reliable, don't use much more fuel, but is more to tax (17 a month v 30 a year).

Have also had an Octavia 1.9 diesel that got to 270000 before giving up, another Renault 2.0 diesel on 180000, mondeo diesel on 250000

Generally if you keep them serviced diesel will go forever, I do get mine done ahead of when the manufacturer says. And yes, I do astronomical miles!

Am conscious of low emissions rules forthcoming, but electric won't give me the range at the moment