Please!
Viewed 4 this morning and discounted three.
Someone I know is selling his 51 C4 Picasso. 10 months T&T, 2 owner full history and new belt last month. So so inside but all electrics work, inc the huge sunroof (although it judders slightly). 135k miles and only needs an oil change and two new front tyres. £1200 .
Option 2, so far unseen as a 30 mile drive, but from a useful contact, is a much newer July 2006 5dr Golf S Sdi?Tdi? With 107k miles. £2700. FSH no tax but more resalable in four months. Obviously I shall ask questions re history, tyres, belt changed, before I travel to view.
No idea on passive safety but maybe the Golf is better. I can afford either, the only financial relevance being the ease of selling, probably BCA Sure Sell and residuals.
Any thoughts from our esteemed panel?
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Too late for edit but checking the reg on WBACar it is a 1.9 Sdi. How does that compare to a Tdi?
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Is this likely to occur again?
Because perhaps you may end up deciding that its worth keeping a "spare" car around for visitors? We do.
In which case I would choose the Golf because of its age.
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Not likely to occur again...they live beside the Indian Ocean and only visit Blighty once a year.
Having checked up on Sdi specs I think it will be underpowered with only 75 horses.
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I'd probably still go with the Golf. You don't need a breaky-down car and 5 years news would seem more likely to be reliable.
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An sdi golf......mmmmm, leisurely performance springs to mind.
If it was me I would go for the C4, but the price looks a bit high for a 51 plate to me. Auto trader shows them from £500 upwards with MOT
Smaller outlay means that your exposure is less, and cheaper cars will always sell
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>> An sdi golf......mmmmm, leisurely performance springs to mind.
As in it would come second in a race against a two toed sloth, and thrashed by a three toed slot.
BUT
You could sell it on in a heartbeat.
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Picasso will be a more useful size for sure. There will be the additional expense though of a supply of paper bags with eyeholes cut out to wear over your head while driving it.
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If the price is right, and I've no idea whether it is, the Golf would attract me more.
Experience suggests we normalise to the performance available and what seems pathetically slow initially you soon get used to it.
I actually had a 1983 Golf 1100 once, Mk1 so quite a bit lighter, but about 50bhp IIRC. Managed to make that go OK. Similar 0-60 time I think, about 16 secs!
It also has the advantage, in an older high mileage car, of not having a turbo I assume.
Did you say whether the Cit was petrol or diesel, if so I must have missed it?
Last edited by: Manatee on Sat 5 Apr 14 at 16:11
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>> It also has the advantage, in an older high mileage car, of not having a
>> turbo I assume.
The Sdi is non turbo, hence its lethargic nature, but bulletproof.
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>> If it was me I would go for the C4, but the price looks a
>> bit high for a 51 plate to me.
>>
On a 51 plate it won't be a C4 Picasso but the older egg shaped Xsara Picasso. The C4 version didn't come along until 2006.
The Xsara Picasso was a basic but good enough people carrier of the time, can't be worth more than banger money now though.
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>>worth keeping a "spare" car around
>> for visitors?
Friends of ours who live up a hill in the Scottish Borders keep an old LR Defender in an outbuilding for similar reasons and others.
They have family who return from abroad from time to time and they reached the same conclusion about hire cars. The old Landy is easy to keep maintained, is insurable for peanuts and doesn't seem to mind being left under a tarpaulin for extended periods. Living where they do it also doesn't hurt to have a spare car kicking about especially one like that given the kind of winters they can get.
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I'd go for the Picasso... but at a price nearer its true value of £800 or so. At that sort of price you can almost scrap it compared with rental costs.
The Golf, better car it may be, leaves you with a near £3k car to sell so a greater liability.
And if I was looking at a Golf I wouldn't go anyway near the non-turbo. Not only slow but noisy too.
Last edited by: Fenlander on Sat 5 Apr 14 at 16:57
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I know it's annoying when someone says 'Help me choose A or B' and the answer is 'neither'....but surely there must be lots of old Corollas or Avenses - even a Verso - out there for £1,000 or so. Nothing soldiers on quite like an old Toyota, except possibly an old Volvo, and that may be bigger than you need.
Last edited by: Avant on Sat 5 Apr 14 at 17:06
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If I go for the sloth like Golf it will be easier to sell on. I shall not be driving it and I expect the new Mum won't be trying to break any speed records so performance comes second to reliability. I could be talking cobblers but methinks the Sdi 'should' be more reliable than the Tdi. Personally I think VWs are over rated and haven't owned one since a Mk 1 Gti...although I owned 3 Transporters in a decade and they were brilliant, specially the 2.4 5 cyl variant.
