Car advice, whats it worth?

[[GSV]Myocardial]

Fair choice of Mercs such as the E270, E320 for a four door or a CLK for a two door all with under 40k miles, some a little older but all very nicer motorway drivers.

Slightly higher servicing cost that the Citroen I'd imagine but will retain value better in my experience.

[kalniel]

Slightly higher servicing cost that the Citroen I'd imagine but will retain value better in my experience.

Depends - as with Audi, Merc have been trying to shake their reputation for high service costs so services and many items are a fixed, low price.

For eg, changing cambelt for my Audi is £150 cheaper than my Astra would have been. Probably the same with Merc (those that have a cambelt).

[Andeh13]

Im not too worried about resale, ill be keeping it for a good few years (kept my saxo for 5 years). By the time I come round to selling it/moving on I hope to be in the situation where i dont care about the resale value too much! I have looked at mercs but they went through a real patchy quality phase during the years I would be looking at and apparently it can be a bit of a lottery. Loosing results in big bills . Insurance would also be considerable I imagine.

As for the octavia vRS, that would be the model I'd want but the suspension would drive me mad after a while i imagine.

[mycarsavw]

Downsize the wheels and upsize the tyres to soften the ride.

I think what people are trying to hint towards is that £13k on a car at the moment (given your other recent threads) seems a bit.... we're trying to save you money

I can relate to the desire to have something nice after so much trouble/work/study but there are much nicer, more suitable and dare I say, better cars out there that do what you want for a lot less than your £13k budget.

[dave87]

As for the octavia vRS, that would be the model I'd want but the suspension would drive me mad after a while i imagine.

Give it a test drive - people have been surprised by how good the ride is


EDIT - http://www.skoda.net.r66.co.uk/carvi...x?id=600982265


Would have one of those everyday of the week over a C5

[dave87]

oh, and this might be helpful:

http://www.virtual-showroom.co.uk/sc...sessionid=0url

It'll tell you the trade in price of the vehicle you are looking at. Worth considering, but is not the answer of how much it is worth. That said, if someone can't sell privately, that is the value they'd get if they traded in, so an offer slightly above that may be accepted.

[PetrolHead]

I can relate to the desire to have something nice after so much trouble/work/study but there are much nicer, more suitable and dare I say, better cars out there that do what you want for a lot less than your £13k budget.

+1

Don't drop that much on a Citroen fella, you can get something much better in all departments for less than 10k. Get a decent warranty with it, bank abit, and a holiday aswell!

[Guy]

You say any audi/bmw pushes up your insurance alot, actually got some quotes on them? As its often quite a common misconception.

Also if you want a softer ride, thats what the SE spec in the BMW line up is for They're not all rock hard, with stupidly stiff suspension. Even my 530D Sport, isnt harsh enough it puts me off/annoys me, and I rack up a fair few miles. Every toy the Citroen has, a MUCH better reliability rating, residuals that leave you with more than 50p's worth of car after 5 years, and the TCO throughout the lifestyle of the car would suprise you. Servicing costs, whilst being more expensive, arent horrific depending on where you go, combine that with longer service intervals, and I personally wouldnt rule out the Germans.

[Andeh13]

hmm, now you guys are making it very difficult!

What is it about the C5 people are so against? I am curious as I felt that with the badge prices would be lower for the kit level, despite Citroen having pulled some pretty impressive cars out, thereby making it good value for money?

Still open for ideas! Especially individual models!

edit:
Ruled out the Octavia vRS. The kit level it comes with is disappointing imo.
Audi A4 is the same as the Skoda, the kit levels are poor & looking at quite high mileage. I also despise the interior...and finally my dad has one!
BMW is the same high milage for the price range, and im still hesitant about the ride & kit it comes with.
Mazda 6 is very rare for the price range
Usual VW/Vauxhall/Ford dont interest me and are too similar to the C5 tbh (minus looks).

