A thread that isn't about buying a new car

[Howard]

Those renault 1.6e's aren't that slow, you're gonna need a 140bhp+ car to really feel any extra speed due to the extra weight a bigger car has, your typical TDI is only going to be about the same acceleration but with a higher top speed, which unless you cane it on motorways at 120+ doesn't matter much.

To be honest you're still and expensive insurance profile with your age and low no claims bonus. Are you through the two year probationary period yet? If not then I'd stick with your megane until then, it's about as fast as you'll get in the low insurance bands.

And aren't beamers like group 15ish insurance?

It's not THAT slow, but it's not quick either. And yes thte 140bhp Accord I drove (sounding like a broken record here ) was sufficiently quicker to please me.

I agree about typical TDIs, too. They just hvae a bit more midrange grunt for overtaking and such like.


And Arbitor, elephant = same company as Admiral, so you must live in a nice area


Basically what I can do without for a few years yet is a) silly insurance premiums and b) silly servicing costs, of which both a BMW like that is likely to incur. Oh and petrol. A 6cyl engine is likely to drink faster than a 2L 4cyl

Volvo 850 T5s are cheap to insure surprisingly, but the age worrys me, and the fact most of them have done 100k+ miles

[arbitor]

Had a thread on those volvos,and all of them are over 100k basically but apparently they are really good for the mileage..

very fast aswell

P.s i live in an ok area, your in surrey cant be that bad

[Howard]

Everything's expensive here. Housing, insurance, ...

[arbitor]

Dont i know it.

U got me thinking now about those t5s

[dave87]

Just found out my home in Essex is group A (ie lowest risk) and my uni postcode is group D - ie substantially higher risk. Don't think I'll be getting anything sporty at uni then

[arbitor]

Takes an effort to get into the lowest band i tell you that for free, not many places are i thought.

[Shad]

Volvo 850 T5s are cheap to insure surprisingly and really really good and cheap and fast and lovely

FINALLY!!


Only took you 5 pages of discussion to realise what I told you DAYS ago

[herulach]

On the subject of 6s. Whats the diesel like? I didnt realise quite how cheap they are. and only group 9 insurance. Admittedly it'll probably be ex fleet, but i dare say theres plenty of nice ones around.

[headbrace]

Mmm, I'm in a similar predicament, but I have no NCB as my last lot of insurance was for a classic.

I didn't realise I could get a t5 insured semi-affordably, so I'm really tempted now. So much so, I may even make a new thread about it.....

[arbitor]

Im tempted to buy one and slaaaaaaaaaaaag it


saves me ripping the seats oout of my 306

[Zak33]

why does everyone think a BMW is such awesome build quality? Honda for the win on long term build quality. Everytime.

Go find me some 15 year old versions of each and excluding rust on both, I know which will cost less to maintain.

[arbitor]

why does everyone think a BMW is such awesome build quality? Honda for the win on long term build quality. Everytime.

Go find me some 15 year old versions of each and excluding rust on both, I know which will cost less to maintain.

That honda looks mundane, i was only offering an alternative which could be insured by howard.

And I still think they are made extermley well, my dad has had a 328 made by them and hadnt skipped a beat in 20k.

Also he does a daily commute on a bmw gs 1150 motorbike and in 6 years of ownership, nothing and i mean nothing that hasnt been a service part has gone wrong, amazing bit of machinery.

[menthel]

The problem with BMW's (and bloody Mini's) is the general running cost. Things may not go wrong but the services etc are expensive. I am glad my wife is getting shot of her Mini, no more trips to the BMW garage with their little check list that always adds up to thousands despite the fact that it passes the MOT and when checked by an indi garage I know they say that none of it needs doing! Stupid.

[arbitor]

Yeh which helps as my dad does his own so i can see your point there.

If you can build a plane you can fix a car

[Brucelles]

No argument, Hondas cost a lot less to maintain than BMWs. I ran a number of BMWs and I found that the smaller ones weren't very robust. The bigger, the better, but then you get into the fuel costs for a big V8 or whatever.

However, I don't have any Hondas at the moment because they just don't give the same feeling of solidity that a big, old German gives you. Also they are long-term fabulous, but not necessarily the right thing for a one-year trip to Belgium. I wanted something easy to either sell or dump at the side of the road.

And to be fair, I have had my BMW for 4 years now and it has only failed me once when a little hose came loose and it lost power to the point where it limped home. It should have taken two minutes to fix, but I didn't know and had it towed to BMW who charged me 650 Euros. Bastards.

[arbitor]

Thats why i didnt reccomend a 318 or something, a nice 325 with straight 6 go niceley )