New daily driver suggestions £6K

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Basically my Corolla T Sport is starting to rot away and I am after a practical daily driver for work & in the winter. I have a MAX budget of £6K and am after something with a bit of poke and can be lightly modified & mapped if turbo. I do all of my own car work / repairs so no issue there regarding labour cost.

All I can honestly think is either a Civic Type R FK2 or a MK5 Golf GTI around 60 - 80K miles; pretty boring I know. Just looking for any other suggestions.
 
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Have to admit, we had a Civic TypeR FN2 and it was fantastic, cost us nothing in 5 years and was like new when a local garage wrote it off after we'd dropped off there for an MOT. Miss that car, just great looking, reliable and bombproof, quick, comfy... for a hot hatch, just superb imho. I'd have that over a golf any day of the week. Most others cost money... Honda's don't with the two we've owned.
 
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Renault Megane fits the bill lots of modding potential. RS250 version in black for a while on autotrader for just under £7K but needs a bit of work doing to it!
 
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Have to admit, we had a Civic TypeR FN2 and it was fantastic, cost us nothing in 5 years and was like new when a local garage wrote it off after we'd dropped off there for an MOT. Miss that car, just great looking, reliable and bombproof, quick, comfy... for a hot hatch, just superb imho. I'd have that over a golf any day of the week. Most others cost money... Honda's don't with the two we've owned.
Wrote it off as in crashed it or into it?

OP you could get a Mk3 Focus 1.6 Ecoboost 182PS?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202105122519603
 
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Wrote it off as in crashed it or into it?

OP you could get a Mk3 Focus 1.6 Ecoboost 182PS?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202105122519603
Yeah so basically, I got a phone call couple of years ago, saying we're sorry, your car is wrote off. Basically a lorry park is next to the garage (one I rarely use anyway, but needed MOT asap), and as they were driving the Civic into the garage a lorry came around and completly front ended it... smashed the engine, bent the chassis and basically insurance wrote it off was gutted... we got £5,500 back which was around the going price at the time (2 year ago)... so not all bad but was still a great car.
 
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You're just about scraping into Fiesta ST's at that price i think, everyone seems to rave about them apart from the slightly harsh ride.

Lots of aftermarket stuff for them around but is a smaller car than you're looking at but probably not by much?
 
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Basically my Corolla T Sport is starting to rot away and I am after a practical daily driver for work & in the winter. I have a MAX budget of £6K and am after something with a bit of poke and can be lightly modified & mapped if turbo. I do all of my own car work / repairs so no issue there regarding labour cost.

All I can honestly think is either a Civic Type R FK2 or a MK5 Golf GTI around 60 - 80K miles; pretty boring I know. Just looking for any other suggestions.
Im assuming you mean FN2 Type R, not FK2.FN2 is a great car, hard to beat for the price really.

You can probably squeeze in to a 335i for that money too. They have a reputation of being unreliable with the N54, but if your DIYing then it won't be to bad anyway. Has 4 or 5 seats, plus will make an easy 450bhp with bolt ons, will make 600 plus on stock internals with a pair of hybrid turbos. Very DIY friendly with a massive community around it.
Edit: Just had a look at the 335i market, you will be looking at a car with around 100k miles, if the car has had its injectors, turbo wastegates, water pump, valve cover, valve cover gasket, oil filter housing gasket, AC Pulley done, then it should be rock solid.

The 335i is in a whole other league compared to the FN2 / Golf. Obviously at the cost of reliability.
 
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Soldato
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Im assuming you mean FN2 Type R, not FK2....
FN2 is a great car, hard to beat for the price really.

You can probably squeeze in to a 335i for that money too. They have a reputation of being unreliable with the N54, but if your DIYing then it won't be to bad anyway. Has 5 seats, plus will make an easy 450bhp with bolt ons, will make 600 plus on stock internals with a pair of hybrids.....
Carwow did a video on this not so long ago (Fn2).
 
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Have to admit, we had a Civic TypeR FN2 and it was fantastic, cost us nothing in 5 years and was like new when a local garage wrote it off after we'd dropped off there for an MOT. Miss that car, just great looking, reliable and bombproof, quick, comfy... for a hot hatch, just superb imho. I'd have that over a golf any day of the week. Most others cost money... Honda's don't with the two we've owned.
I'd also echo these sentiments about the FN2. It wasn't any more hassle to run than my 1.8 regular joe civic that I had at the same time and in some cases even cheaper (clutch change cost about £70 less on the Fn2 for example). Aside from only having 3 doors it was every bit as practical as the normal car which was surprisingly practical for the size of it.

The downside of both of them were the air conditioning was broken on both and each of them had the electric folding mirrors fail (about £35 to get the replacement part iirc). The FN2 is also about what you'd expect on fuel around town getting ~25mpg but sort of **** on the motorway just barely breaking into the 30s with cruise control on at ~65mph. I think the issue is that 6th gear still puts it at a very high RPM so it's never really settled at higher speeds. It's also an extremely harsh car in terms of suspension. I had just come from a 350z and the Type R felt considerably stiffer over bumps.