The more I think about it, the more Im not so sure about £12,000 on a C5 (ie the one i was going to look at this weekend). Its a shame it wasn't released a year earlier, though I am tempted to offer £11,500 and see what he says. I am really struggling to find a car that ticks so many of the boxes, without being very high mileage, compromising on ride quality/refinement and running costs excluding depreciation (i will keeping it for the foreseeable future).

[kalniel]

What sort of kit level are you looking for? Rare to find A4s that haven't been kitted up to be honest, and I thought the vRS had quite a high kit level.

Or are you looking for that vibrating bum thing?

[dave87]

hmm, now you guys are making it very difficult!

Half the point - make sure you are making the right choice

What is it about the C5 people are so against? I am curious as I felt that with the badge prices would be lower for the kit level, despite Citroen having pulled some pretty impressive cars out, thereby making it good value for money?

French Electrics, build quality, and, er, its French. If it doesn't wave the white flag every so often it wouldn't be French

Ruled out the Octavia vRS. The kit level it comes with is disappointing imo.
Audi A4 is the same as the Skoda, the kit levels. The A6 is very high milage for a reasonable price (ie enough to pull em away from a C5).

Have a look for the cars with optional extras - quite a few about - and because they don't seem to offer trim levels, everything is an optional extra. That said, they are optional extras that are quite commonly spec'd.


Rastamanblues has a point - you could get a good BM for that money

[Andeh13]

Any idea which BMW would be a good start? The 3 series is prob the best compromise, but from the spec list/milage/running costs I'm not sure.

Keep em coming guys, its all very much appreciated!

Just for the record:
http://www.whatcar.com/car-reviews/c...ummary/25766-2
http://www.topgear.com/uk/citroen/c5
http://fwd.five.tv/cars/large-family/citroen-c5

[KidChameleon]

Some of the cars already mentioned may be better, and there are probably better cars than these, but I'll give my opinion of some cars I've recently been using. I've mentioned some of them in another thread before.

We have a Peugeot 407 SW 2.0 diesel Automatic as a family car. It's comfortable with very smooth suspension. It has standard family car acceleration, so it's not fast but then it's not slow either. It feels like it glides everywhere, the way it absorbs bumps and doesn't accelerate jerkily. It was £12,000 for a 6 month old ex-demo car with about 5,000 miles on it. I think the list price for a new one was about £24,000. It's now on about 40,000 miles 18 months later and it's been faultless.

I spend most of my time driving a Vauxhall Vivaro. Slow, noisy, tall, uncomfortable, hot (no air con ), awkward to park. When I drive somewhere in the 407 at the weekends I'm always surprised by the smoothness and quietness. It's not something I'd want to hoon in but it's pleasant to drive.

I had use of a BMW 320d Sport. The suspension was horrible. It did handle corners well, but for long distances it was almost painful.

I was given an Audi A6 Avant 2.0 diesel for a while. It was nice enough, but I couldn't see what was so much better than the much cheaper Peugeot 407. The suspension wasn't bad for driving quickly, but it wasn't as smooth as the 407. It seemed dull, and didn't really grab me. That's not to say it was bad, but it just didn't interest me.

The Mercedes C220 CDI has a fairly sporty suspension while still being smooth over bumps but the seats are rock hard. Think of sitting on a plastic school chair in front of your big, fancy LCD TV. I also can't work out the point of having a foot pedal to apply the parking brake and a separate handle to release the parking brake.


In my experience, German cars are too over engineered and clinical.

[dave87]

Little bit older than the Citroen - but a good level of kit and the SE suspension:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1591948.htm


What do you think?


EDIT - or its more powerful bigger brother?

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1747362.htm

[Guy]

EDIT - or its more powerful bigger brother?

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/1747362.htm

That looks suspiciously cheap . . .

[dave87]

That looks suspiciously cheap . . .

I did think that, especially as it has the full Nav package (circa £1800?) on it.


Cat D? Oh, and it is from Nottinghamshire, so likely had a bullet hole in it at some point....