The ones to avoid are the earlier 8 valve EA111 1.2tsi (pre circa 2015)

Having owned the 1.4 Leon for a couple of years we tested a Polo in early 2015 with the 1.2 TSi 90 PS thinking it would be the similar (less power but a lighter car). Total pile of r******, no go at all.

3 years later tried a Fabia with the 1.0 TSi in both 95 and 110 PS versions. Both were great, bought a 110 PS simply because the extra £600 got you not only an extra 15 PS but about 26 torques, a 6 speed gearbox and better brakes, well worth the extra.

, in the Golf it was about 450 miles. We had not moved, the lodge had not moved and the route we took was the same (with a bit more dual carriageway in places). Checked it on the Garmin and that also said about 425 miles thus the Golf odometer was over reading by about 6%.

Interesting. I'll need to check the odometer on my new Swace, The speedo over reads by a few mph. Slightly more annoying as it has the latest speed "notification" gubbins.

Saying that I'm not moaning as that gubbins has saved my bacon once already when on holiday. It beeped at me and I thought "er what" so I slowed down quickly and just around the corner was a speed van - phew!! I drove back down the same road again another day and one speed limit sign was grown over and on the other side of the road it was partially covered. I think the system uses a combination of gps and camera technology. You get a quiet bip as a limit changes - then a few beeps if you are then over the limit although it quickly shuts up.

Edited by Big John on 08/10/2024 at 00:17

Possibly a silly question, but in the original post the OP said they got rid of their old car last year and are still looking for a replacement. What have you been doing in the meantime?

If you've managed without a car at all (or possibly a second car) for nearly a year, do you even need your own car at all? If you only need to drive a few times a month, getting a taxi or hire car for those occasions may be the cheapest option.

Similarly, there's little point in paying thousands of pounds buying a car to avoid paying a few pounds occasionslly to drive in Bristol city centre. The reason why the London ULEZ was so unpopular was because people would have to pay every time they left their house. Most of the other low emission zones only cover very small areas of a city centre, which can be fairly easily avoided most of the time if you have an older car by using the bus or park&ride and taking a different route when crossing town.

Compared to petrol and diesel passenger car percentages of vehicles on the road, EV's haven't made much of an impression in the UK.

2023 figures for UK show only 1.3 % of vehicles in use are BEV's.

58.5% are petrol & 36.1% are diesel

Compared to europe the highest %age of BEV's is 16.2% in Norway but there are still 41.4% of diesel cars in use there.

The lowest is Greece with 0.0% BEV 90.1% petrol and only 8.6% diesel.

The highest diesel usage figure is 67.8% for Lithuania and only 0.3% BEV

Here in France it's 40.1% petrol 55.2 % diesel and 1.0% BEV + a huge amount of charging stations but very few being used.

www.acea.auto/files/ACEA-report-vehicles-in-use-eu...f

I have the www.acea.auto/files/ACEA-report-vehicles-in-use-eu...f

document open on one tab with HJ open next to it and it plainly says 1.3% BEV but the table is titled 2023 in the URL but at the top right as you say in tiny letters it's 2021.

So they got their URL's mixed up - sorry about that, even page one the title page says 2023 in large letters.

But lets face it - even with BEV's at 3% they are still the 8 track stereo of the car market.

I don't think anyone's laughing, its just that battery power doesn't appeal to a hell of a lot of motorists in the first place, and many are not convinced of the financial benefits either especially those who buy their own cars from their net incomes with no access to tax breaks nor those who rely solely on public charging.

Personally i've no axe to grind either way, for those who can take advantage of present tax incentives i don't blame you one bit doing so, i did the same for years running LPG which has now come to a crashing halt following Morrisons suddenly raisng the price of lpg to a ludicrous £1.30 a litre, which is odd when the Shell garage 25 miles away is undoubtably still making a profit at 82p, maybe they wish to drop LPG and making it too expensive will provide the lack of sales excuses needed.

Sooner or later the costs of ownership and running any and all power trains will change and not for the better, all one can do is make the best of what suits you at the time.

In our area (East Yorkshire) LPG filling stations are becoming rare as hens teeth.

The same thing is happening in Australia. There are far fewer LPG cars on the road now and hardly any garages selling it. It has got to the stage where the garage storage tanks are no longer made in Australia and have to be imported from Argentina!

I have a car with dual fuel so I can run it on petrol if need be. I have had 18 years running it on gas and done about 200,000km in that time so it doesn't owe me anything.

Morrisons fuel stations as of a few months ago are now owned and run by the Motor Fuel Group. Everything changed including the staff( a friend of mine was made redundant) , so I'm guessing they are probably not wanting to sell LPG anymore or they know there is limited availability so can charge what they want!

In our area (East Yorkshire) LPG filling stations are becoming rare as hens teeth.

I knew something had gone on, all the old staff vanished a few months ago which was a shame as i'd got to know them well over the years and always had a pleasant exchange, i don't use the main Morrisons shop where the LPG site is as its near my work not my home so don't know if they've been redeployed...hope your friend finds a decent job.

The Shell garage still selling at 82ppl in M'Keynes does a busy trade in LPG, hope for those who can benefit they continue to sell it, we're meeting some family at MK hopefully at weekend so will grab a tankful all being well.