Mr Fenwick...What happened?

You can buy them relatively cheaply.  £36k new and you can pick them up for £15-20k at 2 years old.  But how much will they be worth in 5 years time, that is the question!

When I bought my E39, I could have bought a brand new Citreon Picasso or a 2 year old Vauxhall Omega 2.2CDi Auto for the same money.  My E39 is worth 3k ish, the Omega is worth sub2k and I think the Citreon is worth about 3.5k

I watched Clarksons review of it over the weekend and he loved it, yes Clarkson loving a Vauxhall but I suppose it isn't, it is a Holden.

Off to surf tinterweb for Monaros...

Andrew

540 V8 wrote: Come on guys, I still reckon we can sway him!

LOL, I doubt it.

I have considered going back to an E36 but there are too many things that put me off. If I could find a nice lowish milage 328 coupe/saloon with a manual box, aircon, in a good colour, with a FSH, not too far away than I would be very temped. No not cheap to run but they aren't that expensive to buy so the money I have left would help to counter that. The trouble is most of them are autos, the coupe sports are over priced IMO, Nikasil means and extra chew on to find a car thats had an  engine change, issues around suspension wear, a significant number of cars are that horrible dark metallic green and I'm not that impressed with the build quality of the E36 (or the E39 for that matter). The right car is probably out there but it would take too long to find and i'd spend half my budget on petrol before I found it.

I considered a 318iS or even a 318ti compact but I just couldn't warm to the idea. A BMW needs a big  6 cylinder engine IMO. Also since i've owned a 328 before a slower one is just going to feel like a let down. At least with a differect car altogther it will have other things that make up for it, whereas a 4 cylinder BMW is just going to be slower.

You wont go wrong with a Ford...

The first Focus, get that in a 2.0i and it will be a pocket rocket and it wouldn't need to go anywhere near a Ford garage for servicing.  Nice sweet handling car, lift off oversteer for a bit of tail action....

I had a 1.8i LX as a hire car and it was swift, 2.0i quicker still.

...if Ford still made a rear drive car, I'd have one...would be cheaper than the BM.

A quick Skoda will be a nice suprise.  My future father in law has a 1.6 Octavia and it is a flying machine.  Just a rebadged Golf with a boot.  It's a Volkswagon underneath but not a Volkswagon prices.

Remember an Audi A3 is a Golf and the Skoda Octavia is built from a very similar floor pan/chassis.

Andrew

My wife has a 1.8 focus and it's a great little car. A bit lacking in grunt but it handles really well and is fun to drive. I may be going to look at a 2 litre zetec at the weekend, as long as it hasn't sold by then.

I was having a look at the Focus ast night.  The 2.0 has only something like 7 bhp more than the 1.8 but it is considerably more thirsty. The fractional extra power does not make it worth the extra cost in fuel.

Go for the 1.8. 

Alpha's. Nice looking cars but are they not kinda pricey to run with terms or reliability and build quality? 

My old boss has a 156 which he and I quote "I get to drive it when the garage's courtesy car needs a service."   Timing belt snapped on him too, below the stated mileage for changing the belt.  8 new exhaust valves and £1,000+ later....

Andrew

Andrew Rolland wrote: I was having a look at the Focus ast night.  The 2.0 has only something like 7 bhp more than the 1.8 but it is considerably more thirsty. The fractional extra power does not make it worth the extra cost in fuel. Go for the 1.8.

The 2.0 focus has 128bhp as opposed to 115 for the 1.8 so only an extra 13bhp and a similar ammount of extra torque. I'm going to drive one to see if the extra power is worth it. According to the figures it's a second quicker to 60 so i expect it to feel a bit quicker. TBH if it isn't I will leave the focus altogether. My wifes 1.8 is just not quick enough and the engine feels like it's been strangled to keep the power/emmissions down.

Peter Fenwick wrote: My wifes 1.8 is just not quick enough and the engine feels like it's been strangled to keep the power/emmissions down.

I think you will find that with most engines nowadays.

If you look back years ago, a 1.8 Sierra with the CVH engine had something like 100 bhp but it felt quicker cos the engine didn't have to breath out through a cat.

If we were to breathe out through a drinking straw, that would be similar to an engine blowing exhaust gases thru a cat.

Removing both the cats from my Vauxhall Senator would have upped the power by a further 20bhp but the question is would you notice it having already got 204 bhp.

Bearing in mind Peter that you had some good cars in the past, like the 328i then some fast Jap car then a fairly swift 530i, most things will feel slow in comparison unfortunately. 

You have had a good time with the fast cars in the past but with your plans you may have to go to something a bit slower I'm afraid.

Andrew

 

...you could always not have kids?

How is a JWC Mini Cooper going to save him money?  He'll have to sell the 530i and then add a stack load of cash to buy in the first place!

Peter Fenwick wrote: Finally, it's a new mini so looks like Noddy's car

Nah.  The Noddy Car award goes to the late 90's Nissan Micra!