[Closed] Estate Cars

I do not profess to know much about cars but I know all about BMW drivers.

Mol - easily afford one? Another reference to your fabulous career success...

Is it f*ck. Stop being such a nobber. Are you trying to get me to not like you and stop sticking up for you on the forum?

Answer the other points. Is it WRONG for someone to want a nice soft comfy car for mainly motorway driving?

Diesel is cheaper than petrol to buy as fuel here in Ireland, the car needs less of it anyway, if anybody tails me I can give their lungs some fresh black smoke easily, no faults clearly 🙂
Besides, if you ever heard my vastly upgraded car stereo you'd appreciate an old-school oil burner with a pseudo-turbo.

shock horror everyone has different opinions!

Obviously the surf dude couldnt afford a pwoper RWD car!

to the OP I suggest posting this on pistonheads or some other car specific forum where you might get a measured response, or check out the vehicles at a busy sunday morning trail centre!

JonEdwards - Member
320d tourer here. Like it. Not as economical as my old Passat, surprisingly little difference in internal space - with the seats up the Beemer has much better rear legroom than the VW, but a smaller boot, seats down, its a little narrower between the arches, but not a lot. Length is give or take the same.

I can only imagine that there is a huge difference between saloons and estates then, as having had both a Passat and 3 series the difference in size was massive - the Passat dwarfing the Beemer.

As for RWD - mine would rather face sideways than forward in the wet - although it does weigh approx 1.5t at the front and 0.5t at the rear with leaf springs to boot 😉

The cars I see most often stranded in the snow are RWD - although mine wouldn't be one of them (it has 4wd too).

I've found in my experience FWD are safer to drive than RWD and the 'driving experience' of a RWD is only a deciding factor if you actually are the Stig, or Surf-Mat.

OP - You never mentioned a budget mate?

[b]Cheap[/b] - Vectra estate CDTI 150Bhp or 3.0V6 diesel with the 185 Bhp as it will swallow everything and more...

[b]Middle of the road[/b] - Passat or Superb 140Bhp or 170Bhp TDI variants

[b]High end[/b] - Audi 3.0 Diesel (240 bhp one) or a BMW 3.0D

Mol - you have been rather two faced a number of times recently... I like you but you still love a snidey dig quite often. There are some very clueless people trying to contribute here. The person above isn't one of them.

Two faced?

You mean with talking about cars, or saying one thing to someone and another to someone else?

With the latter, I try very hard not to do this. Of course, I get annoyed sometimes, and then I try and calm myself down and be reasonable. I dunno what you're getting at specifically tho.

But I do disagree with you saying I show off about wealth. I've mentioned my job on here, you know what cars I drive and how old they are.. none of it is special in any way. Showing off would be the very last thing I'd ever want to do.

I sometimes make ridiculous snobby or derogatory statements - I hope people know those are in jest.

Surf-Mat - Member
Mol - you have been rather two faced a number of times recently... I like you but you still love a snidey dig quite often. There are some very clueless people trying to contribute here. [b]The person above isn't one of them.[/b]

But the person above lists all FWD cars, except one.

Ahh, I see.

Surf-Mat, I hate to say it, as believe me I really hated the negative vibes going your way at first, but you really do come across as a complete cock on this thread, & yes I have a clue about how to drive...

Best of luck with defending your forum persona, I'm sure you are decent enough in the real world.

Theartistformerlyknown - the new Audi 3.0 diesels are all quattro as far as i can recall 😕

My view is very simple, anything about 200 to 250 bhp is perfectly managable on a front wheel car if its set up is done properly, ie Lsd, decent breaks, shocks/springs but anything above this kind of power will benefit from rear or all wheel drive. So for an ordinary family car its whatever floats your boat 🙂

And with IAM and Police training, I suspect I may have more of a clue than you.

the OP I suggest posting this on pistonheads or some other car specific forum where you might get a measured response

I've been offered a Prius at a pretty keen price, what are they like?

Whats the battery life like (as in longevity before they need changing?) and service inspections- whats the cost like on those?

I don't have a problem with Prius's just think its too much of an early-adopters product at the moment.

Plus on a person level I hate a car projecting an image of me. I just prefer a car to be a solid, dependable thing not 'oh hes one of those' 🙄

8yr powertrain warranty: http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/toyota/prius-2003/?section=good

I've been offered a Prius at a pretty keen price, what are they like?

cars are dull, might as well get a comfy one in a nice colour I reckon

They're a perfectly fine midsize city car. Opposite lock RWD turbo rally gods won't care for them, of course, but for the 90% of people that buy appliances for cars (inc me), they wouldn't really notice the difference.

They have a surprising amount of hatchback space. IIRC (from when I was looking at Priuses) you could fold the seats flat and lie down in the back. High boot lip, though, I think - presumably because batteries under there but maybe just design.

I wasn't worried about batteries - there's an awful lot of fanny that's talked about them on forums - Toyota did a retrospective warranty extension on them and there are very few reports of failure. Prius is on its third generation, been built for thirteen years, all made in Toyota City, Japan - there's a lot to like about them.

Prius doesn't come in estate format so has no place in this thread 😉

I was going to suggest going with whatever tickles your fancy AND getting a matching tattoo, but the thread seems to have livened itself up a bit. 😆

I don't care what the OP posted, what he really wants is an L200.

End!

I have to admit that I saw a Superb estate last night for the first time and was very impressed with it. The boot looked huge and there was more space in the back seats than my car has in the front! (well, almost)

If it were not for the fact it was a brand new car and I have a slight problem with buying new, I'd be tempted.