Even with all that though it was a lot of fun and one that I regret selling. I'm not sure what the market's like now, but at the time of selling mine I had literally no interest and ended up selling it to a friend's dad for £3k so you can probably get a fair amount of movement on the price if you end up going for one.
 
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Abarth 500s are a bargain now. I picked one up for a new daily. Great fun to drive and it rides much better than the mk7 Fiesta ST I had. The T-Jet engines also tune really well, I think they came with forged internals from Abarth. Cheap insurance too and tax isn't bad.

If you go for a high miliage one expect to have to do some suspension work though. That is the weak point with them.
 
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I had just come from a 350z and the Type R felt considerably stiffer over bumps.

Even with all that though it was a lot of fun and one that I regret selling. I'm not sure what the market's like now, but at the time of selling mine I had literally no interest and ended up selling it to a friend's dad for £3k so you can probably get a fair amount of movement on the price if you end up going for one.
That's mad as we replaced our FN2 with a 350Z Roadster which the missus still has... and I'd also mention yeah, if you go Rage 19" allows (225/35/19) the drive is harsh and you really need to ensure you're perfect on tracking as well as the slightest out you'll go through tyres. If you just go standard 18s, it'll be a comfier ride BUT won't look quite as good. We had the 19's as they look awesome but the ride compared to my RX8 on 225/45/18's wasn't a patch on my RX8 for comfort.

Good point mccarf, I didn't mention the wheels as that was a downside on 19s!!! The 35 profile is just too low imho for UK roads with a 225 tyres.
 
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Ended up today with a 2009 FN2 Civic Type R. just over 100K miles for £3990 it's a facelift and has the LSD which was a major point for me, loved driving it back apart from the ditch finder tyres which are getting binned asap even if only for Rainsport 5's. Gearbox is a million miles better than the Corolla T sport box and the VTEC sounds great as it has a HKS intake on it. I'm not sure what exhaust it has on it but it's stainless and sounds nice. The lift on the Corolla comes in a lot harder than VTEC, you barely notice VTEC apart from the noise change in comparison.
 
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Soldato
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I'd stay well away from a Mk5 Golf GTI. Most of them have rotten wheel arches and sills, which is a very common problem, the engines are unreliable with many owners endlessly chasing EML lights and excessive oil consumption.
 
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That is a VW engine thing in general rather than just the Golf. Some of them are a bucket of problems.
 
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Soldato
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Ended up today with a 2009 FN2 Civic Type R. just over 100K miles for £3990 it's a facelift and has the LSD which was a major point for me, loved driving it back apart from the ditch finder tyres which are getting binned asap even if only for Rainsport 5's. Gearbox is a million miles better than the Corolla T sport box and the VTEC sounds great as it has a HKS intake on it. I'm not sure what exhaust it has on it but it's stainless and sounds nice. The lift on the Corolla comes in a lot harder than VTEC, you barely notice VTEC apart from the noise change in comparison.
That sounds really good! I still fancy a FN2 after having the FK2 (the 1.8 version of the same generation, not the new Type R!) as my first car. I have heard that they run high revs and noisly at motorway speed - can you confirm? Would be great to see some pictures!
 
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Ended up today with a 2009 FN2 Civic Type R. just over 100K miles for £3990 it's a facelift and has the LSD which was a major point for me, loved driving it back apart from the ditch finder tyres which are getting binned asap even if only for Rainsport 5's. Gearbox is a million miles better than the Corolla T sport box and the VTEC sounds great as it has a HKS intake on it. I'm not sure what exhaust it has on it but it's stainless and sounds nice. The lift on the Corolla comes in a lot harder than VTEC, you barely notice VTEC apart from the noise change in comparison.
Bloody hell come on we love a piccie here... give us some car porn please
 
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Some quick pics of the car, as it's constantly chucking it down :mad:. A few stone chips on the front and the usual lacquer bubbles on the mirrors which will be sorted asap.

Clean HPI check on chassis number & engine number match. Car has full service history all the way up to current mileage from Honda Dealership in Ireland with all stamps, it's an Irish import but that doesn't bother me at all, used to insuring an import from Japan.
Has a folder full of history and all the original Honda paperwork and folders etc.

Just cant wait to get these ditch finder tyres off tomorrow to see how it handles if it dries up. LSD feels very tame compared to my Glanza V due to the lack of torque on the K20.

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Associate
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Must be doing a crap job then if your cars rotting away.
My fiesta is 26 years old and still mint as a daily driver.
Lol what a strange comment......Thanks , nice judgement there. :rolleyes: The car has 150K miles on it and was starting to rot 3 years ago when I bought it for £1,500 with all the rare bits on it.

Considering I also own a 1999 Glanza V with 304bhp which is in better condition than most cars on the road after 3 years, also built all the forged engine and car myself but yeah......I must be crap......:rolleyes:
 
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