[Closed] Which company car to choose?

I know I know. I can think of one yummmy one though....

Cater or Westf...

Molgrips - on a run, not putting my foot down too much but cruising at about 75-80, late 60s mpg. Short journeys around town, mid 40s. Sadly most of my journeys are the latter, so my average over 5k is just under 50mpg (at an average of 18mph!).

hora - try sticking your bike in/on one though! Awesome machines. One day I plan to get a CSR (Cater) or an SEight... Evil!

I'm sure you can have a bike rack fabricated onto the rear though?

Rather you than me!

Whoah, late 60s at 75-80 is brill 🙂 We can only get over 60 if it's summertime and we stick the cruise at 70mpg...

Want one even more now.

Saving fuel is SO boring.

My car does 0-60 in 6.4 seconds - now THAT is something to get excited about when driving a car.

My car does 0-60 in 6.4 seconds - now THAT is something to get excited about when driving a car.

Be careful, you'll have the jealous brigade allover you.

Be careful, you'll have the jealous brigade allover you.

60 in 5.7s, 100 in 13.3s and 160+mph if derestricted... 😉

However the other car can't get to 90 and take over 14s to 60 😆

Bet mine goes around corners quicker than your dad-car though 😉

I'd better be careful, the 'I wish I had a better job-types' will have me again for praising someone with something better than myself...

Is this the 2.0T engine MM?

The Accord estate is one of the ugliest cars I have ever seen. It makes me wince when I see it, and I think my Prius looks good!

Oh dear!

How much is the tax on this £25k car? You need to look at the emissions.

Do you have the option of a car allowance?

There are three factors to consider which make a company car the better option:
1)If you are young and would have to pay squillions for your own insurance.
2)You will be committed to starship business mileage.
3)You haven't a bean to spend on a car.

If you have your own car, you choose when it gets changed, you choose what spec, you have control.

I got sick of paying tax based on the list price of a car, knowing that the vehicle was aquired for around 30% less than list. This smarted even more when the car was 4 years old, worn out and was only worth two or three grand.

If you have to take a company car, make sure you don't take a fuel card, but pay for your own fuel. This will save you loads! When I gave up a company car to go for an allowance almost 10 years ago, the fuel card would have cost me the equivalent of 14000 miles of private mileage - based on an efficent diesel (1.9Tdi VW/Audi) and the price of a litre of diesel at around 85p.

My car does 0-60 in 6.4 seconds - now THAT is something to get excited about when driving a car.

And you drive it.. on public roads.. See, that would frustrate me no end. I love driving fast but the public roads are no place for it because a) it's not safe and b) you just can't do it properly. Even in my boring Passat you can't boot it for more than a few seconds before you're going too fast for the road.

It'd be like having an Orange 5 and only being able to go to the shops on it.

I'll get a fast car when I take up track racing 🙂

MM - I bet it doesn't...

RWD vs FWD - no contest... 😉

Yours take 16s to 100 too - almost 3s slower...

What is wrong about doing 60 miles per hour on a public road?

I'm still waiting to be sat at the lights when some guy pulls up in his fast sports car.

We will look at each other and he will wind down his window, nod at his car and say,
"0-60 in 5 seconds." And smile knowingly.

I will look him back in the eye, stroke the door of my car gently and say
"55 miles to the gallon."

Aah, the pleasures of middle age.

I bet it doesn't...

RWD vs FWD - no contest..

Totally agree molgrips!

Cars are fun when driven hard, but only on dickhead free, hazard free race tracks.

I've around a million miles of experience on public highways and can confirm that the public highway is no place to drive fast, or aggressively, even at night on empty roads when deer and other wildlife can shoot out from the shadows.

Cars on public roads serve as a means of getting around, safely!

Save the Clarksonesque stupidity for the track!

when deer and other wildlife can shoot out from the shadows.

Seat Exeo ST?? Based on the previous A4 platform.....

Doesn't have the Seat brand identity really as it just looks like a re-badged A4 but that's probably no bad thing.

