What car do you get 55mpg in?

stumpy – because some costs are per year the more miles you do per year the lower the cost per mile. Teh AA numbers are for a car bought new so oeprciation is more for them

(assuming nothing major goes pop) is a part of it as well – more cost there possibly and I still wonder if your insurance ved and servicing figure is a bit low. Do you really get 55 mpg?

As I said above yo can get down to around 20 p a mile as you have – but most folk pay a lot more than that.

What car do you get 55mpg in?

TJ have you ever accepted a lift from anyone?

My old man gets 60-something from his Passat diesel, its insanely good.

I have carefully been working out my cost per mile, (including tax, insurance, breakdown, tyres, servicing (diy), depreciation) for my vehicles for the last 7 years. The price per mile has not changed in that time except for when I was running very cheap fuel (veg oil @ ~50p a litre)

7 years ago I had a petrol car that did 25-35mpg and required more often servicing and more expensive to tax/insure. My current diesel car does 47-55mpg and requires less servicing, cheaper tax/insurance. The only time I wince at the cost of a journey is if I take my superbike out and watch the tyres disappear before my eyes and the fuel burn like my petrol car of 7 years ago.

I expect to replace my current car with something that does 60mpg+ and don’t expect the cost per mile overall to increase by much. I commute 90 miles per day, usually on a 65mpg motorbike.

What are your costs then solamander? I take it you do a lot of miles

All those who complain# about their ridiculous commutes – that is a matter of choices that you have made

TJ, I have to disagree with you here.

From my experience I haven’t been able to do this until now. For 12 years or so I ended up working 20-odd miles from home.

I live in a nice village right next to Glasgow but there are no jobs for someone like me around here. I looked at public transport but the links are either terrible or non-existant.

Now, even when we were paying 60 something and 70 something pence per litre for petrol I still hated it as I’d rather keep that cash in the family pot. But to not work is not an option so commute it is.

I could have moved but we like where we live and the kids are settled etc. Plus, the first job lasted 4 years then the company moved down south, second just wasn’t for me so I moved on, 3rd company were charlatans and ended up going belly up.
Now I work in a job I like and it’s in the city centre meaning I can get a bus direct. Brilliant! It’s £10 per week for a ticket – fantastic. But it all came down to a bit of luck.

In the past 12 years I always looked out for jobs close to home but they just were not there and trust me I looked.

I think it’s down to government and planners how we ended up like this. Shopping ‘malls’ killed the high street, business parks built in an area out of towns and city etc etc. A lot of people don’t have muxch of a choice.

I don’t know how to fix it but I know it will take a long long time…

My costs are fairly low, in fact I reckon I make money out of it

Car allowance of £6k + getting something like 23-24p/mile for the first 10000 business miles

Just bought a 3yo car + 3 years warranty over 3 years on a 5% loan
I don’t do a great deal of personal miles ~2500 pa

I think I’ll come out with a profit 🙂

zedsdead – I could have moved

Hence it is a matter of choices made

I think it’s down to government and planners how we ended up like this.

Certainly its a major part

Those cost per mile comparisons always get trotted out, have been for the last 30-odd years. Firstly, they take a new car and factor in depreciation. Not everyone buys new. Secondly, they don’t take pleasure into account. I love my car, every time I see it I smile. I wanted one for years and finally got one. How much is that worth per mile? Public transport is horrible. It’s expensive, at best inconvenient and deeply unpleasant. You can’t put a price on convenience or freedom or fun. We did the ‘general public are subsidising motorists’ thing a couple of weeks ago and those who put that assertion forward were invited to provide specific figures. The could not. Having said all that, I think we could quite easily reduce the number of car journeys, but we will not do so.

As for me, I avoid driving wherever possible and actually use my cherished mountain bikes to commute on. However I resent the fact that rising fuel costs have made successive governments feel comfortable about hiking the cost of public transport – I believe the latter should be an incentive, not daylight robbery.

The costs of moving are too much for me. I don’t earn a massive amount. Plus it would have meant uprooting 3 or 4 times. No thanks…

Karinofnine – Member

Public transport is horrible. It’s expensive, at best inconvenient and deeply unpleasant.

