For the foreseeable I can see that I will be trudging up and down the country taking my son to football training 3 x per week and a match at weekends. Training is a 120 mile round trip each time and matches could be anywhere !

I currently have a 2016 BMW 330e. A lovely car with 50k on the clock, but I am worried about the battery life, and the fact that once you do long distance it drinks fuel recharging the battery. Apparently it is currently worth £16,500

I used to do similar mileage in a Mondeo 2.0d back in the day, and it was great, so I started looking at Mondeos. They are actually still quite expensive (relative) ie I can get a 2018 for £16,000/£18,000.

So I started looking at 3.0 v6 diesels. Basically you can get a 2015 ish Jaguar XF, BMW 3/4/5/6, Merc E350 all for about £16k with less miles than my current car.

Which would be the car of choice for mile munching in comfort / what would you choose?

Join a team closer to home?

Looks wise, I’d go XF, but it’s the same engine as the Discovery that has crank snapping issues.

I’d be going BMW 335d with a remap – will go like absolute stink (awaits the backlash) and you’ll probably get X-drive also

Does the existing car not give a reasonable average mpg – 40something? I wouldn’t rush out to change anything unnecessarily. You might even get a charging point at the odd match location.

335d touring For the bling or Honda civic 1.6 diesel for the 60mpg reliability.

There was a car website triple test of a BMW petrol, diesel and electric car. Maybe top gear or Evo?

The electric was not especially cheap to run out of cities, but it probably wasn’t enough of a difference to make me change my car.

cost to change just to swap a 330e to a 330d of the same era would make it not worthwhile for me. PHEVs have a tougher battery life than full electric motors, but even if the battery lost half its capacity it’d function perfectly well as a hybrid so I’d just keep that. Gets you into ULEZs which a diesel wouldn’t

a conservative 400 miles a week just for football training (plus, presumably, 10k of other driving a year) is going to be really really dull and cost a load (£3k a year in fuel alone). Worth spending the extra for an older tesla? easily have the range, and would work out cheaper in the long run, plus with autopilot it’ll make the motorway drives less mentally demanding

Waft is the automotive characteristic you describe – https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/what-car-for-wafting-about-in/

Does the existing car not give a reasonable average mpg – 40something? I wouldn’t rush out to change anything unnecessarily. You might even get a charging point at the odd match location.

Yes Motorway driving low to mid 40’s mpg. However once you have drained the battery mpg drops off a cliff to about 20mpg

It only does about 14 miles on battery, and takes 3.5hrs to get that charge back in. Its a brilliant car if you do short journeys in town and hugely fast and competent when you want it to be, but long distance is not its strong point !

I’d be hesitant to change tbh.
It’ll cost you several K to change, and it’ll take several years to recover that in fuel savings.
Plus, better the devil you know, a new(er) car is an unknown quantity.

For comfort, cruising and motorways – size up. There is a noticeable difference in all the above when you go from 3/A4/C to 5/A6/E. The MPG difference with the bigger cars has lesser effect relatively, for cruising than it does for town driving.

Personally – E Class. I have an early W212 E350 and it is remarkable. 6 cylinder is the right engine. Mine will do 40 on a steady cruise, later ones are better, facelift W213 is well in budget.

Estates are MASSSIVE if thats a factor (mine is) and ideal for bikes but you pay a premium, less about too.

SE Spec if its a 5 series.

500 miles a week is a huge commitment to your son’s training, hope he appreciates it !

I’ve got the old (i.e. 2019 pre new model) BMW 430d and it’s a superb engine. Loads of torque, smooth and frugal on long runs. Probably not a great car for families or moving bikes around but the same engine in a 3 series tourer would be great.

Yes Motorway driving low to mid 40’s mpg. However once you have drained the battery mpg drops off a cliff to about 20mpg

is this by design or broken?

Are you forcing recharging the battery whilst on the motorway? If so just don’t, I ran one of these as a company car for 4 years and averaged around 43mpg on 500 mile round trips, staring with a full charge.