VOLVO!

MM - your power to weight ratio is 145bhp/tonne. Mine is 175bhp/tonne.

If there was such a thing as torque/weight ratio (there isn't) then your TT is 153.33 lbs-ft/tonne, mine is 260.

And I have M Sports suspension as an option...

Unfortunately there are no exact lap time comparisons but the 335d beat a manual 335i around Bruntingthorpe in a proper test and it also scalped cars like the Lexus ISF, the Z4 35si and the Honda S2000 - all more "sporty" cars apparently.

An Audi A5 3.0TDI (a fair bit slower than mine) also beat your TT (same model) around the Autocar Handling track.

Don't forget that I do like your car though 😉

For the quick car haters - why do you spend money on making your bike lighter/faster? Sure you won't be exceeding speed limits but it's because going quickly is fun. And it's perfectly safe to get to legal speeds quickly - it also makes a number of things safer - pulling onto motorways, overtaking and all sorts. The brakes will be better, the handling will help prevent accidents. A good driver in a quick car is far safer than some dodderer in a 1.0 Kia IMO.

Do deer and other wildlife know to stay off tracks then?

Probably not, but most tracks arent within inches of bushes and trees due to reasons of safety. How many race tracks do you know like that?

If you are racing, you void your insurance and are generally accepting of the fact that you will be burning up money. Unlike on a public road, generally, the only person you are putting at risk is yourself.

Back to the OP - I still think the Passat is the best option - they are pretty nippy with that engine too.

I'm not a fast car hater, I'm a fast car lover. But I feel terribly frustrated driving a fast car on normal roads. I mean sure you can boot it on a motorway on-ramp but really, that's just nothing. Big fat deal. "BRRRRRMMMMMM yeeaoh, there'a lorry" does nothing for me.

When I ride my bike I flog myself and it as hard as I absolutely can, on the very limits of traction and what I dare to do. I just can't do that on roads in a car, it's not safe or sane.

now there is a suprise. surf-mat quoting pointless car stats...

I gave up fast cars when I realised they brought the c**t out in me. I didn't like the person they turned me into, and the issue was forced when I came close to taking out a bunch of tourists who were walking in the road on the bendy country road I was hooning round. Dad-style cars followed very quickly after and I started turning my attention to bikes instead. Still great fun on the track though.

Jambo - pointless? Please tell me why? I use them to "win" arguments from the less informed. Seems pretty convincing to me. The only people riled by them are saddos who can't stand being beaten by plain facts. If I say my MTB is lighter than a top end road bike how will I be proved wrong? With FACTS.

There are many roads down here where you can have a huge amount of fun in a quick car - the road to St Mawes, Moor roads, various coast roads, etc, etc - fast driving may have died in many parts of the UK but in Cornwall, Scotland and parts of Wales, it's still perfectly feasible.

With a bit of extra training (from the cops in my case) you can be safe as well as quick. And once again I notice that the haters "forget" to acknowledge the fact that fast cars have better brakes and handling so therefore are more likely to be able to avoid a crash.

I find football pointless. Many don't. You find fast cars pointless - many don't. I don't jump in on football threads. Why not ignore car threads?

Also why not slow down on your bikes too? People get killed and/or seriously hurt themselves when bikes mow down pedestrians after all.

Once again - go for the Passat.

Hmmmm, I like fast cars and regret not getting the Ibiza Cupra TDi, instead plumping for the 'warm' version.

But.....all these stats & talk of power/weight ratios is rather lame & irrelevant in a thread about what company car to buy....

And the comparison between buying/driving fast cars & making your bike lighter/faster is a nonsense.

was faced with similar choice at the end of last yr, although with a slightly higher list price fig. As a few folk have said earlier, do the sums on tax and fuel for your own mileage profile. I ended up going for a BMW 318d tourer - very economical with stop start etc, cheap tax and nice to drive. Not a lot of space inside although bikes go on roof anyway. oh, and no one lets me out at junctions now.......

