looking for a diesel car for 5k, so far the shortlist is a Golf, focus or Mondeo……what else should i consider?

Blimey, some idea of usage, annual milage, and size may help as well as the budget!

Depending on what you want though, the 3 you mention are all solid choices, though you’ll get much more Mondeo or Focus for your money than you will a Golf.

about 12,000 a year. possible family car though working on that. Good for a roof rack, mostly used to commute to work with the odd long motorway trip

If you need interior space a c5 estate is cavernous

At 12,000 miles a year, it’s worth noting that a diesel car may be more expensive to run than a petrol one, due to higher priced servicing and the increasing cost in diesel relative to petrol. Sure if you do 20k plus miles, a diesel works out significantly cheaper, but it’s worth doing the sums first if you’re only doing average milage.

Personally, with £5k would seek out as new and good condition Focus Estate as you can for your intended purpose. Estate has plenty of space for bikes and kit etc. 1.6 petrol would suffice, though the TDCi diesels are good engines (though you will get a much newer lower milage petrol car than a diesel one for your money). Ford’s aren’t brilliant come resale time, so for your £5k you can bag a decent car, and as long as you’re looking to keep it a few years the resale value shouldn’t bother you either. That said, Focus’ retain their value much better than Mondeo’s do, as do smaller cars in general.

Take everything I say above though with the view to the fact I would be buying a car with a view to its ability to carry mountain bikes and people in comfort. If this isn’t going to be used as a car for carrying bikes or gear, then well… Buy something smaller!

But go drive some cars first. You may hate the Focus. VW Passat estate would also be a good choice (or a Golf estate), though for £5k it’ll be older and higher milage than an equivalent Ford. There’s always the Skoda Octavia’s too, and as it’s based on a VW Golf, you know you’re getting a good car, bu for less money than the Golf.

Sure if you do 20k plus miles, a diesel works out significantly cheaper, but it’s worth doing the sums first if you’re only doing average milage.

having had experience of diesel & petrol you may be a bit out there.
My annual mileage is 20-24k depending on a whole host of factors

My current car is a 2 litre diesel, the tank holds 60 litres – that’s £60 to fill up at today’s prices. I get about 550 miles out of a tankful (not particularly good but my commute involves about 50-50 urban/motorway. The urban bit kills the economy – if it was motorway door to door I’d get about 60mpg instead of less than 40mpg)

My last car was a 1.6 petrol – same size tank would cost £54 to fill with unleaded at today’s prices. 400 miles max out of a tankful on the same commute

so for an extra 10% cash, I can go 30+% further per tankful.

FWIW current car is a BMW 320d estate with about 50kg of cymbal stands in the boot; last car was an Alfa 156 saloon with no such weight penalty. The Alfa was a joy to drive; the BMW is very efficient.

having said all that, MrsH just bought a 56 plate Citroen C4 1.6LX petrol with 24k on the clock for £5500. Pleasant enough car; it won’t take my drums AND my bikes AND a passenger, but neither will the beemer

johnhoo

That’s not a fair or direct comparison. Diesel cars use less fuel in general of course, but often cost more to service. If you were to take the equivalent petrol BMW to compare with your diesel one, you’d find it was more efficient than an Alfa. But let’s assume a diesel is 30% more fuel efficient as per your experience. So you’ll go 30% further, but Diesel is 12-13% more expensive than petrol in general now, so you’re only saving 17-18% on the fuel you use. If you’re doing 12k miles per year, your annual fuel bill is going to be circa £1000 for a diesel, so let’s say approx £1200 for the petrol car.

Diesels often cost more to service than petrols though as I stated above. In some cases, the annual service for a diesel car will cost more than the £200 you’ve saved on fuel EXTRA over the petrol car to service. Though not always of course. And the more miles you do, the more a diesel makes sense as you’re saving more money.

It’s ALWAYS worth doing the sums before hand.

you’re right of course, it’s not a fair or direct comparison; however, I can tell you this:

the BMW has been cheaper to service over the 4 years I’ve had it than the Alfa was over its lifetime.
You have to also take service intervals into the equation too, not to mention any servicing deals you can get when you buy the car in the first place.

£200 per year on annual servicing costs, like for like diesel v petrol? I’m not convinced. With today’s cars that’s on average (i.e 12k miles a year “average motoring”) only one service a year, I can’t see a diesel costing that much more per service than an equivalent petrol engined car – if every service on a diesel car cost that much more than petrol cars, nobody would buy them.