If I tried to force the battery to charge at motorway speeds it killed the fuel economy.

Lovely car but the small fuel tank was the killer for me.

If changing consider a 5 series either the last gen or the new one in se spec, a much better motorway cruiser.

Mercedes cls ftw

is this by design or broken?

Its first generation BMW hybrid and was designed as a BIK tax dodge, so yes by design.

Are you forcing recharging the battery whilst on the motorway?

No but at the distance I am driving it uses all the charge, therefore forcing the engine to regen

Estates are MASSSIVE if thats a factor (mine is) and ideal for bikes but you pay a premium, less about too.

Yep I might well look out for the estate version. Great for dogs and bikes!

What are Mercs like for repair costs are they stupid money or ok?

Part of the reason for swapping out of the 330e is that its value has rocketed recently. 12 months ago it was worth 11k, now £16,500 yes all 2nd hand cars have risen but thats jumped more than most

Bigger ulez zone comes into force in a few weeks time
Anything compliant will be in demand and hopfully all euro3 and euro4 cars will hit the market over the next few months
Are you likely to be going into london at all as that will be another deciding factor

500 miles a week is a huge commitment to your son’s training, hope he appreciates it !

I was going to say that! Has he been snapped up by a league team or something? If so good luck to the lad.

That BMW sound horrible. Why the hell it forces you to regen i dont know. My C350 Merc has Hybrid/Electric/Charge/Diesel modes. In hybrid it tends to regen as and when it can but it works out about 10% diesel to electric. If i set off with full battery of electric it tends to use that first then just revert to hybrid again. As i said, i have the 4 functions so i can overide any of them. I NEVER use charge mode. It makes no sense to drink diesel to put electricity in. It does 50mpg in diesel and 20 mpg charging (Similar to yours).

My figures are 50mpg diesel only
68mpg hybrid
30 miles range from electric.

These are my figures over 15,000mls of long, short and town driving.

Anyhow, if i was in your position i would look at a diesel passat. My brother just got a lovely one for around £10k and it looks very capable of doing the job you have. Its quite a nice car, will be as reliable as anything else and i suppose might not depreciate as quickly as a £16-17k car.

Anyhow, if i was in your position i would look at a diesel passat.

I got 70mpg in mine yesterday driving from Manchester up to the Lake District.

That BMW sound horrible. Why the hell it forces you to regen i dont know.

Well no in many ways its a brilliant car, just not a great long distance car. On a motorway journey it will slowly go through the battery, even if you are not in e-mode. At 10% remaining it then regens automatically to about 30% battery, in a continuous cycle. If you drop below 55mph it automatically switched to e-mode too and the only way to prevent that is put it in to sport mode or flip it in to manual gearbox.

That all becomes a bit tedious on a long journey.

I just want a relaxing ‘wafting’ car as described above, the 330e is a fantastic car for A/B road blasting in comfort but not for motorway cruising

I hear Merc’s are ideal, especially in AMG trim.

Big engined stuff is lovely for cruising/wafting up the motorway. If you’re not giving it the beans they are decent on fuel. Got a 2017 535d estate at the moment, and Lancashire to Bristol last week was 44mpg there and 50mpg back. Mooching along at 75ish.
Goes like stink when the load peddle is pressed, and drinks a bit of fuel then, but overall not crippling economy.
I’d be looking at 530d, 535d, E350 or an A6 with the 3l diesel.

football

Range Rover

Plenty of 330d around for ~£15k e.g.
2016 M-Sport saloon, 57k miles, £13999 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224602841175
2015 M-Sport GT, 56k miles, £16000 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/115021446249

I know where you’re coming from with the hybrid fuel consumption. I had to drive from Fife to Manchester airport a while back, hired a Lexus hybrid thinking I was being all eco-friendly. Did about 30mpg and I was on motorway pretty much the entire journey south of the Queensferry Crossing. I spent more than £80 on fuel just to drive about 330 miles.