Suggest you look at the costs of having an Accord on the drive compared to lower spec BM'er.

The new 320d 184bhp is a flyer and good on the juice. BMW have a 109 co2 version now....and still does 0-60 in 8 secs.

When i was ticking the boxes on the BM options list I only really needed one - sports seats (knackered back, I need additional support).

You can't be as quick as I'd like to be, simply because of visibility. You can't apex a corner on the limit because you can't see what's around it. It's just not possible to stretch a decent car on public roads. I am talking about finding the limit here, not short blips of throttle and enjoying windy bits. You can drive quickly, but you're still using only 30% of the car. In fact, the faster car you get, the smaller proportion of its potential you are using, and I find this really frustrating.

When I got my Passat I could've got a Civic which is much faster and sportier. I didn't, because I knew it'd frustrate me and make me into more of a c*ck like bol says.

BTW I live in Wales and learned to drive in Herefordshire, both of which are a lot emptier and more drivable than Cornwall I reckon.

We will look at each other and he will wind down his window, nod at his car and say,
"0-60 in 5 seconds." And smile knowingly

Where do you live? ****land? And since you mention it, yes I am proud of the fact my car does 60mpg. Efficiency is good engineering in my book, and I dig that.

iainc - there's a 318d Tourer near me - same colour and wheels as mine and looks very very similar but half the power. I like having a proper sleeper!

The boot [b]is[/b] smallish though - had to take both wheels off my road bike to get it in the boot yesterday (could only fold the smaller section of the rear seat as my son was in his car seat on the bigger side)!

Mol - anyone that drives too fast for a given section of road is very silly. When I got a mk2 Gti aged 22 I did the IAM course to make sure I could drive it safely. I guess a few poor drivers with quick cars ruin it for everyone but to me driving is about having fun but being very very safe. Hence cop training as well as the IAM course. Just makes driving safer and more rewarding.

(could only fold the smaller section of the rear seat as my son was in his car seat on the bigger side)!

That's why we put the carseat on the smaller side!

Probably not, but most tracks arent within inches of bushes and trees due to reasons of safety. How many race tracks do you know like that?

Anyway, I wouldn't exactly lose any sleep if I ran over Bright Eyes.

If you are racing, you void your insurance and are generally accepting of the fact that you will be burning up money. Unlike on a public road, generally, the only person you are putting at risk is yourself.

That's why we put the carseat on the smaller side!

We have a rear facing seat for our little one that takes up a lot of room (Britax Multi Tech - meant to be the safest) - stick it behind the drivers side (same side as the "smaller" folding section) and there's not quite enough legroom for the driver! It's fine on the passenger side though - unless the passenger is over 6ft.

sur - my 318d feels slow after the Golf GTi that I had before it, but I like the monthly fuel bills better now !

Iain - that engine is very very efficient isn't it?! I had a 318d M Sport courtesy car for two days - it used NO fuel (it seemed)! I found the stop start a PITA but I'm sure you get used to it.

145bhp vs nearly 200 for the GTi so definitely slower but still nippy enough for most. Mine is low to mid 30s mpg most of the time - not great for a diesel but good enough for us.

Anyway, I wouldn't exactly lose any sleep if I ran over Bright Eyes.

What about if you smashed into a family of four coming the other way and wiped them out? That used to happen once a year ish back home.

Rally circuits and the Nurberg ring don't have traffic coming the other way.

Why would I hit someone coming in the other direction unless they were on my side of the road - then it would be their fault anyway.

The Volvo V50 1.6 diesel has 170bhp i think and silly low tax in comparison, worth a butchers

[i]The Volvo V50 1.6 diesel has 170bhp i think and silly low tax in comparison, worth a butchers [/i]

Is that a typo or a real mistake? If BMW can't get 170bhp from a 1.6 diesel then Volvo certainly can't. The 1.6 diesel V50 has 107bhp.

Subaru Outback with Boxer Diesel engine 4x4 etc

Love mine and fairly low emissions....

For all your off-road needs:
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