Cheers molgrips.

I’ll be asking for a dropped price and getting the work done myself. My friend works at the VW garage near me and looks after me so hopefully it will be great.

Finding a mechanic you can trust is the most important part of car ownership….

I trust my local mechanic and when i said i was car hunting he said anything but a VAG mobile. Unfortunately i didn’t take heed and payed the price, all’s well now though, back in the Jap fold.

I really thought the Golf was the car to have

marketing – people also think that diamonds are worth the money but that is all marketing as well. Tag Watches, the list goes on…

Hmmmmmm, ok. All the car review magazines/websites love the golf too.

I’m at a loss now what to look at.

Do you ride a specialised ? The bike mags all love em too…..we know why that is.

How much advertising by vw in your car mag ?

Correct interpretation of the reliability index speaks volumes.

Vw pish.

Fwiw i drive pugs and land rovers, not without their faults but their dealers dont pretend they never go wrong and bury their head in the sand.

Maybe I’m gullible then. I’ve owned 3 spesh bikes and loved them. In fact a stumpjumper Evo is one of my faves.

I had a pug that had to be scrapped because it kept failing it’s mot on emissions.

I’d love a land rover but I don’t live on a farm nor have anything to tow 😉

Back to the drawing board I think

trail_rat – Member
Do you ride a specialised ?

Hmmmm. I ride a Specialized. Tried a few at the time and it was far and away the best bike I rode for my type of riding.

People always spout stuff about them always winning magazine tests, but I used to subscribe to MBR (where they had/have a back page ad every edition) and they would quite often not come out on top.

FWIW my brother’s last car was a VW Golf – the 1.6 Bluemotion so nothing fancy. He has had company cars for getting on for 20 yrs and reckons that the Golf was the best car he has ever had.
Nothing whizzy, nothing special but said for him and his family it was the perfect car in terms of getting them where they needed to be reliably and in comfort. He stuck decent mileage on it too as his company HQ is about a 200 mile drive away and had no issues in the three yrs he owned it.

Not sure I would choose a Golf myself – I would go for a Skoda or Leon equivalent as you can get them a fair bit cheaper but the last few years of Golfs do seem pretty good.

trail_rat – Member

Fwiw i drive pugs and land rovers, not without their faults but their dealers dont pretend they never go wrong and bury their head in the sand.

Ha ha! My Wife’s 308 was an absolute bag of turd. It was only 14 months old and would kangaroo down the road from start-up like an 80s car with the choke pulled too far out. Dealer reckoned this was normal.
While she was debating what to replace it with, the cat collapsed (on a 14 month old car) and she had to get it towed to our local garage.

She bought it as she used to have a 106 Graduate that she loved and so held Peugeot in high regard, but this thing was a world away from that car. A real turd of a car…..

My Citroen C4 was also a “turd”.

I’ve been after a Leon but I’m not sure the 1.2tsi will cut it.

A few of the copa SE around but I’m just wary of the 1.2 on my motorway journeys.

I really thought the Golf was the car to have

Have posted this before, but Mrs RBIT and I both had 06 plate Golfs. Due to a number of issues (including woeful service from the local dealer and various mechanicals common to both cars but not design faults etc…) we don’t now, and I’d be reluctant to buy another VW Group car.

Mrs’ Astra isn’t as bad as billed above. I have a Toyota which is great.

My Astra was horrible. Everything about it was a letdown. Poor engine, high tax, leaked everywhere, electrics failed.

I couldn’t go back to one.

I’m still looking at civics but the 1.8 is too expensive to get the face lift model.

so buy a good non facelift model – youll get more for your money….

as far as pugs – i stand by “only fools buy new french cars”

i buy them at between 5 and 10 years old for buttons and work on the premise that the electrics have lasted this long and the mechanicals are cheap to fix…. perfect bangernomics.

Currently got 2 in the household – 1 and 10 years old and one at 15 – one pug one citroen.

Our Honda accord petrol is now 7yrs old and I’d replaced the battery, windscreen wipers, tyres, had it serviced and nothing has gone wrong. Everything still works and it drive absolutely fine.

I like Golf’s.

My Mk5 2.0 petrol went to 100k with no problems apart from one coil pack and an exhaust sensor. Everything else I replaced was a consumable. The interior still looked like new when I chopped it in (if it were a 5 door I wouldn’t have let it go).

The FIL loved his Mk6 and just traded in for a Mk7.

A work colleague has had each version from the Mk4 to 7 and again, no complaints.

People get their knickers in a twist about cam-belts. On the Mk4, the water pump was made of cheese and would jam snapping the belt. VW now use a bullet proof pump that doesn’t need changing. If the belt is replaced before it wears, the tensioners are fine too. A cambelt change is £250 and just another consumable which should be factored in to the running cost of any belt driven car.

Chain cams aren’t without there issues! My 320d is going in to BMW today for a replacement under their ‘quality enhancement’ recall of the N46 engine.

Buy the Golf, it’s much nicer than a Focus, Civic or Astra.

On the Honest John website there are quite a few stories of TSI engine problems. HJ says that it was down to VW using worn out tooling to make their chains.

