I have a short list of –

Golf
Civic – for parking reasons
Corolla / Auris
Mazda 3
Seat Leon

SWMBO has ruled out a Kia C’eed (for good reason) and Focus as we don’t want a Ford.

Personally liking the look of the 1.6 golf, but not sure if engine issues could be a problem, also boot is a little small.

Let me know your thoughts please, and if there’s any reason to consider anything else or to consider spending more / less.

Don’t want diesel as its too expensive and the current one has been a let down.

These are great – if boring

What about a 320i BMW? You’ll get a good one for 6K

Focus as we don’t want a Ford.

can i ask why?

gets 5 stars in whatcar

ours is great!

The Focus has been ruled out on the basis that we currently have a bad un.

You’ll get a better Leon that you will a Golf…many of the same parts, just a cheaper interior.

I like the look of the Leon from the outside, that central console is pretty hideous.

Of those I’d get the Toyota.

I like Japanese cars because they are reliable, cheap to run and well thought out.

I can’t help much but I would suggest look for the most boring cars as they are cheaper second hand. I got a Passat for less than the price of a Golf because it’s a grey saloon boring thing and considered too big for many. And less trendy.

I love it tho 🙂

I like Japanese cars because they are reliable, cheap to run and well thought out.

Hahhahahahahhahhahhahhahhahhahhahhahhahhaa!

Ha!

We have a 4 yr old Mazda Sport that is beset with electrical problems (doors not locking, electric windows not operating) and been in for a very expensive brake repair (although we got Mazda to cough up 50% of the cost as it was recently out of warranty).

So if you do go for a Mazda steer well clear of the >Sport variants as the brake problems only effect the DCS system and as the <TS2 variants don’t have DCS, they don’t get that problem. And we struggle to get 28mpg from it too.

(But of you do want a low mileage Mazda 3 Sport with 26k on the clock we are selling it soon)….

And we struggle to get 28mpg from it too

I’d have thought the ‘Sport’ badge might have been a clue? Never got more than 30mpg out of the Cupra, no matter how restrained I tried to be.

FWIW I’ve had no problems with multiple Mazdas and Toyotas, but then I had no trouble with a Lotus either so I might just be lucky.

The Seat Leon Cupra though always had something wrong with it, just a niggle or something bad. It was a nice car when working but I think I’d go VW in preference – better resale, and they seem to stay the course judging by the amount of Mk1 Golfs and Polos I see around. Open the bonnet of the Seat and everything was branded Audi (hoses etc) apart from the plastic cover bit, but mine just didn’t seem to hang together right.

From your list I’d go for an older model Civic – I take it the parking issues are due to the new style weird ass rear window? I had a type R on loan for a while and it was fine to park otherwise.

I’d have thought the ‘Sport’ badge might have been a clue? Never got more than 30mpg out of the Cupra, no matter how restrained I tried to be.

Agreed but it is WAY worse than official figures suggest.

Urban 30.4 mpg
Extra Urban 52.3 mpg
Combined 41.5 mpg

Even on long trips we can’t get more than about 32mpg and I generally stick to speed limits on motorways (especially on long trips whn I want to stay nice and relaxed).

I get way better consumption from my TT and I rag that all over the place all the time whereas in the Mazda we almost exclusively have the children in it so I drive very sensibly.

The Mazda forums are awash with people saying how bad they are on fuel.

I like Japanese cars because they are reliable, cheap to run and well thought out.

Hahhahahaha

Mate you cannot deny that ON AVERAGE they are very reliable. That doesn’t mean that every single one will be perfectly trouble free.

*sigh at having to explain statistics again* 😉

Mate
How condescending are you trying to sound?

The Mazda 3 Sport has a very bad reputation mainly due to the DCS problem I mention above…

Please click this link and be informed (mate)

And I was just beginning to think you were a pretty okay bloke really.

On balance I’m going with the figures provided by what car.

What Car? 10 most reliable manufacturers:

1. Honda
2. Subaru
3. Mitsubishi
4. Lexus
5. Toyota
6. Mazda
7. Nissan
8. Skoda
9. Kia
10. Mini

I have a Honda because I boringly like to get where I’m going and stuffily enjoy my car starting everyday and then working as it should…

Mate you cannot deny that ON AVERAGE they are very reliable. That doesn’t mean that every single one will be perfectly trouble free.

If you truly understood statistics, you wouldn’t use the word average, as it is almost always totally misrepresentative of the population that that is being observed by the statistics! 😉

Anyway, £6k on a car… You’ve had a bad experience with a Diesel Focus, fair enough. Get out there and try a few more cars… I’d be inclined to look at diesel Skoda Octavias (same platform as Golf), possibly the Leon (if you can look past it’s interior), maybe even go for something like a slightly older BMW 3 series touring. Of the Japanese cars you mention, none will set your world on fire, Honda (still) looks wackiest, but is actually pretty sensible and has a particularly good diesel engine, the Toyota will be pretty dull but again good diesel engines in particular and mega reliable, the Mazda is just a rebadged Ford Focus. So if you didn’t like the Focus…

How many miles a year do you do?

the Mazda is just a rebadged Ford Focus. So if you didn’t like the Focus…

This is very true.

