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Sat 30 Jul 2011 12:40

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - tomstickland

£4K to spend

Must be an estate Ideally a bit more load space than my Golf Mk3 estate

Ideally Diesel

On my hit list were VAG group cars: Golf Mk4, Passat, Octavia, Fabia, A4 etc Plus the other main option of a Focus for handling reasons.

I've had a good look on Autotrader and whittled things down to an example of each to go and look at.

With £4K then the newest Golfs and Fabias I can find are 2006 for cars with around 100K miles on them. Passats and A4s tend to be older for that money.

I worry that the Fabia is more a super-mini estate and with the curvy tailgate on it it won't offer enough storage space.

It looks like I can buy a much newer Focus for the same money - there are 2007 TDCis with around 80-90K on them.

Much as a I love the VAG cars, I reckon I can pick up a newer Ford for the same money.

Yesterday I had a look at two Octavias that were just over £4K. I thought that they were a bit scabby for the price being asked.

I have some urgency here. I was rear ended in a queue pile up last week and my Golf Mk3 is driveable but an economic write off. I've been offered £475 for it if they take it away or £350 if they keep it. If I go for the first option then I need an estate car by next weekend. I've got a very nice loan car from the insurance company - a brand new 318D sport. But I can't fit stuff into the back of it that I need too. I could ask for it to be replaced I suppose.

So, the question is: is there any good reason why a Focus could be a mistake? Expensive issues that explain people offloading the cars when they're 4 years old.

Edited by tomstickland on 30/07/2011 at 12:41

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 13:58

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - bazza

Why diesel? Possible very expensive repairs looming on anything at that price bracket and mileage. Too much downside, unless you do a very high mileage or absolutely need a diesel for towing etc. I run an Octavia tdi, 92K, 8 years old now and although the engine is perfect (touch wood) last 3 years it's cost me around £1500 to service/replace bits and pieces, mainly suspension and brakes, so it's not just about engine mileage. A modern-ish diesel can easily sting you for a couple of grand, if you're unlucky. Personally, I would go for a lower mileage petrol Focus /Octavia etc at that price, find a nice well looked after one, you'll get a newer car with less downside.

Or-- limit your potential loss by picking up something much cheaper than £4K, say £2K, then the biggest bill you can have is £2K!! - if you see my logic.

. Big petrol engined estates seem pretty unloved at the moment, choose carefully and I reckon there are bargains out there. Just need to do the sums and work out what's best for yourself.

Or - get the Gof fixed up as cheap as poss, use scrap bits etc, get it legal and drive it until it dies- probably what I'd do. Gd luk!

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 14:11

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - tomstickland

I'm going to keep the Golf anyway - looks like I can make money back on the tyres, suspension kit (I fitted a Weitech lowering kit) and its scrap value.

I've not spent anything on it over the last 6 months because I knew that the upcoming MOT would be make or break time. I can drive it untilt he MOT and then make a decision on that.

The main issue with it is that the rear end of the car has been distorted so the tail gate seal now has a 1.5" step in it at two points. This means that it's leaking and is pulling exhaust fumes in.

It cost me £450 to buy 2 years ago and I spent around £1500 on it to bring the suspension and brakes up to standard. So it's cost me less than £100 a month to own and saved me £100 a month in fuel. So it owes me nothing at all.

I've got the money available and I want to buy something that is a bit cleaner. The Golf was keyed before I bought it plus is has several dents and rust patches and welded up sills. All good fun, but I want something that looks better really.

I will look at the petrol/diesel question a bit more closely. Paying a bit more for fuel is a way of paying in the future which might mean I can buy more car for my money now.

I do like Diesel engines though and do enough miles (15-20K) to justify it.

Expensive failures do concern me though.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 14:37

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - tomstickland

I'm not getting too much coming up on Autotrader locally when I go from diesel to petrol.

I am prepared to go national if it's a good car, so I'll take a look at that next.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 14:40

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - tomstickland

£3K for something like this as opposed to £4K for Diesel equivelent.

www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/20112940549...p

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 21:32

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - tomstickland

I went to look at that car this afternoon.

Immaculate interior, few scuffs on the outside. Good mechanical condition apart from brake judder due to the discs corroding.

The 2.0 petrol engine is uninspiring, but it does what it's supposed to do and is quite fuel efficient - I got 40mpg from doing 80 along the motorway and stop start back to the dealers.

I don't care what the image is. It's a workhorse that I want.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 19:42

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - Avant

"Much as I love the VAG cars, I reckon I can pick up a newer Ford for the same money."

I think you can. Fords depreciate faster as there are more of them about: the Focus estate isn't in the same oversupply as the hatch, but I suppose the value aligns with the hatch. There's also a bit of an image problem in some people's eye - the man who's come to mend the photocopier is probably in a Focus estate if not an Astra.

So potentially a good buy secondhand: a lot of fleet cars, like Fords, are disposed of after a fixed 3 or 4 year term regardless of condition or mileage.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 20:27

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - Alby Back

"Image" tends to be more of an issue to the person in the car than the one outside it. People agonise about these things mostly unneccessarily. Ask yourself, do you really care what anyone else drives? So, why would they care what you drive? See what I mean?

Have a Focus. Good cars. Almost as good as Mondeos...

:-)

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 21:33

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - tomstickland

I spotted that petrol focus on Autotrader myself. I went to take a look this afternoon. If I had to buy a car right now then I'd take it. It was a clean example.

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Sat 30 Jul 2011 21:42

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - tomstickland

The novelty of my insurance loan car has worn off. It's a new 318D sport.
Goes alright but the auto box is too slow, even in manual paddle mode.

Combined with a crashy ride, tramlining and inability to go in a straight line it's nowhere near as satisfying as my old E30 318iS was. I think I even prefer my Golf Mk3.

Push it a bit along A roads and it can come together, but on narrow B roads it tramlines and pulls around.

With a manual box it might be alright.

Still, I'm not complaining, it's a nice loan car.

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Sun 31 Jul 2011 13:15

passat golf octavia fabia a4 focus - £4K estate dilemma - corax

Combined with a crashy ride, tramlining and inability to go in a straight line it's nowhere near as satisfying as my old E30 318iS was. I think I even prefer my Golf Mk3.

Push it a bit along A roads and it can come together, but on narrow B roads it tramlines and pulls around.

You don't buy a BMW for the comfy ride unless it's a 7 series. Your description sounds just right - good when you start to push the car. Sounds like it's fitted with runflat tyres, which don't help at all. I found with my E36 that it wasn't a particularly good cruiser - not particularly stable in a straight line, but made sense when you got onto sweeping A roads where the steering was a delight. But for cruising I would rather have something like an Audi as their nose heavy design and suspension set up seems to make them very stable at high speed in a straight line - but not as much fun around corners. My old Audi 90 Quattro was fantastically stable on the motorway whatever the weather, and so was my Audi 80 TDi.

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