Newer Diesels...

[Toms306]

if you thought the 1.9 is bad then the 2.0 wont suit you, its much less reliable.

What happened the Vectra? thought itd suit you fine...

To be fair i find most problems occur with cars is the previous owners, although irish people are notorious for neglecting cars.
Also using the wrong oil not specced highly enough for a car causes engine probs down the line (know for a fact of a local garage that puts 10w40 semi synth in everything) despite whats specced.

The 1.6 tdci/hdi problems seem to develop from incorrect oil and servicing, clogging the whole system and starving the turbo from oil, people replace the turbo but new one soon pops because all breathers and lines havent been cleared and new trbo is starved the same way.

to be honest though any new car i buy id be ripping out the dpf and mapping it out at the first sign of trouble, they seem to cause more hassle for engine and emissions savings arent that much greater imo

In 3 months of a 1.9PD (130 as well, not even 150!) I had a turbo pop, DMF get incredibly noisy and before I had a chance to replace that one of the lifters smashed through....those together basically wrote the car off! The 2.0 can't be that bad surely? I had been told on a VAG forum a while back that the porous head thing was only earlier models and will have been found and done under warranty by now...but obviously they may have a biased view hence asking here as well.

I do agree that its the previous owners causing issues though (for example, bought my HDi with a snapped belt due to complete failure of the crank pulley...how can you not notice that starting!). Which is why this time I bought something which was technically new and had only been owned by the dealer...but after seeing how much things can get ruined in just 9 months I've lost all faith in people tbh!

The Vectra is a bit of a sore point lol, I sold it and bought a cheaper 306 to unlock some funds for a plan that didn't go ahead in the end....massive waste of time and effort. However I never 'liked' it tbh, always felt like a luxury car that theyd ruined with cost cutting everywhere, and the ride in that was too far the other way, hit a bump and the rear end was still bouncing a mile down the road. Plus I never could trust it after the snapped springs, and finding some of the previous owners bodges (3rd injector plug 'fixed' with insulation tape and cable ties! for example).

I can speak for the 2.0hdi 16v a bit too...been servicing a couple for friends for a while. Decent motor, only issues I found was on the 407, the weird PAS system where previous owners have put normal oil in it and knackered the pump.
Not sure if similar system on same engine/other cars

Hmm, not heard of a weird PAS system, I'd guess it's just a French thing though, and Ford would use their own pump, will have to look into it though.

BMW 116d in the comfiest spec with the smallest tyres you can find?

Or an old shape Hyundai i30 (like 12 plate or older) although the gearboxes and dmfs go on the Hyundai sometimes in less than 10k if abused.

116d is painfully slow. I was gonna say 120d, the older ones can occasionally have swirl flap issues but it's not hard to get the £50 odd kit to fix them open.

Don't like Hyundais, somehow they make the ride awful in all of them that I've been in (Getz, i10, i20, i30, Matrix) so they're off completely.

I haven't seen a single 1 series while looking, with any engine, either they're way above my budget, or people round here don't really buy them maybe. Infact the only Bimmers I'm fininding are 320d's that have done stupid miles...one quite local, 2011 that's done 150k miles! Obviously a company car but 50k a year still seems a lot lol.