Your experience of the BMW doesn’t sound right. You SHOULD be able to tell it not to drain the battery, just run like a non-plugin hybrid – so it uses a bit of battery power when you accelerate, then gently recharges just that bit when you brake.

It really sounds like you’re in the wrong mode somehow. According to the blurb you press the hybrid button multiple times to get the different modes. Apologies if you’ve tried this but: https://www.wheelsjoint.com/difference-between-hybrid-electric-adaptive-modes-on-bmw-plug-in-hybrids/

So I started looking at 3.0 v6 diesels.

Overkill, and you’ll be wasting fuel and lucky to get 40mpg. My CLS (make me an offer!) is a 2.1 4cyl, has 7 gears and the engine does about 1700rpm at 70mph. The later models have 9 gears and the top gear is even taller. Even then it only does 48-50mpg. My old Passat did 60mpg or more on longer trips, my record was 65mpg driving to Preston but that trip always got more than 62. And that was an older engine so I can well believe the reports of 70mpg for later models. That’d be a cheaper car than a Merc and you’d probably be using nearly half the fuel compared to a v6.

If you’re not giving it the beans they are decent on fuel. Got a 2017 535d estate at the moment, and Lancashire to Bristol last week was 44mpg

In 2021, 44mpg is NOT decent, it’s terrible!

What are Mercs like for repair costs are they stupid money or ok?

Not much data yet, hopefully there won’t be, but all three engine mounts were £200 from Autodoc, I’ve been having a look at various parts on Euro car parts and they don’t seem too bad. I put a new air filter in for £40, front discs are £50, shocks are £100 ish, all for quality name parts, Febi, Brembo, Lemförder etc (assuming the actual quality of the part fits the name, which you can’t be too sure of these days!).

It’ll cost you several K to change

Not necessarily, if he can get £16k for the BMW there are plenty of Passats around that are newer, similar mileage and will get the 2021 version of good fuel economy.

Volvo XC 60 D5. Will eat the miles and are mega comfortable.

And that was an older engine so I can well believe the reports of 70mpg for later models.

Almost certainly. I’ve just got the new model ’21 superb 2.0l diesel. First trip I did 1 week after receiving it was a 4 day Lakes weekender from Somerset. It did 72mpg there and back loaded 2 up with bikes and gear.

I managed 63mpg in our 2.0 diesel a6 for a 110 mile run to a clients office the other day.

Loads of options I would have thought, although it depends on your specific requirements & brand loyalties I guess.

My Leon estate will do 60mpg on a run without too much bother, as will I suspect most other 2 litre diesels from different manufacturers.
With the recent fuel shortage, I have been driving more considerately & sticking to 60mph on the way to & from the office – that has put the mpg up to between 66 & 70mpg for a <5 min increase in journey time.

In 2021, 44mpg is NOT decent, it’s terrible!

It’s hardly terrible. It also depends what you/I/the OP prioritises.
For me, I wanted something fast (awaits the flaming), comfortable, big boot, and imoh decent fuel economy.
In recent years I’ve had 2015 Passat 2l, 520d, an XF 2.2d and now a 535d. None have been exceptional on fuel, nor terrible.
The 535d is 313hp, 465 ft/lb of torque. ‘Only’ 44mpg is the ‘trade off’
The OP needs to decide what he sees as his priorities and choose accordingly.
So far he’s listed

I just want a relaxing ‘wafting’ car

A 3l diesel, fits the bill.

I’ve got a Jaguar XF Sportbrake and it covers miles pretty effortlessly / in lots of comfort. I had a Jag XE before and this is quieter / more relaxing but still quite amusing to drive.

Compared to a 320d I’ve been in a few times the seats in the Jag are more comfortable and it feels more solid and stable on the road (that’ll be the 1.7 tonnes).

