I currently have to commute about 100 miles a day, 50 miles each way. The route is a 40/50/10 mix of motorway, dual / single A road, and town ring road with traffic lights. The drive takes a bit over 1 hour each way.

I currently have a fiat 500 diesel, which is economical as it returns 60mpg, but I would prefer something more comfortable for the distance and duration.

Can you recommend a vehicle that would be comfortable and economical?

Bike carrying is not an issue, as I have a van for that sort of thing.

I would ideally like to spend less than £10k in the 2nd hand market.

Ta.

I get 55 mpg from my Octavia 1.6cdti estate and its plenty comfy for long runs.

Bluemotion Polo/Golf?

How about a Bentley Mulsanne TURBO 4DR AUTOMATIC 6.8L…? Don’t think quite get 60mpg but it will be confortable and all for half of your budget. 😀

An old Diablo. Shave minutes off your commute.

Polo blue motion 80 mpg,

Move house, buy a V8. sorted!

Fiat 500 Abarth – might as well have fun over that distance…

Maybe an Alfa 159 with 16 or 17inch alloys – my first 156 with fat 16inch alloys was a real mileage eater – drove it up to Glasgow from south of London with only one pee stop.

100miles a day is well over 20k per year. you’d be a little silly blowing 10k on a car to do that amount of mileage as the depreciation on a car would be massive.

its probably worth doing the sums on getting something like a 4 grand-ish luxury-ish car with approx 90-100k on the clock and running it for 2 or 3 years. rinse and repeat.

edit: think larger engine cars. jag xtype, bmw 330, mercs etc

BMW 1-series diesel..

Alfa Brera.

+1 for half the budget on something silly, and the rest on fuel, unless you like the environment, in which case keep the fiat.

100miles a day is well over 20k per year. you’d be a little silly blowing 10k on a car to do that amount of mileage as the depreciation on a car would be massive.

its probably worth doing the sums on getting something like a 4 grand-ish luxury-ish car with approx 90-100k on the clock and running it for 2 or 3 years. rinse and repeat.

The same ‘logic’ would apply regardless of the age of the car and milage though. At least buying at the newer end you get a new ish car (say a 1.8 diesel Focus) with new ish reliability and if anythign goes wrong ford sized repair bills. Rather than a Merc/BMW aproaching mid/end of it’s life with acompanying mid/end of life reliability and serviceing at BMW/Merc costs.

I can see the appeal of bangernomics, but no if I had to do 20k a year and had the money for something newer.

I’d go for an older 7 or 5 series.

How about a Bentley Mulsanne TURBO 4DR AUTOMATIC 6.8L…? Don’t think quite get 60mpg but it will be confortable and all for half of your budget.

The change will buy a lot of fuel, and it’s probably cheaper in the long run. That Bently isn’t going to depreciate very much…
Diz, Spoon and Yoda all seem to agree too.
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Personally, I go for an old-ish Jag, £3-4k on an XJ6, £2k on an LPG conversion, job done.

BMW 1 Series Diesel

yodagoat has it.

A nice 525 would be good. With wind n skin.

Why not do it in the van that you already have?

I commute 75 miles a day in my T5

mondeo, accord, Tdci etc thats what this type of car is built for.
(04 Ghia X Tdci mondeo, 130ps, 50mpg. cheap as to service. for example)

Why not do it in the van that you already have?

+1

I do 50ish miles a day by van and for me it’s loads more comfortable than the seating position in a car.

There is something so wrong about a Bentley ending up in a part-x garage with a dodgy shed in the background.

Fiat 500 Diesel – that sounds pretty modern and comfy to me.
And you’re getting 60mpg, stay put and suck it up I reckon…
Buy a new car and you don’t know what you’re getting – if it ain’t broke and all that..

Sorry to be so boring…

For my part I commuted 80 miles a day (round trip)for three years from Buxton to Burton in a C1 and it was always more than adequate – returned better than book mpg all the time…

Get a mid-size saloon/hatch, spend about £5k – so 06-07 ish.

Vectra/Mondeo/Avensis/X-Type etc etc.

I would go for an older low mileage car for a couple of grand that you can rack up the miles and bin it when its done. If you buy a half decent car for that money it will be worth nothing in a short period of time.

