You're buying a new-to-you car, and your choice is…

You really need to specify if you are buying petrol or diesel, which will depend on your annual mileage I would think.

There is potentially more to go wrong on a high mileage diesel car, or a low mileage one for that matter. EGR’s, DPF’s, DMF’s depending on what age you buy. Also turbo’s, intercoolers and hoses may need fixing at high mileage. To save all that gubbins you should get a naturally aspirated petrol engine for the ultimate reliability.

The odds are it will be a bit underwhelming to drive. Saying that the Honda Vtec that was in the Civic type R and S2000 was amazingly reliable and pretty powerful. Old Volvo’s go on forever.

For me, if it drives like crap I’m not going to enjoy it repair bills or not.

Get something with good history and drive as many different cars as you can, a could one will stand out.

“There is potentially more to go wrong on a high mileage diesel car, or a low mileage one for that matter. EGR’s, DPF’s, DMF’s depending on what age you buy.“

Petrol cars have DMFs too. Admittedly they have a harder time when attached to a diesel engine.

“…its normally (so I’m told) the housing on the servo that cracks.“

Yep. But possibly because we rarely used the handbrake (auto g’box in “P” is perfectly adequate 99% of the time) by the time it came to light the little motor in the mechanism was corroded and properly buggered. Helpfully, you can’t buy just the motor or the mechanism on its own, you have to buy a complete new caliper 🙄

A high mileage car will more likely have done more motorway miles which will put far less stress on the DMF. If possible, get the previous owner to drive you around in it, and see how rough of a driver he is because that also seems to be a big factor.

molgrips – Member

I would recommend a VAG car for you as I have the VCDS that can read fault codes.

I would recommend a Japanese car, rather than buying one that you already expect to break down. 😛

Helpfully, you can’t buy just the motor or the mechanism on its own

You can – I did.

It was still stupidly expensive though – £280 for the part IIRC, although it was an easy job to fit.

Helpfully, you can’t buy just the motor or the mechanism on its own, you have to buy a complete new calipe

And even more helpful is the amazing ‘bong’ that plays constantly when it is buggered, to remind you that you’re about to be royally fleeced…

you are just as clearly embittered and one of these ‘everything’s rubbish’ types like that fast show sketch

Too right I am. I bought this because my other car broke, this one has broken and has cost nearly as much to put right as the original car…

A Japanese car so it can rot away in front of your very eyes surely ?

I’ll not have another vw after the shoddy design on my last one doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what was gonna fail.

In the spirit of run what you bring. Peugeot or Citroen . My nice apparently unreliable Peugeot started first time after 4 months sitting doing nothing as I was working abroad. Fooking golf couldn’t even do 2 months without draining it’s battery unless I left it on a trickle charger.