Rubbish – I use it – modern vehicles clean and tidy, convenient and easy – while being cheaper than a car. When did you last use it?

. We did the ‘general public are subsidising motorists’ thing a couple of weeks ago and those who put that assertion forward were invited to provide specific figures. The could not.

I gave you links to a series of figures from different sources – but you didn’t want to hear so you didn’t listen.

7 years ago I had a petrol car that did 25-35mpg and required more often servicing and more expensive to tax/insure. My current diesel car does 47-55mpg

That’s not quite a fair comparison with the motoring world as a whole since 7 years ago you could also have had a diesel that did 47/55mpg.

TJ, we can’t all live right near our jobs.

TJ – I do agree with you about public transport. The buses I use are great! They get into town quickly, they’re modern and clean and cheap. No way could I drive for less than £10 per week. The parking would cost nearly that per day!

I think a monthly ticket is £32!!! That’s fantastic value for money! And there’s one every 10 minutes. Cant knock that.

However, it’s only because it’s the city centre. All my other jobs I had public transport was not an option. Again, down to government not investing in a good public transport network etc…

but you didn’t want to hear so you didn’t listen.

THAT ATTITUDE IS GETTING REALLY FRIGGING OLD!

molgrips, it’s a 1.9 TDi Ibiza 130 sport. I average around 55mpg in it and I have a geek spreadsheet that confirms this along with a graph to track the price of fuel.

TJ, do I really get 55mpg? No, sometimes it’s higher. Not sure how well this image will come out, but 63.8 mpg on the way home tonight. That’s sticking to 60mph while negotiating short stretches or road with frequent roundabouts, then up to 70 once clear of them. Also included about a 10 min queue at black cat roundabout on A1.

As for extra costs when things go wrong – yeah true, but the only things that have gone wrong so far are 1 wheel bearing @ 38k miles (£120) and a failed boost pipe (£45) both fitted. Even my front discs AND pads lasted 119k miles…

EDIT: should also confirm that image is total for that journey, not just instantaneous.

Ta stumpy

I take it you’ll be on trains & buses up to Strathpeffer this weekend TJ?

Not going uplink – although I did look at the train option. Its not bad actually

As I have repeatedly said I use taxis and hire cars when public transport will not do for me.

I wouldn’t fancy coming back from up there on a Sunday evening

I tried some months ago to get back to Durham from Inverness on a Sunday afternoon
Got back as far as Edinburgh & then was left with an overnight wait to complete the journey
I think it took around 16 hrs in all

I love my car, every time I see it I smile. I wanted one for years and finally got one. How much is that worth per mile? Public transport is horrible. It’s expensive, at best inconvenient and deeply unpleasant.

Agreed on all counts.

Rubbish – I use it – modern vehicles clean and tidy, convenient and easy – while being cheaper than a car. When did you last use it?

TJ, I used it this morning, as I do every weekday.

I take the train to Central London, and get a seat precisely none of the time. If I were to then take the Tube across London (I don’t, I cycle), I’d never get a seat, I’d be herded in like cattle, and it would be a slow, bumpy, smelly affair, with stupid levels of both heat and humidity. It really is deeply unpleasant.

But for 5 days of 7 I’m a good little greenie. At the weekend, however, I either cycle or drive. And I’ll not apologise for driving my car when I want to, nor for my choice of a car, come to that. It’s very large, it’s a 4×4, and I get 30mpg at best. I’m sure you’d hate it. I could drive something else, but I don’t want to.

As you’ve said, it’s all about choices. I choose to work in an insanely difficult environment because I like the challenge and because, bluntly, I get paid very well to do so. With that choice made, don’t you think that in return I’m allowed the choice of what car I drive?

I agree with zedsdead about business parks. Offices all over the place rather than in once central place make arranging public transport very difficult as for many it means a bus into town to get a bus out of town again.

FFS TJ,

You can’t extrapolate the public transport system of an affluent little city out to the rest of the country.

nickf – of course you can make that choice

What I want is for folk to be clear it is a choice not a necessity and that the car drivers pay their fair share.

Basically stop bleating about the cost. Its as cheap as it ever has been if not cheaper compared to earnings. If you don’t like the cost then don’t do it – simple as

Beans you forget, TJ lives in his own happy little faux-Scotchish utopia where all is well.

