Toms306's China HDi Estate 2012

[Toms306]

Engine management has less of a clue than you do...

It's not intelligent, all it can read is sensors and say there's something wrong... Is that the sensor or is that the actual part it's sensing that's at fault!? Replace the sensor at £100 a pop...

Honestly, don't use that as an argument... Why do you think there's Diagnostic Technicians paid £40k to diagnose these faults that no one can find... MODERN cars are inherently problematic... As said, just get a frikking micra or almera, it won't go wrong... You keep saying you don't want failing DMFs etc, but you're looking at Mondeos on 80k which do have issues with EGR, Injector Calibration, Turbos and BMWs that eat swirl flaps, chew DMFs and HP pumps...

Also with regards to an XUD9 - VE pumps DON'T go wrong if you leave them alone... They can eat turbos, but they're £50 a piece and a morning to change, clutches don't tend to go and can be limped for years, they're not smooth, not very powerful in stock form... But they ARE reliable if you leave them alone...

OR why not get a DW8 NA?

There's SO many SIMPLE cars out there, but you're going for Golf IVs, 306 HDis etc... All ECU controlled bollocks... Get something SIMPLE for once. You had your 106 1.5d which was perfect for you, but you decided you didn't quite like the way it handled, even though it was definitely fine, it's just a shit car, but you'll just have to cope with that... You DON'T NEED to overtake everything..

As Chris said... Champagne lifestyle on a Lemonade budget...

Sometimes you HAVE to make compromises, and I think your car will have to be one...

You and Niall have kinda missed the point about diagnostics though. Say you go out to your car and it won't start - well, where do you go from there!? Obviously check the battery, check the fuel pumps getting voltage, but then what? You could start poking and prodding randomly with a multi-meter, but thats pointless and wasting time. Or you could plug in the fault code reader that, for example, brings up an injector circuit fault, excellent, you can now go straight the problem with the multimeter, find the issue almost instantly. Thats the idea of it, I don't think anyone would just whack a new sensor in without testing the old one first though. UNLESS youre in a garage, where the auto-electrician costs too much for them to use so they just go off the code reader and possibly replace a part it didnt need because its cheaper to do that (yes, I saw it done, luckily it was under warranty).

The problem with saying a turbo is £50 and a morning to change - you forget that what takes you a morning would take me a week!

And I got rid of a phase 2 after an extremely narrow escape on a wet road with a transit van. Tiny brakes and no ABS isn't something thats gonna reduce anxiety levels, that 106 NAD was honestly THE most dangerous car I've ever driven, forget a heavy golf with 180bhp and 350NM of torque - I had more near misses and kerb bumps in that bloody NAD than any other car I've driven. As well as the fact it was awful joining motorways with, to the point where I'd go through town wherever I was going to avoid having to go on the motorway at busy times. There is no point at all owning a car like that for me.

I do/have made many compromises, in order to keep ONE thing I want which is a half decent car. I don't do anything else, I don't buy anything else, I even buy less food to spend more on fuel. I've gotta have something nice, where am I even gonna attempt to find any motivation if literally everything is shit?? My car is the only place I can get away from everything else, the only place I can be myself, and if I hate it (NAD...) I don't want to go out in it and end up more depressed in the end.

Also I don't agree with a champagne lifestyle, I'm not looking at Aston's lol - more a lemonade car on a tap water budget is probably more appropriate.

Thing is Tom, you're wanting to do what i've just done.

I've always driven under £1000 cars, my ph3 XUD was the best car i've ever had, it was a decent spec, decent power, looked nice & got fantastic MPG, but I still had the same idea as you.

I spent £3100 on a 54 plate Vectra SRI 150 & personally I don't regret it at all.

If you had my car, there would be threads up saying how shite it is, I can almost garuntee that.

My car is fairly big, it's an SRI CDTI 150 so its got a nice spec, it gets 54 MPG all day long & it ticks every box for me. Its now just shy of 200bhp and it handles really well, it sticks to the road, it fits everything I need in it & I also love the way it looks.

If you had it, you'd probably say it looks like every reps car on the road, its too common, boring to drive, MPG should be 60+.

I'm 21, got 4yrs NCB as of feb, my ELEPHANT renewal (NO discounts before you ask!) is £418 comp. The vectra is £93 for 6 months tax, as I said gets 54 MPG, and it's a nice place to be! Ideal car for you from where i'm sitting? Yet when I was going to buy it, you said you drove one & thought it was slow & horrible to drive. I welcome you to drive my car and say it's slow, & handles VERY well for a big car (In my experience of 37+ cars)

What ever car you have, you will want more, because your ideal car doesn't exist. If someone said to you, "Tom, what car do you WANT?" what would you say? Just straight outright what car on the market today ticks every box for you? If it's a car that gets 70+ MPG, you can pretty much rule out any good looking, quick, good handling car. Fact.

What I've realised is this - I don't know what I REALLY want. What I THINK I want, I can't afford (a big petrol, but it was actually a massive anti-climax when i drove a '6). What I NEED really doesn't exist, everything in cars is a compromise.

I also ruined 75% of cars by owning a damn quick, high spec Golf. Yes it handled like shit, but it was so cheap to run, so practical, unbeleivably torquey (once you'd got over the lag!) and comfy and well specced as well. I know most of you won't/didn't like it and I don't blame you, this is afterall a 306 forum. But now most cars seem slow against it - I went back to the 306 cos I thought handling would make up for lack of torque, and it really didn't! Because I don't dare push it hard anyway (especially on T1Rs!) so that handling 'upgrade' over the Golf was irrelevant tbh. And it just seems like with the 306 I'm paying out a lot of money and getting nothing in return, I've really tried to enjoy the car like I enjoyed the 1.8, but it just does nothing for me, and I can only assume it's having a 'nicer' car thats ruined that.

So sod the handling, sod the looks. Go on value for money to run - not just cheapness, I'm not fussed about saving 2 mpg if the car only has ~60bhp to start with (NAD vs Golf). And as well as that, has to be comfortable, when i say I want spec I think people assume I mean satnavs and teles or something, when I really mean ABS, sports seats, heating, central locking, stuff like that. I'm not looking for anything better specced than the HDi tbh, CL, EW, EM are the main kind of things that would be necessary but most cars wome with those now anyway.

I do like the look of your Vectra tbh Jordan, and with 200bhp and still averaging 54mpg cant fault that - then cheap tax, and you say only £500 to insure??????? The HDi costs double that! See it's things like that make me dislike the HDi lol.