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/askhj/answer/58237/volkswagen-golf-needs-a-new-engine-after-cam-chain-failure—what-can-i-do-

I’ve just bought a 2.0 TSI Scirocco, it had 47k, and its a 59plate. It’s absolutely pucker and is a fantastic drive.

You can get a Audi A3 for £8k easily.

I wouldn’t worry about engine issues too much. They sell millions, vocal minority rule etc. Hell you wouldn’t buy a single car on this Earth if you took notice of every complain on a forum.

FWIW my Astra before hand was incredibly high on tax for what was under the bonnet (much more than my 2.0 TSI Rocco, and more than my mates S3!) and the AIrCon failed. Another friend of mine has an Astra where the aircon has also failed. Rest worked fine tho, and was a good drive.

Pukka, not pucker!

Play safe – buy an Alfa…

I’m going to test drive the Golf tomorrow. Just found out it’s the match spec so all techy inside.

I really hate my Astra, it’s gutless and has terrible mpg. The tax is also shocking.

That’s what my brother had; the Match spec with the Bluemotion pack.

HAve you considered something Polo sized? If you look at the recent polos they’re almost as big as a mk4 golf, to me the golf/focus/megane are all getting a bit porky these days…

It needs to be big enough for the family and luggage etc

45k?

i bought my 04 Saab 9-5 in 2012 with 134k miles on the clock…. its now got 224,000 on the clock. Still lovely & no issues with the engine.

Yeah, I misjudged the mileage. It’s now the cam chain and buying a car that instantly needs work that worries me.

Play safe – buy an Alfa…

Well according to the SMMT figures for 2012/13 the Giullietta had a lower “Incidence of Warranty Claim” than both the Golf & the A3. IIRC, it has more interior space too.

1.4 petrol multi-air @ 140BHP or the turbo version at 170BHP.

is that warrenty claims per number sold or just outright warrenty claim instances.

there are infinately less alfas than golfs or A3s….

thing with an Alfa is that, although there may be problems, it is often offset by the fact they are much nicer to drive…

Pukka, not pucker!

As a massive fan of the ol’ Pukka Pies i’m an embarrassed about this one as you are.

is that warrenty claims per number sold or just outright warrenty claim instances.

The measurement is a percentage of vehicles sold.

The table made interesting reading as there were several ‘budget’ brands toward the top as well – the highest placed VAG (in class) was the Seat Leon.

thing with an Alfa is that, although there may be problems, it is often offset by the fact they are much nicer to drive…

I dunno – have you driven the Giulietta? The 1750 turbo is a nice enough engine but no more exciting than any other modern euro box, also what the hell are you supposed to do with your left foot!? The 159 despite its looks is a fairly dull drive unless you can find the v6 with 4wd.

I dunno – have you driven the Giulietta? The 1750 turbo is a nice enough engine but no more exciting than any other modern euro box, also what the hell are you supposed to do with your left foot!? The 159 despite its looks is a fairly dull drive unless you can find the v6 with 4wd.

In this context?! We’re talking comparative to a 1.4TSi Golf or similar as per OP.

I’m not after raw power just something with a bit of guts.

The motorway miles worry me about the 1.2tsi Seat Leon.

I’m guessing nobody has driven one though.

If I have learnt anything from buying cars in the last two years it is that small modern engine es can be just as competent as big old ones. I drive a 1.4 with getting on for 190bhp. I assume the 1.2 in the Leon, like in most VAG group cars, comes in different power levels. What bhp and torque has it got and what has the Golf got?

Really late to this party but had

MoseyMTB – Member
Has anyone driven the 1.2 se Seat Leon TSI as a power comparison?

POSTED 4 DAYS AGO #

whilst in germany for 5 days – had to do frankfurt hahn to stuttgart and back (~160 miles each way) with 5 big units in the car.

I was stunned when flicking through the paperwork that it was a 1.2 – cruised down the autobahn at ~90mph without a bother and got there nice and quick too.

Not quite the same umpmh as the mk3 mondeo I have (130bhp, but 6 shortish gears to flatter it) but I wouldn’t hold the engine size against it (except maybe longevity – not been out too long have they – dunno I lose track).

1.2 eco motive seat Leon 104bhp 129 pounds torque

1.4 tsi golf 123bhp and 147 pounds torque

Our pool car at work is an Ecomotive Seat and it is pretty horrendous, but it is a 60hp estate.

104 sounds about the lower limit of acceptable in a car that size but I haven’t driven it. It will probably be just fine.

Gonna echo most of the previous comments about the mileage and also to look at a Civic or maybe even the Mazda 3.

Bought a 2010 2.2 diesel Civic that had done 100k in the 3 years before I got it.
Solid as a rock. 3 MOTs later for me and only consumables needing to be replaced. Mechanic always comments on how good the car is.

If you do go high mileage though test a few cars as I found a huge difference in feel between the 100k Civics I drove. Mine felt like new but another I drove must have been ragged around like a derby car or something.

“If I have learnt anything from buying cars in the last two years it is that small modern engine es can be just as competent as big old ones”

this statement will have clout when you change years to milage and the number from two to 1000000.

id expect ANY two year old car built in the last 10 years to be competent. after all MG / Rover went bust in 2005 😀

I’m going to drive both back to back this weekend. Hopefully the replacement log book will be here tomorrow.

I simply don’t like the old Civic so that’s out.