It’s terrible on fuel – but it’s the 2 litre 250ps petrol turbo version. My XE had the 163ps diesel and it averages high 40’s. Without a heavy right foot and short journeys it would have happily been in the 50’s.

Another car I had that was good on a journey was a Citroen DS5 diesel. That had the comfiest seats I’ve ever had in a car and the ride was comfy without being too wallowy. It had a decent boot and interior too. Imagine those would be well under budget.

It’s hardly terrible

No, it is terrible. It might be good relative to how fast or manly your car is (you wanted flaming…) but it’s not good by any stretch.

Whatever the OP’s personal priorities are, he needs to understand he has a responsibility to everyone else, like we all do. Choosing to drive 500 miles a week is bad, but it’s potentially justifiable in many people’s minds. Choosing to do it in a 45mpg car when there are plenty of really good and perfectly comfortable 65-70mpg options, just to give yourself a slightly better feeling – that’s less justifiable IMO.

I had a ’17 520D Touring. I did try the 530D and it was undoubtedly lovely. But the 2.0 is still a heck of an engine even pulling round a big estate. Most of my miles were motorway (to and from lots of universities). In the 50k I did over three years, it was the best motorway car I’d ever had. Super comfortable, more than enough power, 50-58 mpg average, idrive/satnav/etc all just worked really well.

Stereo was a bit rubbish. But otherwise fab. I wished I’d gone for ACC, long motorway drives definitely would be better with adaptive cruise.

Now I do < 4000 miles a year, I’m happy with a far smaller car.

I wished I’d gone for ACC, long motorway drives definitely would be better with adaptive cruise.

Oh yes, this – adaptive cruise is a far greater benefit on motorways than engine size. Especially when you get into a queue and it can crawl along for you automatically.

Choosing to drive 500 miles a week is bad, but it’s potentially justifiable in many people’s minds

This is likely to be around 12 hours a week minimum in a car, assuming full time job, and other family commitments etc when are you going to have time to ride your bike?

A 3l diesel, fits the bill.

it does fit the bill, but so does a 1.6 diesel, which will use a bunch less fuel in the mean time. Drafting trucks I’ve seen 90mpg (over 50 miles) in my zafira with its last gen engine – something like an insignia (more aero) should be able to do even more.

That said, an electric car is still a better solution. They hold value even when they have moon milage on, servicing costs are far lower, energy input is 1/10th that of a diesel. so TCO is significantly lower, its better for the environment, and has lower NVH so more relaxing to drive.

Well no in many ways its a brilliant car, just not a great long distance car. On a motorway journey it will slowly go through the battery, even if you are not in e-mode. At 10% remaining it then regens automatically to about 30% battery, in a continuous cycle. If you drop below 55mph it automatically switched to e-mode too and the only way to prevent that is put it in to sport mode or flip it in to manual gearbox.

this is possibly the most efficient way for the system to run. By using the electric motor to torque fill when you accelerate instead of changing down a gear you use less fuel, the power can then be backfilled by using excess torque as its available when you go downhills etc. Turning the engine off alltogether saves a load of overhead, a good hybrid will do it whenever possible.

Whatever the OP’s personal priorities are, he needs to understand he has a responsibility to everyone else, like we all do. Choosing to drive 500 miles a week is bad, but it’s potentially justifiable in many people’s minds. Choosing to do it in a 45mpg car when there are plenty of really good and perfectly comfortable 65-70mpg options, just to give yourself a slightly better feeling – that’s less justifiable IMO.

Unless you are totally green, don’t eat meat, never go on holiday etc, etc, I can’t be doing with these lines trotted out tbh

There are many things that most people do that an eco warrior could deem selfish

Anyhow

300bhp, 3 litre straight 6, 2.5 tonne diesel SUV. It’s an MHEV, but I don’t think it really makes much difference other than being ULEZ compliant

[url=https://www.flickr.com/gp/85252658@N05/478Y3C]2021-10-05_04-11-23[/url] by davetheblade, on Flickr