Dangerousbeans – the point is that being dirty expensive and inefficient is not an inherent characteristic of public transport – it does not have to be like that.

Teh pure snobbery of some folk is laughable -= they don’t want to go on public transport ‘cos of having to rub shoulders with the public

I know it doesn’t have to be but quite often it is.

Some of our buses are old, very old…. as in there’s quite a few K reg ones about and you really know about when you’re on them or following them.

Also, as Debs as just pointed out I have to take her to work on a morning, early shift starts at 7.00 and there’s no bus that can get her there for that time.

Teh pure snobbery of some folk is laughable -= they don’t want to go on public transport ‘cos of having to rub shoulders with the public

Or maybe they want to get to where they want to go without spending a vast fortune for a vile experience. Who knows, maybe they can’t use public transport because there simply isn’t any.

(The above was penned by a cycle commuter who also uses a bike in town at weekends. I also use a lumping great turbocharged 4WD estate car at weekends, and occasionaly I just go for a drive in my Mercedes. 🙂 )

being dirty expensive and inefficient is not an inherent characteristic of public transport

When funded to the tune of half a billion pounds by general taxation!

Look at it this way – Edinburgh’s Tram system has cost nearly three years worth of Edinburgh’s total council tax revenues (225 million per year) – median council tax is about £1200 per household – so, if TJ were to pay for his own share of that clean, efficient public transport system, it would have actually cost him about £3.5k!

Sheesh, you could have bought a car for that TJ 😉

You can’t put a price on convenience or freedom or fun.

Well you can, how many little furry things to you think building the roads have killed?
How many road kill a year per train or bus, compared to cars?

And then you go all crazy when someone is eating a steak FFS. Cars have a lot to answer for. However we are all responsible for it. Yes I own a car, yes I own a motorcyle (actually about 56 right now) and no I don’t NEED my car. I just wanted it and find it very convenient. But I am not kidding myself. I do have a choice, it’s just that I don’t want the alternative.

I love trains but foreign ones are way better than ours.
I hate local buses. They’re cramped, cold, uncomfortable and unreliable. Long distance are ok, but not as good as train.
Local public transport sucks.
I’m in Scotland.

dangerousbeans – Member
Also, as Debs as just pointed out I have to take her to work on a morning, early shift starts at 7.00 and there’s no bus that can get her there for that time.

I guess the point is that if more folk had to use public transport, the demand would be sufficient for buses to be running. It’s all a bit chicken-and-egg though.

Car allowance of £6k + getting something like 23-24p/mile for the first 10000 business miles

Uplink – are you claiming the difference between what your employer pays you and the HMRC max (40ppm) through your tax-code?

I’m a raving, lefty, liberal, greenie who hates cars and loves bikes. But…

I gave up on getting the bus to work. It sits in the same queue of traffic as the cars, is unreliable, expensive and often over crowded. I can walk the 2.5 mile journey – sometimes more quickly that getting the bus, but always more consistently.

I want public transport to be great, but it’s not.

Having said that, I’ve never driven and never will and have always managed to find work/training within walking-, cycling- or public transport-distance of home. We’ve always chosen to live within walking distance of our family and have built a life around being car-light, if not car-free.

We have a car at the moment, but have been without one before, including with very young children. We occasionally borrowed a car, and hired one for holidays a couple of times. Otherwise, we got by without.

Not driving does curtail my bike riding. I get to group rides at the local forest by riding there and back (it’s only an extra 50 road miles after all). I don’t do many event, but when I do I either use trains or cadge a lift (not many trains to Kielder…).

I don’t find public transport unpleasant in itself. Only time I have a problem with it is when it takes much too long.

Most people don’t have a clue what MPG thier car does (and therefore generally over estimate), they may think they do but very few people can actually be bothered to work out the accurate MPG as opposed to the figure the trip computer(a device that is probably designed to overestimate the MPG and make the manufacturer look good) tells them.

In my Multipla, the indicated MPG is based on US Gallons….

I’m beginning new job (or actually training for it) on Monday. 22 miles on a motorway each way. I won’t cycle, obviously, driving will have to do. I might be able to take a coach instead but only time will tell. I wish I could.