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Any petrol Golfs kicking around your area? A friend had a couple of ( I think 1.4s ) and he seemed happy enough with them although no one, including himself, would accuse him of being a 'driver'. Just a bloke who needed a car and didn't want to spend fortunes on buying or running one.
He used to live in Edinburgh but come to Manchester pretty much weekly in them. Didn't seem to bother him.
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For example, near me a dealer has a 2003 Golf 1.4 with 57k, 12 months MOT, newly serviced in silver for £2800. 41 mpg apparently. Looks good in the photos anyway. At least with a petrol you can rag it through the gears a bit.
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Suzuki Grand Vitara 2004 Sport 1.6 petrol at Kia dealer in Bury £3200 37000 miles. Bet she'd like that.
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Lot easier to shift a sub 1K car than a 3K one. I think that a non turbo diesel golf may not be as easy to shift as you think
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>>Lot easier to shift a sub 1K car than a 3K one
I'm not sure that's true. In recent years I've done very well with the +/- £1k cars mostly because the demand for them seems so low. I think they fall into a gap between the truly cheap (£500) and the respectable (£3000).
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Have once driven an SDI and I'd rather not repeat that. Horrid, horrid, horrid. TDI etc. fine Second the comments about petrol as more suitable, unless MiL does molto miles, why suffer the sulky NA diesel?
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C'mon then, what did you buy in the end? We're all waiting patiently to start telling you it was the wrong decision and that you'd have been better with a ( insert whatever ) !
;-)
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The Golf Sdi dud not materialise. In for repairs! Looked at a further four locally over the weekend but the 'sellers' were either fibbing about the condition or did not want to negotiate. Not even a pound off so I walked away.
Vehicle really needed for tomorrow but too busy with work aka paid employment, yesterday. I would lend her my 330 for a few weeks if she could afford to insure it, or squeeze behind the wheel.
Seems like stalemate at the moment until I can get to the auctions, or travel further afield, which again might be a waste of time.
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Mum2b is happy to wait a few more days until I can source something. We have discussed size issues ( car not paunch!) and we concur that Polo size is too small given it needs to carry two adults, pram, overnight bags. Like future gran she doesn't travel light!
Looking at an ex lease A3 1.6 Tdi 90k one owner 5 door (pig ugly but practical) 59 plate £7400.
Polar opposite to my search for a cheapo but I might just, and I mean just, keep it for myself as a runaround, sell the 330 and buy a proper 2 seater next Autumn.
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How about a 5 door Honda Jazz SE, 1339cc petrol, manual, blue....2007 '56' plate
1 owner from new, immaculate inside and out, extensive and full service history, 1 owner (old biddy), 50095 miles
£4000..could be delivered.
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you developed a new trade there westie?
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>> you developed a new trade there westie?
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Yes...18 months in now.
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got the balloon and bunting up around the front garden?
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>> got the balloon and bunting up around the front garden?
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Not yet..but I do own a pork pie hat and a sheepskin jacket....
I'll start another thread, it's unfair to legacylad to hijack this one..and I feel a certain ladies shoe wearer who drives a German hearse might have some input...along with the old Lefty hack, who reminisces like Uncle Albert Trotter, about Africa
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..or...
2008 '08' Mercedes Benz A150 Classic SE, 1.5 petrol, manual, 5 door...metallic black, full history, MOT until Dec 2014, very clean and tidy....£4800
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Finally got one.
The underwriter never got back to me despite a couple of calls and texts.
The main criteria was depreciation, or lack of, rather than initial cost, so despite thinking them overpriced and over rated , I went down the Audi/ VW route. As Zeddo said, if competitively priced they can be comparatively easily sold on.
Got a 59 plate A3 Sportback 1.6 Tdi SE . One lease owner with full history from a main Audi dealer, new front pads & discs, 9 months Tax & MOT, 90k miles. Bought direct from the leasing company, unseen in the metal apart from several email photos. Slow as a slow thing, but frugal and residual losses guaranteed by 'super gran'. Going to be cheaper than renting for three months! Hope I don't have to drive it. Much. Sorting the insurance with no NCD ( mine is used on the Beemer) and two overseas visitors, short term for three weeks & 3 months respectively , albeit with UK licences and no points, is proving to be very expensive.
Happy days
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Almost there..help me decide - legacylad
