Uncle Henry's world car- Mondeo Estate

Ex day rent - under 10K and around £18K

Motorpoint have 2014 2.0 diesel Avensis for £12 to £14K, with only about 10K miles giving you a useful purchase cost saving. That's 4 years warranty or 90000 miles left. Much more likely to give you trouble free motoring than your other choices. As Avant says, put the Octavia on your list IF you want a VAG group car, but I find my own tdi very noisy and harsh on the motorway, wouldn't want to do 30K a year in one without ear plugs!. Is a Merc C Class in budget, or maybe a used Lexus for refinement?

Surely this isn't a problem with a 3 year old BMW. It was on the 5 year old ones, I had a 08 520D and it did 88000 miles without breaking it's chain. I've got a new 520 now, nice car ideal for the OP.

Morning All,

I've just joined, so reading my first thread and really interesting. I drive about 20K per year but its personal commute to work and traveling. So I'm looking for similar type car. I've got on my list the 320D estate, Octavia 2.0TDi, Mondeo 2.0Tdi (for that money you would get a Titainuim X Sport). I'm sure all 3 would return close to 50MPG at cruising speed.

At the moment my order of preference is:-

1 - Mondeo - probably not best economy, but for money will get 14 plate good spec, good drive

2 - BMW - should see high 40's MPG but would be out of warranty for this price, RWD drivers car tempting.

3 - Octavia - probably the best economy, bit bland to look at and drive, sensible option but I'm not sure I'm that sensible.

Cheers all, Happy New Year.

Mark.

As you're doing the kind of mileage where the car will be worth next to nothing anyway when you get rid of it, there is little benefit in a 'premium' brand car unless you want it for 'image' reasons. Generally, they just cost more to run without being much more reliable.

I strongly agree. I've been doing a high-ish mileage since about 1993 (not 30k though) so have tried different ways over the years. I now buy a car presuming I will be throwing it away after my ownership.

I recently parted company with my great 2003 Superb I 1.9pd after 170k reliable miles (original battery, clutch , exhaust). I bought at 18months old in 2005 for £8.5k - capital costs £850 /year + reasonable servicing, cheapish tyres (205/55 R 16) & 50mpg

It was replaced this June with a 14 plate Superb II 1.4tsi (yes petrol!) bought at 14months old (14k miles) for just over £10k. Still cheapish tyres (205/55 R 16 ) and I'm averaging about 46.5 mpg so far (much to my surprise - had estimated 42mpg from HJ's real mpg figures)

With high mileage tyre choice is important. You don't want tyres that last 15k miles and cost £250 a corner - If you do 30k miles that's about £2k year in tyres alone!!!! My Superb I did 35kmiles on Michelins and cost £72 a corner - My Superb II is running on the original Continentals which still have over 6mm on them after 25k miles (looking good!)

Car tax nearly irrelevant except the highest bands compared to the other costs!

In summary at 30k miles a year do your research and as a previous poster has mentioned some warranties can be your friend but depreciation is your enemy so at that mileage simply plan on throwing away at the end! Take into account all costs including servicing, TYRES and fuel.

Edited by Big John on 31/12/2015 at 22:44

Of those three I'd go for the Avensis, partly because it's more likely to be reliable over a high mileage, and also because the performance of the VAG 1.6 diesel is adequate but no more - probably verging on the sluggish in the bigger Passat (I've only tried one in a Yeti courtesy car).