Volkswagen Golf - New car - VW Golf or alternative

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Tue 15 Mar 2016 11:43
Volkswagen Golf - New car - VW Golf or alternative - Gavlar123

Hi

I’m hoping for some advice as I am looking for a second car to run alongside my 59 plate Corsa 1.4 Design. Looking for petrol as mileage is likely to be 8-10k for both cars combined and plan to keep for 10 years. The plan is for the hatchback to replace the Corsa at the end of its life and would go for large family car thereafter.

I have been looking at hatchback size and in particular the VW Golf in petrol. At £19.5k for brand new (after haggling for cash price) I’m struggling to justify this outlay for a hatchback although the current Match Edition model has a very good specification. The alternative:

Buy used – I have seen a number of 64/15 plates with ‘GD/GK’- Garden of England region registration priced around £14-15k which is not local registration to Edinburgh. Does anyone know why so many appear to be registered at this location and what their early life use has been? Are they ex-fleet / hire cars which have been used for a year / 10k miles before being sold on? Does anyone have any issues or things to be aware with these type of cars?

Other recommendations - Not sure if just my view but the price increases in hatchbacks over last 5 years has been significant driven by VW which Ford/Vauxhall/Kia et all have been following suit. Can anyone recommend another new hatchback in the £15k bracket or alternatively a larger car at £20-22k if to skip the hatchback and go for larger family car now. Wouldn’t be interested in saloon shape due to boot style.

Thanks

Gavlar

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Tue 15 Mar 2016 13:58
Volkswagen Golf - New car - VW Golf or alternative - RobJP

I have to question : why on earth suffer depreciation, servicing, insurance, car tax, etc. on TWO cars which seem to be very similar. Esepcially if you're only looking at a total of 8-10k miles a year for the two put together.

I could almost understand it if you were running (for example) a sports car, and wanted a 4*4 for bad weather / hobbies / rural winter roads, but running 2 bog-standard hatchbacks just seems to be throwing money away.

If you're adamant on a VW but hate saloons (and I can understand that, I find saloon boots to be mostly useless, then might I suggest the Golf estate. Other (very similar) cars are also available from VAG, namely the SEAT Leon possibly in the ST estate version), along with others. They'd be considerably cheaper than a Golf for what is basically the same car with a different badge.

Alternatively, the Toyota Auris is Golf-sized. The 'Touring Sports' (estate to the rest of us) looks very nice. Toyota also have considerably better warranty than VW.

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Tue 15 Mar 2016 21:05
Volkswagen Golf - New car - VW Golf or alternative - oldtoffee

I'm going for a Leon TDi 184 FR hatch at £199 a month on a 2 year lease, roughly the same car as a Golf GTD. There are many good lease deals as long as you do 10k miles a year or less that it doesn't seem worth funding or buying a £22k car and suffering the depreciation.

Edited by oldtoffee on 15/03/2016 at 21:06

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