Cheap To Run Recommendations

[AndyCr15]

Hi all, so it looks like I'm being made redundant early into the new year. It's quite a good payout though and I'm thinking of taking a few months off and relaxing/enjoying myself.

One thing I would like to do is visit lots of friends and family and also take my bike and cycle round different parts of the UK and maybe even Europe.

At present I drive a 2010 V8 Mustang and at best get maybe 18 or 20 mpg if cruising on the motorway. If I'm doing lots of driving, my thought is to buy a reasonably cheap, economical car to use for this time. There is also a chance that when I get a new job, I might need to commute and need something more economical anyway. If I end up working in town and using the tube, I guess I can sell this extra car again.

The alternative view would be, if I would expect to lose £1k to £2k in buying, using and then selling this extra car, should I just stick to the Mustang and this is my petrol money for the 2 or 3 months I travel a lot?

I honestly don't mind what it looks like or how fast it is, the priority is cheap to run. Someone already suggested a Toyota Auris hybrid to me?

Thoughts and also car suggestions?

 

[telewebby]

auris/prius/ct hybrid are cheap to run as long as decent maintaince has been done, sse plenty with 2-300k on the clock, not exciting to drive but they just work.

factor in that you are buying somebody elses used car (a unknown quantity) vs already knowing issues of your current car.

fuel saving will be the your biggest saving most of the hybrid at 70 will be doing mid 50 to the gallon but how much are you having to spend to buy the car and how much fuel would that buy you in your current car?

Alex

 

[Haggisman]

1.8 civic mk8 (petrol ~45mpg)
Or 1.9 Pd octavia mk2 (diesel ~55mpg)

Both will save you ~£15/100 miles on the motorway based on the MPG you've given, and are pretty reliable, have a decent amount of space for carting stuff around if you're travelling, and quite a few toys (although the civic is not ideal for carrying bikes if you can't put them in the boot)

Have you considered keeping the mustang until you are in a better financial position, secure job etc. and just buying a cheap car (e.g. One of the above), running for a few months and selling on? If you buy and sell privately then you're probably not going to lose much value on such an old car with an extra couple of k miles

 

[dave28]

Renault Megane MK 3 2015 1.5 dCi Dynamique TomTom Energy 5dr

£0 TAX

FUEL URBAN 72.4
EXTRA URBAN 88.3
COMBINED 80.7

Notice the extra urban ( motorways / A roads ) near 90 to the gallon

How you can put up with a car that does 18 to the gallon is beyond me, i would set fire to it

 

[Nasher]

The Renaults are a good option. Most of them are quite lively and actually handle well too (maybe not the diesel ones).

 

[AndyCr15]

Have you considered keeping the mustang until you are in a better financial position

I actually thought I'd explained that was an option in my OP

fuel saving will be the your biggest saving most of the hybrid at 70 will be doing mid 50 to the gallon but how much are you having to spend to buy the car and how much fuel would that buy you in your current car?

Both will save you ~£15/100 miles on the motorway based on the MPG you've given

Yeah, I think I need to set up a spreadsheet that I can enter values in and see how many miles I would need to do to make it financially viable/better.

How you can put up with a car that does 18 to the gallon is beyond me

I don't. It gets 13 mpg most times... It's a bit like 'why would you eat cake, it's bad for you?!' At present I do around 2,500 miles annually, so I probably spend less on petrol than 90% of the folk on this forum (in non lockdown times).

 

[dave28]

I actually thought I'd explained that was an option in my OP




Yeah, I think I need to set up a spreadsheet that I can enter values in and see how many miles I would need to do to make it financially viable/better.



I don't. It gets 13 mpg most times... It's a bit like 'why would you eat cake, it's bad for you?!' At present I do around 2,500 miles annually, so I probably spend less on petrol than 90% of the folk on this forum (in non lockdown times).

I apologise, 2500 is very low

 

[AndyCr15]

So I've done some vague maths on it.



If I bought something, I would probably SORN the Mustang until I have a job again, so you could possibly throw in Car TAX Savings too. Maintenance savings is a complete guess. I know I will soon need new tyres for the Mustang, they cost me £1,000 or so last time, but also, they're probably last another year or so, so probably not a factor. I guess there's a danger when buying second hand of inheriting someone else's large maintenance bill. (Buying from a dealer will give me a warranty of some kind, right?)

