Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate

Honest John Back Room » Motoring discussion
What is life like with your car? Let us know and win £500 in John Lewis vouchers | No thanks
View Threaded
Sun 17 Aug 2014 12:41
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - Paul T G

I have just retired and am looking for a family sized estate with auto gearbox.

It will be used for camping abroad and locally too.

I plan to buy nearly new and expect to keep it up to 6 years.

I also want reasonable performance (0-60 in 10s), reasonable economy (40 mpg) and reasonable service costs.

I’m not interested in badge snobbery.

I have a 20k budget max.

My options so far are :

Mondeo estate 163bhp Titanium X auto

Insignia estate 163 bhp auto

VW Passat estate 177 ps DSG

Skoda Superb estate 1.8 TSI DSG

Volvo XC60 D4 181 auto (dreaming…)

Most of these are diesel, and whilst petrol is an option new, it seems most fleet cars that appear on the second hand market are diesel.

In view of the bad press on diesels and DPFs I would rather have petrol.

Which is the best of the bunch and is there any other cars I should consider.

I could wait until March before buying.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 12:53
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - daveyK_UK

Toyota avensis estate

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 12:55
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - daveyK_UK

Toyota avensis estate

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 12:59
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - Alby Back
Hello Paul, for my tuppence worth, I'd be concentrating on finding a Mondeo estate from your list.

I've had 5 of them in various guises over the years and every one of them was a pleasure to own and drive. No unforseen problems with any of them despite huge mileages, cavernous interiors and very very good to drive.

However, ;-)

My latest car ( well I've had it three years ) is a Merc E class estate. Different league, nothing to do with badges frankly, just a superb car. Well worth a look if you can find one to suit your tastes and budget. With £20k to spend you could get a very nice, not very used example and I'd lay odds it'd sail through your six year plan and still be worth something when it had, which might not be the case with some of the others.

Edit - I'd not be risking a dsg personally. Not for a long term investment anyway. Others may quite reasonably differ but barge poles come to mind.

;-)

Edited by Alby Back on 17/08/2014 at 13:02

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 13:20
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - gordonbennet

I'd agree with Alby, MB if you want to spend the figure you mentioned, if you can make do with smaller then C Class.

Also agree about avoiding weird gearboxes unless selling soon as makers short warranty expires.

Course you could nearly halve that budget, buy a petrol auto Avensis Tourer instead, only fly in the ointment there is the idiotic electric parking brake, and whilst Toyota are generous with good will, if you keep it 6 years then unless Toyota offer an extended goodwill style warranty on the thing (as they have done with some engines) the chances are that any EPB failure could cost serious money.

Normal V70 is another possibility, again i believe later models have EPB, which may or may not bother you, but Volvo's auto gearboxes seem to be as expensive to fix as VW/Audis, whether they last longer, doesn't everyones, i haven't a clue.

Edited by gordonbennet on 17/08/2014 at 13:21

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 17:04
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - oldtoffee

Avenis 1.8 petrol auto is probably the only petrol auto option that will give you the space and the performance and economy you want with no diesel failure worries. I've had a Mondeo diesel estate and liked it a lot, very big car, terrific drive but not sure I'd spend my own money and expect 6 years of hassle free motoring from it though.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 18 Aug 2014 18:25
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - corax

A few diehards on Pistonheads who have driven and owned a lot of German metal recommend one of these as being totally bombproof. Whether GB would agree I don't know as I know he has a lot of knowledge concerning Mercedes.

tinyurl.com/mwuacfh

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 18 Aug 2014 19:23
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - gordonbennet

I know just a teeny bit about Benz' me old mate, and most of it completely useless information.:-)

So long as thats a facelift model, it should be in theory, then i would agree its as good a bet as anything else out there, but i can never recall how to tell the outside difference between pre and facelift in the W211.

I know a chap who runs private hire E220 Diesels for over 400k miles virtually trouble free before selling them on, these are serviced from day 1 by my venerable indy and driven to chauffer standard so they do have everything in their favour to be fair.

Was quite tempted when Addison Lee were selling their 08 plate E220's for around £11k with just over 100k miles on them.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 18:40
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - barney100

Volvo V70, will do anything you ask of it and if you want long term ownership it is capable of mega miles and years.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 18:52
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - Graham567

I would second the Mondeo. Beautiful car to drive and mine( diesel) has been totally reliable for the 5 years i have had since new.The dpf has given no trouble even though i only do local trips and regens every 600 miles or so.The taxi drivers round me drive the mk4 Mondeo's and they will do starship miles.

I haven't heard of any problems with the auto boxes fitted to the Mondeo unlike the DSG's of the VAG group.I get 38 to the gallon round town and 54 on the motorway.

For your budget you could get a pre-reg brand new Titanium X which would give you many years of service and comes with all the toys you could think of.

Highly recommended.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 20:00
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - double_tap_that

20k on a mondeo, 6 years down the road its worth 6k?

Buy a better quality car thats got better reputation...Toyota Avensis.

Plus it wont depreciate as heavy as mondane "o"

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Sun 17 Aug 2014 23:27
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - Paul T G

Thanks to everyone for you comments.

Back to my spreadsheet I think........

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 18 Aug 2014 01:23
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - Avant

No-one's yet mentioned the Mazda 6: avoid the diesel like the plague, but petrol ones have a very good reputation, and I think they have a proper handbrake. Otherwise I'd agree with Mondeo or Volvo as above.

The Skoda or VW with DSG could still be a possibility, as the problems have been with the 7-speed dry-clutch DSG fitted to smaller cars. The estates you're looking at have a 6-speed wet-clutch DSG and these have been OK over high mileages.

Reply | Report as offensive | Link
Mon 18 Aug 2014 20:07
Mondeoondeo - best family auto estate - sandy56
suggest you look at the Peugeot 508 estate auto- there is a 2l and a 2.2 l version- both well proven engines and gearbox ( as also used by Ford and others)
You will get a newish one for that sort of money.
Reply | Report as offensive | Link

If you cover no more than 100 miles per day and have easy access to a charging point at home or work, then an EV is ideal for you.

Is an electric car right for me?