However, for another suggestion, what about an Omega estate? They come in a number of engine specs to suit budget and power requirements (2.5 diesel, 2.5 v6 petrol, 3.0 V6 petrol and the gei little 2.2 engine sizes), are huge inside and can be picked up for a song. I had an ex-police MV6 saloon and it is still the most comfortable car I have ever owned. Mind you, it only did 27 mpg, so maybe a candidate for LPG conversion there. Oh, and they are RWD too, so great fun in the wet.

konabunny - Member

heh - http://www.autoblog.com/2010/06/08/video-what-happens-in-an-internet-car-forum/

excellent and entirely the point! We all need a surf-Mat for this very reason 🙂

Whats the battery life like (as in longevity before they need changing?) and service inspections- whats the cost like on those?

It's designed to last the lifetime of the car. There are individual cell failures for dodgy contacts and stuff, but hardly any whole battery replacements I think. There are far more used battery packs available from crashed ones than are needed for replacements I think...

I don't have a problem with Prius's just think its too much of an early-adopters product at the moment.

Almost 2m cars sold worldwide mate.. not that early! Plenty of cars around with 200k or even 300k on the clock too.

However I think MrNutt was trolling there 🙂

Mol - the A34 does have fun bits but the M3 and M4?!

The M3 from the A303 down to Farnborough is a beautiful road, from the scenery perspective.

At least I often enjoy it on a nice day, but then I'm probably wrong 🙂

Loved the video.

I've been in the back of the new Superb (taxi's) plenty of timse and the OP's kids will have a hard time kicking his seat 🙂 They seem very well put together and a 170bhp will be close in performance to his vRS. Very comfortable ride too, much smoother than an equivalent Audi (A6). He'll very much struggle to find a nearly new one though. A bit like Mazda 6's (when I was looking recently) they are almost all bought as company cars and hence not released until 3 years old.

I've just ordered a Golf Estate to replace my Pissan Gashqai. The lease rates were better than the Octavia Estate (better residuals maybe?). Not the prettiest car, but bigger than the Qashqai and hopefully better put together. A claimed 78.5mpg was pretty attractive too 🙂

I like Golf Estates. You go for the bluemotion one?

I did, Bluemotion Sportline. Specced it up a bit (well, about £3k's worth of extras actually!) and the lease was way cheaper than an equivalent Octavia. 3 years servicing for £250 was a bit of a winner too 🙂

Nice. Let me know how you get on with the mpg in real life, I am quite interested.

Will do. Drop me a mail to remind me if you want, don't get it until Nov/Dec so I might forget before then 🙂

Here you go guys, the 335d gets a comedy bashing in this rather hilarious thread.

NB - a VXR8 is still a Vauxhall though... 😉

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6863749/

Xtranormal is ace.

Can make some cracking p takes of people on there. Great for forums like this.

The one posted above (about the car geek recommending silly cars) is also hilarious and a wee bit close to the bone! 😆 😳

I did enjoy the first one about the single mum. It gets like that sometimes on here, doesn't it MAT! 😉

I like Tron's view on the A-B in a sports car can be a nice ride and fun experience than ordinary LX etc but if you have 2 bikes on the roof and 2 in the boot -flying around bends can send your gear flying and eat your fuel.

I miss driving sports cars and now driving boring comfort functional cars -will wait for mid life sports car?

If I were rich I'd have many cheaper cars of various flavours rather than a couple of expensive ones...

I miss driving sports cars and now driving boring comfort functional cars -will wait for mid life sports car?

That's the thing. I've driven a fair few cars, but still one of the most entertaining I've driven is the original Ka. There's naff all power, but the steering is absolutely incredible. Any car can be built to be as good as it can be, which is why I dislike cars with dull handling.

The Puma is very good too despite having little power.
And the mk3 MR2 (RWD) - again not that quick or expensive but handles soooooo well.

A lot of expensive/heavy cars don't actually handle that well at all - Audi RS6, some big Mercs and almost every SUV, etc.

Guess what muppet boy did last night? Left the Jimny roof (it's a softop) open - we now have a mobile swimming pool! Drove it to town and it's flooding down here and all works fine but very steamed up inside - DOH!!

The old Jag XJ40 with a LSD was a giggle. Wallowy, but so easy to control.

Would possibly consider fitting better springs to my Passat one day, if I were feeling rich...

Eibach Pro Kit will work nicely.

I've tried to get away with it by buying the sports option e.g. GTI,Si, etc

just so it has more power for safe overtaking without dropping a gear and better brake/suspension handling yet still good on fuel and grin factor and caryying bikes and garden waste without driving like a moron too! yes it is possible! anbd no 30mph is 30mph watch that child too etc

Driving a sports model round A roads and you don't need to lift off and watch everyone poop themselves and brake after they just overtaken you lol shoddy suspension? 😆

Ok if you don't like hard suspension buy the LX 😳

My first car was RWD, it was a Marina TC it had terrible handling.
My father had a 1981 BMW 3 series, that too was RWD and was awful.
My missus has a Chevette, RWD not much to note in the handling stakes.
Mk2 Escort Sport was excellent though.

My Mkii Golf GTI was superb, even better when the suspension was uprated and lowered, same goes for the XR3i I had.
Pug 205 GTI was no slouch either, or the XR2i.
And the 4 Alfasuds were simply amazing. All FWD

Alfasud 1.5 ti cloverleaf, one of the best handling cars of all time. 🙂

My first car was also a Marina. Utterly tragic handling. Had a mk2 Gti for two years. Well made but handling overrated IMO. My Saxo VTR handled way better.

Alfasud 1.5 ti cloverleaf, one of the best handling cars of all time.

Eibach Pro Kit will work nicely.

It's hard to work out if it's what I want tho. Some internet folk say 'oh it's fine' but you just dunno what their criteria for 'fine' are. All I know is that the stock VW 'sport' option was awful. Rock hard and really bumpy. I think I want it lower, to roll less and still be fairly comfy. Moon on a stick, I know.