But, at the end of the day, you are right in one respect – you do have to do the sums. And the biggest sum of all could be the monthly payment to the bank…

In some cases

I will refer to the above 3 words I said again 😉

It’s never clear cut cost wise, and sure as apples is apples, fuel prices will vary (and most likely favour those of us running diesels less well off!). Which of course renders any calculations before hand irrelevant. Also, it’s less true now, but diesel cars often used to require servicing more often than petrol cars.

When I had my company 320D new in Jan last year, the day I recieved it, diesel was still 99p per litre round here. Within a few months it hit 137p per litre! The milage I was doing it was costing me an extra £40 or so per month just in fuel! Glad it’s back down under a quid a litre again, but for how long?

How about Mazda 6 diesel version? Try choose the 2004 model onwards.

Try a Vectra, we have the 1.9 CDTI and its quick. Since its replacement the used prices have plumeted. So much so I’m looking at getting another one as a second car.

Does it have to be a dull diesel?

Your brief is too open, its subjective and your choice will be based more on aesthetics then? Give us some more criteria!

Personally, I’d buy a 2.0T Subaru Forester but then I like quirky!

We were looking for a Focus with the TDCi engine, ended up getting a Mondeo as they are cheaper. We got the estate, has roof rails which is good for a roofrack and can hold 100kg, whereas the hatchbacks limit is 75kg. Economy and performance is pratically identical between the estate and hatch, estate has the bonus of being much easier to park as you haven’t got a boot sticking out from below the rear window.

If you go for a Mondeo, check for rust under the inside of the doors, bonnet (and bootlid on the hatchback) (ours is being assessed for repairs under the corrosion warranty, common problem for years 2000-2006 and also Focus 1999). Mine is an 03 rattles and vibrates at idle when the engine is hot due to a dodgy pulley on the auxillary belt, which was a problem around this time. I’ll just put up with it as I think the repair is in excess of £200.

Mmmmm Mazda 6 Estate, very nice inside, great space in the rear.

Is that a record, 4 posts before a Skoda Octavia is mentioned 😉

It has the MX5 steering rack as well.

[cough]Volvo V70[/cough]

[Edit] removed as nothing sensible to say

[cough] V70 big bills down the line [/cough]

Mx5

You can have my 54plate grey Civic Sport with the upgraded Penta alloys for £5k. 54k on the clock, full Honda service history and never missed a beat. Only selling as we want a bigger car – plus I’d do you a deal on a Thule roof rack and a pair of Thule 591s if you wanted!?

choosing a diesel car isn’t just about running costs – for the sort of driving i do (99% fast roads) i prefer a diesel for the power delivery.

Some petrol randon options from autotrader:

Focus ST 170:

£5000

Jag X-type Estate:

£5500

Subaru Impreza WRX:

£4500

Saab 93:

£4200

WRX meets your requirements , mine carrys a large surf ski + 3 bikes on the roof, 4 people, gear and still goes uphill at 140kmh allegedly….

Golf Gt TDI, either 130hp or 150 hp, they have two modes, cheap or fast, nuff said

Having bought a Focus TDCi I’d have preferred a petrol simply cos I don’t do enough long journeys. In a month of drigving to work the wife gets 400 out of a tank. On long journeys we’d get 600.

Although on pare they’re the same speeds, the Diesel seems much better for overtaking than the petrol. Drop a gear or get the turbo level right and it flys. The power delivery of the petrols just don’t seem right after driving the diesles. I guess a 1.8 or 2 litre would be more noticeable, but I got a 1.6 mk 2 (mines a mk1) as a hire care and it didn’t feel any where near as gutsy for overtaking.

Don’t discount a Vauxhall Astra

Don’t discount a Vauxhall Astra

Who the **** is perpetuating the myth that diesels are more expensive to service than petrols? it just isn’t fact.

I’m with anotherhonkie on that one……my diesel Ibiza 1.9TDi 130 with ~50bhp more and 3x the torque than my previous 1.4 Fiesta is so far proving to be slightly cheaper to service than the Fiesta.
It does get through tyres a bit quicker though, but that is more to do with the extra power.

Do you need a Focus/Astra sized car? My Ibiza has been fantastic over the 50k+ miles I have had it so far, never returns less than 50mpg over a tank. Generally it is 55mpg+ and the best mpg ever on a 50 mile journey was 70.6mpg.
You can get a decent one for £5k easily and it is very well equipped. Very underrated car, I reckon.

You’ll get a lot more space in a Mondeo than a Focus or Golf, and the Mondeo is much more comfy than the Focus for M-ways, IME.

Definitely give one a test drive. Great car.