But saying that, I found the Focus to be a nicer drive when we test drove them both at new but my wife didn’t want one as they are too common so went for the Mazda 3 instead. If it was me choosing I would have gone for the Focus.

Mileage is less than 10k pa, most of the journeys about 2×7 mile round trips to work for the wife.

Octavia is bigger than we need, don’t fancy diesels as petrol is comparatively cheap as chips.

“parking reasons” on the Civic? They’re not that bad IME, but parking sensors help.

Just about everything these days is harder to park than older stuff, front corners are especially hard to judge and window-lines have been getting higher and higher meaning the bottom of the rear window has followed suit.

edit: definitely go petrol. The Honda diesel is pretty good as diesels go but will barely warm up on a 7 mile journey, and until it does the consumption is pretty poor.

I concur with the Ford Focus issue, if I didn’t think I could make some useful money from selling it on and I owned a gun I would shoot it and put it out of it’s misery. It is five years old in August with 47k on the clock and every few months I have some repair that costs between £100 & £400 oh and the air con doesn’t work. Thankfully I have a new golf on order so I just need to be tender with it until the back end of June.

My wife’s Honda is six years old with 58k on the clock and we replaced a suspension link arm after hitting 4″ ramp at roadworks along Loch Lomand and I had to glue the Honda badge back on the front that’s it.

From your list I would go for the Golf.

From the people that sell after-market warranties so you’d expect they’d have some good data

http://www.reliabilityindex.com/

I just bought a lovely A3 tdi quattro sport for 6k.

That’s a good site uplink.

And interesting to see that 50% of faults on the Mazda 3 are with the braking system and an stunning £655 average repair price!

http://www.reliabilityindex.com/reliability/search/92

😯

(And with 30% on axle and suspension faults reflects our experience with horrid tyre wear (average 12k on front tyres for us) which is again a common fault with that car).

Agreed but it is WAY worse than official figures suggest.
Urban 30.4 mpg
Extra Urban 52.3 mpg
Combined 41.5 mpg

Even on long trips we can’t get more than about 32mpg and I generally stick to speed limits on motorways (especially on long trips whn I want to stay nice and relaxed)

That is indeed pretty sucky, I get better than that out of a fully laden people carrier at a brisk trot (you can’t get on the M4 below 80 these days).

I wonder what the point of official figures are to be honest, they never seem to be accurate, and there appears to be no redress if it doesn’t live up to expectation.

Mk.1 Focus ST170 estate.

Great handling and will fit Albania in the boot.

I wonder what the point of official figures are to be honest, they never seem to be accurate, and there appears to be no redress if it doesn’t live up to expectation

No – it is a pain and most reviews I have ever read flag up the fuel consumption as being a major downside to that model. But we decided not to listen as it just looks so much nicer than the more basic models with its sport pack 🙁

Mate
How condescending are you trying to sound?

Not at all – full apologies. But still on average Japanese cars are reliable but you have shown that you do have to do your research since it’s obviously not the case that every single Jap car ever made was bombproof.

I am surprised at the fuel economy stats, and also the reliability issues to be honest. Mazda have a good rep, perhaps that car is just a bad one.

EDIT Just seen that Ford were involved – nuff said 🙂

I wonder what the point of official figures are to be honest, they never seem to be accurate

They’re not supposed to be claims of economy in any way. What they are is the results of a standardised test FOR COMPARISON PURPOSES. So you can compare two cars.

It used to be the case that you could roughly expect to see the combined figure in a typical car, but that isn’t necessarily the case any more because the manufs have become good at frigging the tests. And they don’t all frig them in the same way so the comparison thing isn’t as useful as it was.

Still it’s all we really have.

Fair enough – but the point I was making was that this particular model has a reputation for being unreliable with the one specific fault (DCS) being the main culprit (and the issues with tyre wear and fuel consumption regularly coming up). Even that reliablity site (link above) seems to bear this out with 50% of problems being with the braking system.

In fact one of the reasons we went for the Mazda was the belief we should be getting a bombproof reliable Jap car and it has turned out to be one of the worst cars I have had (along with my (dis)Astra and a Citroen ZX).

Absolutely, no arguments there. But despite one turkey model, on average Jap cars are reliable, as the stats show.

How useful this average figure is another question.

Agreed.

I guess I knee-jerked to the original statement as MY experience with Jap cars has been anything but the one I would have expected.

For balance, my Jap car has never done anything other than work perfectly 🙂

There’s a nice Skoda Fabia going for that sort of money

what about an 08 Skoda Fabia in orange / Bronzy colour ???

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/elderly-neighbour-and-webuyanycarcom

edit … damn … beaten to it !!!

You might consider a low-mileage Fabia

See Molgrips… It’s not just me…

Mazda 3 (the worst car I’ve ever owned – from new as well)

From this thread

😛