I've factored in a loss of value as although I know someone said to buy and then sell privately, I don't know I would trust myself, me not knowing about cars and all and also just what I assume is a risk in selling privately and someone trying to rip you off. 3,000 miles seems to be the tipping point. I guess I could quite easily clock that up in 2, 3 or 4 months.

 

[[TW]Fox]

You're not going to achieve a real world 70mpg average from a 7 grand car.

Once you start to put credible estimates into your maths the saving for just 3000 miles falls away.

 

[AndyCr15]

Renault Megane MK 3 2015 1.5 dCi Dynamique TomTom Energy 5dr

I'd be happy enough with something like this.

You're not going to achieve a real world 70mpg average from a 7 grand car.

The book mileage is 88 (I'm thinking most of these miles will be motorway) What is it likely to be real world?

**EDIT** Even dropping it to 55mpg means it's a £1,016 saving...

 

[Haggisman]

The quoted MPG for hybrids is going to be based on mixed driving, e.g. using the electric drive train quite a bit, on long motorway runs you're going to be purely running the petrol engine, so even 55 is going to be pushing it I think

£1.35 seems high for petrol, or is that vpower? Would you still use that in bog standard replacement car?

 

[AndyCr15]

So to check, when it quotes this -

Urban 72.4 mpg
Extra urban 88.3 mpg
Combined 80.7 mpg​

You're saying I'd not even get 55 mpg on a motorway cruise? The best possible conditions for a good mpg?

**EDIT** This shows the official at 67-80 and real at 42-66 mpg. About 3/4 of official. Given that, I would have thought I could get mid 60's on a motorway if they claim 88?

I will change my maths to 60 for now though

 

[dave28]

So to check, when it quotes this -

Urban 72.4 mpg
Extra urban 88.3 mpg
Combined 80.7 mpg​

You're saying I'd not even get 55 mpg on a motorway cruise? The best possible conditions for a good mpg?

**EDIT** This shows the official at 67-80 and real at 42-66 mpg. About 3/4 of official. Given that, I would have thought I could get mid 60's on a motorway if they claim 88?

I will change my maths to 60 for now though

My sister has a simular one and she gets not far off the figures so dont listern to anyone who tries to say you wont get 60 out of it, they probably never driven it in their life

 

[Nasher]

Is that calculated yourself or from the car's own readout? Sometimes they can be a bit optimistic

 

[Haggisman]

My sister has a simular one and she gets not far off the figures so dont listern to anyone who tries to say you wont get 60 out of it, they probably never driven it in their life

Does she drive it mostly on the motorway though? What your suggesting is that a 1.8 petrol can get higher MPG than a similar diesel, in which case why would anyone ever use diesel? With pure motorway miles you are only using the petrol engine, all the Hybrid part gives you is extra weight to carry.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/toyota/auris/hybrid/mpg

Tested here and got 44mpg

By all means get a hybrid if you will be doing a good mix of town & motorway driving, but don't expect to get the benefit of the hybrid drive train if it never gets used

 

[dave28]

Does she drive it mostly on the motorway though? What your suggesting is that a 1.8 petrol can get higher MPG than a similar diesel, in which case why would anyone ever use diesel? With pure motorway miles you are only using the petrol engine, all the Hybrid part gives you is extra weight to carry.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/toyota/auris/hybrid/mpg

Tested here and got 44mpg

By all means get a hybrid if you will be doing a good mix of town & motorway driving, but don't expect to get the benefit of the hybrid drive train if it never gets used

Im very sorry, i thought we were talking about the renault diesel DCI i told him about, my apologies for any confusion

 

[radderfire]

VW Golf
Skoda Octavia
Ford Focus

 

[AndyCr15]

Im very sorry, i thought we were talking about the renault diesel DCI i told him about, my apologies for any confusion

I was talking about that.

 

[Haggisman]

I was talking about that.

In which case my apologies for the confusion

 

[[TW]Fox]

My sister has a simular one and she gets not far off the figures so dont listern to anyone who tries to say you wont get 60 out of it,

Who said 60? It was 80 I said it wouldn't be averaging.

There are 142 110PS Megane DCI 2014-2016 on a popular fuel consumption website and the average efficiency recorded is... 56mpg.

Which is not 80mpg.

they probably never driven it in their life

Thankfully not*

*To be fair it does look really quite good for the money.