Yet another "What Car" thread

[RetroPug]

No if I'm honest I'm being picky. They are substantially quieter than a 306 on the motorway. I think the only reason why i think its noisy is because i went from that to the Kia which i have to say, is stupidly quiet at motorway speeds considering its a cheap car!

Ok thanks. I did drive one of the new diesel skoda octavias and frankly I thought it was pretty bloody brilliant.
The older ones do look like a decent car for the money and I've heard that they are pretty bullet proof.

Excellent use of the multiquote function!

First thing I'd say though, is you're comparing cars to ones that aren't really similar. A petrol mondeo is very different to a tdci if it was engine problems (though thats a poor example as the 2.0 TDCi in the mk3 is also terrible lol). Equally, a Vectra isn't an astra.

The ride on the Vec was that bad yes, rear end Iis bouncy as hell, and the fronts are so soft they don't rebound before you hit the next bump which just becomes a horrible crashy mess with the dash, parcel shelf and everything else jumping around and vibrating.

As for paint, red cars almost always have issues (but flat red is usually a free colour anyway lol). Mine was lightening silver and was peeling on the edges of panels and where stone chips broke the paint. Not really acceptable for a 6 year old top spec midsized salloon car imo!

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But what I recommend is you go and test drive some cars... I got fixated on one or two cars that I hated when I actually tried, and ended up buying one I hadn't even considered lol.

There's a multi-quote function?! Bloody hell I've been right clicking and opening each quote in new tabs and copying and pasting!

My friend's mondeo had broken springs, buggered wheel bearings, rear bumper falling half off and several other annoyances which I can't remember. It is still lovely though. None of them were engine related.

I would like to test drive some, at the moment I'm waiting until the end of November as that is when my insurance ends, so I'm going to look into having multicar insurance etc. with another year of no claims. Thanks for your comments, it does sound like you got a bit of a lemon!

I remember my friend's astra being a pretty pleasant place to sit, although at the time I did have a 1.1L 8v 106 so maybe that was why.

I would like to point out Tom had an exceptionally big lemon from what was described to me, from everything you pointed out to me Tom it sounded like it had been in an accident in it's past hence the paint, wind noise you experienced etc.

Mine was a 2004 Prefacelift with over 100k on it, I put 30k on that car in less than 18 months & it never didnt start, never had an EGR fault (although I did get it remapped to 200bhp & had the EGR removed and mapped out)

The ride is very normal on them, I ran 19" VXR wheels with low profile tyres which coupled up with -45mm springs made for an even better ride and epic handling.

I'd certainly recommend driving a few cars as said, however you will do well to find some of the suggestions with the low mileage you're hoping for.

I never worry about mileage when buying a car, I remember something I was once asked

"Would you rather buy a car that has done low mileage, sat on a driveway with everything rubber on it perishing, been to the shops each week & MOT'd once a year, or a car that has done high mileage, used daily, regularly serviced with a full history, anything that needed changing..changed"

Hence I have a car that is 4.5yrs old with 103k on it, full main dealer history with the maintenance schedule perfectly documented...

I'd always go with history & condition over mileage!

I would rather have a pre facelift.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

As for mileage, I agree that having low miles doesn't redeem a poor service history, but looking at vectras I can easily get 80k miles with FSH for the money which if they will transport me comfortably while not costing much sounds like a pretty cracking deal to me!

I don't agree with you on much but I'll definitely agree on that point - the 2 cars I've had with huge, detailed service histories have been the Merc and the Audi, both have been faultless and the Audi was on 151k when I sold it, the Merc is on 133k, and both over 20 years old.

As above really, I definitely do agree, but lowish miles but not so low that is alarming plus FSH is within budget for some of the cars I've been looking at which is nice.

To be honest I never intended to have a Punto Grande but it came up cheap so thought I'd have a go, definitely an improvement over my old 306 HDi.

Looks more modern, spacious feeling inside, big boot, nice styling, drives well, pleny of grunt, returns fairly good MPG, lowering springs, remaps etc all available fairly cheap.

Oil filter was fairly easy, wheel bearing was a piece of cake (come pre-pressed and just bolts on) so yeah, so far impressed with the layout of everything. Turbo's at the front to which is nice.

Downsides are high tax (190 a year), honestly can't think of another.

It seems well made, comfortable to drive for an hour to work in, anyway, enough said, go test drive one if you can, they're good value for money if you can look past the badge. The engines are also highly regarded (Ruan can confirm this).

Couple of pictures (of mine)

Thank you.

I'm not a badge snob, it's just that there are some cars I look at and think "yeah I like that" or "it's nice but not really for me". Puntos have always been the latter for me.
However, they do actually sound like a pretty good deal!
I like the colour of yours!


Thanks everyone.