Fast(ish) petrol estate cars. ??

Glad your wife’s a good driver like mine 😉
Now back to fast estate car but one that’s frugal………
By the car that’s most suited to the main requirement…..all modern cars will do 70mph and sit on a motorway…….a fast car will encourage use of the BHP available unless you’re a 70 year old biffer!!
If you need regular four passengers and dogs etc round town go with the mist economical petrol engined load lugger ie Skoda 1.4TSI Octavia estate or even the 1.2Tsi if you really don’t need a fast car for continental driving.
Accept that the 1.2Tsi will be a little noisier on the motorway but it will get you there and back.
My final idea is get yourself a toy car to play in ie Golf Gti/R or something similar but Japanese and a second load lugger in true economy guise………….

Got the 1.4TSi Octavia estate on order. 150bhp, 0 – 60 in, just over, 8sec and a top end in excess of 130mph. Unladen towing weight of 1500 kg.
Drives well, looks reasonable, what’s not to like? (Apart from the fact that it IS A SKODA, as I’m sure the badge snobs will point out).

what’s not to like?

that the 1.4TSI in the smaller, lighter Skoda Fabia knocks out 178bhp?

It’s cos it has to get around the bellies of the drivers innit

not yet, but give it a winter…

😳

(actually ours is the first of the Common Rail diesels, the last of the MK2s pre-facelift, on an 09. No flat section on the wheel. And bizarrely, at 6ft, I do have to wiggle my frame in there)

that the 1.4TSI in the smaller, lighter Skoda Fabia knocks out 178bhp?

Really? That’s quite nuts.

Hence the Polo GTI being a cracking car!
Supercharged and Turbo – early ones had so many issues the GTI is now the MK5/6 1.8 Turbo

allthegear – Member
that the 1.4TSI in the smaller, lighter Skoda Fabia knocks out 178bhp?

well documented for going pop isn’t it?

The early one (with the chassis id starting CAVE) had a habit of drinking oil. The later ones (like mine, with CTHE markings) are/were pretty much sorted. As it happens, I sold mine and bought a motorbike when I left my gf so maybe it did eventually go pop – I don’t know.

Rachel

They had seal issues on the charging side of the induction – odd considering VW’s experience with turbos.
Most of the time the Tech’s just changed the entire engine as it was cheaper (read faster) to do.
VW were at one point shipping complete units with blank numbers.

I’m still resisting the urge to ask Smartboy for a price on the RS6, I need a new commuter in the new year, but that would only lead to me getting into right foot related trouble!

I’m still resisting the urge to ask Smartboy for a price on the RS6, I need a new commuter in the new year, but that would only lead to me getting into right foot related trouble

Glad I’m not the only one!

A guy who’s got a + version of the RS6 avant drives past my shop most days, often with a bike or two on the roof. There are faster cars in the world, but not many of them sound as menacing as a decent capacity V8 with loud pipes at little more than tickover, knowing there’s so much more in reserve…

One of my customers has a 15 plate RS6 avant in that primer grey (can’t remember the actual name of the colour), running on nice and cheap 285/30/21 tyres! Fuel economy is surprisingly frugal at 25mpg combined and about 30 on a run, considering its power (his mate has the V10 Gallardo engined version that does 19mpg on a run, and barely into the teens combined cycle!). But my god those tyres ain’t cheap! Again makes a hell of a noise, and if you absolutely must have the worlds most potent dog carrier, accept no substitute… Even sticking to 4krpm (he was still running it in) it was mind warpingly quick.

Back on topic… Having issues with the DPF on my 330D right now incidentally. Have spoken to my MOT centre and “unofficially” they can’t test the DPF in an MOT, other than physically to check it is there. That is to say, there are specialists out there opening them up, knocking the insides out, welding them shut (in an area the MOT tester wouldn’t spot the weld), getting them remapped (normally a 20% performance gain along with 10-15% improvement in economy at the same time!), all for about £400… Put it this way, “unofficially” I am very tempted. My 330D doesn’t hang about with 230bhp (and a clogged DPF), with 280 and 400+ lb/ft of torque I don’t expect the rear tyres to last long! 😛

400+ lb/ft

Aren’t they something like 360 off the shelf to start with? Mine certainly has more mid range kick than my wife’s GTi.

Let me know if you are interested toby1 and we can take this elsewhere to avoid hijacking the thread!

Clutches are designed to last (these days) between 150 and 200 thousand miles. IF they fail early it’s usually either loads and loads of driving like granny/round town, or just poor driving

Same as one with a manual, about 250000 miles.

Have you any idea how stupid that makes you and your mate look? Swapping a good gearbox on the grounds “it might fail” is almost exactly the definition of unreliable and also “unexpected big bills”. Unless of course you fit a second hand box, with no guarantee of how well it’s been reconditioned, or if it’s even been reconditioned…… which leads to more big bills.

The mind boggles.

My boy racer mate, formerly a car mechanic, advised me the automatic gear box oil must be changed once it reaches certain mileage even when the oil looks clean. This is to ensure the life of the gearbox remains good

I think this was missing one word

Fair enough, he should have used it then.

And FWIW, even “fill for life” (Ha, thats a joke and a half) transmissions have replacing the oil as one of the fixes for a multitude of issues.

Most/many cheapy transmissions have an oil service interval as well.

I’m still resisting the urge to ask Smartboy for a price on the RS6, I need a new commuter in the new year, but that would only lead to me getting into right foot related trouble

Heart is very interested, wallet far less so.

😐

I don’t commute so come on Smartboy…..

DickBarton – Member
Got to be the VR4 version though. I was having a mild disagreement with a mutual friend about manual vs automatic. I think manual, he thinks auto. He’s wrong.
Still: £2-3k, 280+bhp, 0-60 in 5.5s, acres of space in the boot – it’s a good shout. Horrendous on fuel though.

Agreed…on all of it…I was getting 22mpg before I was attempting anything spirited…

That’ll be why then – the manuals were very short-geared and mostly crap. I owned both. We had the AC on in an auto VR-4 at (almost) full blast with a full boot through Germany and averaged 30.6mpg. Good luck getting that with manual VR-4s. We generally averaged 25 – 27mpg otherwise. My manual gave me around 19mpg!

I had a Volvo V50 T5R for a while and it was pretty rapid and fairly big inside, they can be had for 5k up so perhaps one for the list, not too bad on fuel and mine was reliable. Boot is not as big as other estates but big enough for our 4 + 2 dogs.

Wait, I have the solution. You seem to like the car other than the EGR, DPF and economy. I have a mk3 2.2 with no DPF, mid-50s economy, and a blanked EGR. And the clutch and DMF are 120000 miles old which means statistically, they will never fail. Swapsies!

I was in this postion recently and bought a Series 1 Nissan Stagea import. I love it.