I bought a 2002 Volkswagen Golf automatic in June 2006 for £6500. Milage was only 16,000. I used it for the last four years and added 20,000 miles on it, so it has 35,000 miles now. During the last few weeks it started giving problems and the engine started shuddering. On the way to the dealer's it actually broke down and I had to recover it to the dealer for repairs. The Volkswagen dealer has found a couple of faults and the cost of total repairs is £1600! I am very confused as to what to do and need an experienced person to advise me. Would I be better off shelling out £4000 more and buying a Kia Picanto with 7-year warranty (they are offering £1500 for trading in a 7- to 10-year-old car) or should I spend £1600 on an old Volkswagen Golf which has a low milage?


The reason for my confusion is: on one hand if I spent £1600, I still have a VW Golf 35,000 miles car but it is now 8 years old. Someone might have actually bought such car for £1600 as a steal. The online valuation of the car is £2200 but the car has damaged right hand mirror and a scrath on the front bumper. So considering that I myself would have paid £1600 for buying such car. Although I don't know what more faults it could develop being 8 yrs old car. On the other hand if I spend £4000 more I can get a brand new Kia Picanto with 7 years warranty. Now I accept that Kia can not offer quality of VW in terms of drive etc. but at least I will have no major expenses for next 7 years. Having said that I don't know what will happen after 7 years. May be I will have to trade in for another Kia for another £6000. What if I keep reparing VW Golf for another 7 years say £2000 repairs every 4 years? So I will end up paying £4000 on repairs anyways. So why not pay that £4000 extra now and be troubl free for next 7 years? Plus Kia Picanto will cost me less in fuel, road tax every year. I drive 5000 miles per year. VW gives me about 10-15 miles per litre where as Kia claims 40-50 miles per litre. So I will save atleast £200 on fuel. Plus I pay £235 for Tax. With Kia it will be only £90 or so. So another £120 per year saved. Also I won't have to do MOT for 3 years which is say £150 at the least. So over next 3 years I will save: £600 in fuel £360 in TAX £150 in MOT i.e. roughly £1,100 in first 3 years and then about £1200 (TAX & Fuel) for next 4 years. So I will save £2300 for owning Kia over next 7 years as against continuing to own VW for next 7 years. Now I have checked that the insurance premium with Churchill I get more or less the same quote as my VW so no diffrence there. I have heard that the Kia dealership service cost is high and needs servicing every year. Where as VW is about £250 every 2 years and £100 every year for oil change etc. That is £350 for 2 years where as Kia is about £250 every year. So £150 more every 2 years. That is for 7 Years it will be £600 more. Will take tha off from £2300 savings and that makes about £1700. Also I heard that the parts are bit costlier for the eastern cars as well. So brake pads, clutch disks etc. Let's say I spend £100 more every year on an average for next 7 years. That makes my saving down to £1000. Now this is assuming that I spend £4000 on repairs on VW in next 7 years. There is a possibility that I might not spend that much and knowing the quality of VW may be the current expense is the last large expense I have. So lets say I spend only £1000 every 2 years making it £3000 for next 7 years. In that case I break even with Kia. But what If VW costs me more than £4000 in repairs over next 7 years? I can make the same arguments for Hyundai i10 model with 5 years warranty. Need advice as to what would you do if you were in my situation?