Had exactly the same question 6 months ago. Bought a late model Golf Mk4 tdi 130 hp for just over £2000. Really comfy and 55 mpg and doesn’t matter if I rack up the mileage. It’s a lot more reliable than my Alfa 156, however an 80s Lada would probably be too!

Audi A4 estate, 55mpg and room for the bike if you wanted.

After having one of those 500’s as a hire car on holiday last year,I’d say anything would be more comfortable than that thing ! Thought it was a complete piece of crap tbh…
I’d go for as new Audi A4 as well as you can afford,my mates has done over 160k & it purrs along….

V6 Vectra, epic car.

Polo blue motion, new shape from a vw dealer should be around the 10k with less than 20k, defo worth a drive. Skoda fabia green line is another option for a grand or so less. Both great small cars

2 year old low mileage Kia Cee’d would get you reasonable comfort, good economy and no worries for the best part of 100k miles. That’s what I’m thinking of buying next time I change car, that or a nearly new Civic. Yeah they will depreciate but you can account for that, what you can’t account for is repeated massive bills from a random older used car (been there done that too many times). Having said all that your Fiat sounds ideal!

Peugeot 407 here..they were made as repmobiles so are very comfy and eat miles.

***STW answer***
Brompton and a train ticket
***STW answer***

Get something automatic, comfy, good climate and a good stereo.

I did a similar commute a few years back and drove a 2.5 SE X-Type Jag. Plenty of em out there and spend as above – half car and half on petrol.

I now drive 5 miles to work and have a manual diesel Mundano.

People often think I’ve got it all the wrong way round but having the comfy car on e long drives made a huge difference to my mood.

If I *had* to commute 100 miles a day, there’s only one car I’d choose. Caterham R500.

If you want to be comfortable…. I use a lot of hire cars of various shapes and sizes form Micras through Avensis and Mondeos to Merc V-Class. The most comfortable mile eater, by quite a margin, especially on A roads….. Kia Venga.

Anything with an BMW badge but Diesel be a must for fuel economy

100miles a day = good seats.Volvo V70 D5 has some of the comfiest.

Look at the Rozzers.
Mind you you currently drive a ladies car so a hair dressing salon 3dr 1 series 😉 😆

I did this for eight years.

Volvo V70 D3 was the best for it barring fuel economy which was dreadful. (40mpg at best)

Audi A4 was a good balance between economy and refinement, plus a nice place to sit.

Also used a 320d (e46) and a 520d (current shape)

520d is the most competent all rounder, but 320d was the one I liked most.

Get a Mk3 Mondeo Diesel, that’s what I did. I did do 100 miles a day. 50mpg, very comfortable and quiet, even compared to newer posher brands.

why spend £10k when you can get a good car for £4k, certainly if its just a mile munching commuter…. Unless your a car snob 🙂

It’s been mentioned a few times. But providing you can get past the looks the BMW 1 Series really is a strong contender. Comfort, economy and great handling. Improved if you run normal tires rather than run flats.

All BMW diesels are very comfy- but do come with a certain image.

According to a number of car magazines, the most comfortable recent cruiser was the pre-facelife Passat CC. I haven’t driven one so can’t say.

Mercs are super comfy on motorway, but clumsy around town.

Volvo’s are bad on fuel but very comfy seats
Saabs- yes they are Vectra’s but super cheap and very comfortable seats.

Worth looking at a car with a good quality sound system as this does make a difference. My last A6 had a relatively basic stereo and the tiny noise did wear me down.

I find Fords and cars from the Far East very tiring on motorways, they don’t seem to settle at motorway speeds like European cars do.

Worth looking at a car with a good quality sound system

How about an old Lexus – good levels of kit, quiet and some have exceptionally good hifis – like Mark Levinson’s.

Mate has an LS400 which he got for 8K from an auction (Jap auctions are graded so you know how good they car is if it came from a certain grade of jap auction originally) and it was pretty nice, an awful lot better than an of the BMW 5 series that he had before it.

why spend £10k when you can get a good car for £4k,

we had a contractor that thought like this and was running a mondeo that cost about £4k originally.

He lost a lot of chargeable hours because it was in the shop a lot of the time, probably because of its age. Financially he might have still been OK on the deal, but professionally it didn’t look very good.