Small City Cars ... thoughts please

[Porky]

Brian Kirby - 2010-08-04 7:29 PM

You seen this Mel?  http://tinyurl.com/od4kb

Sure you really want a Chevrolet?  I'm not sure whether you'll ever get to take advantage of that 5 year warranty after reading that history!  'Strewth, what a track record!

My son used to sell cars for a living. Never ever buy a Chevrolet has been his advice. Never mind the build quality and depreciation, it is its frailty in an accident that is the scarry bit!!!>:-)Roy Fuller

[Mel B]

Interesting comments - have any of you actually SEEN and EXAMINED one of these recently? The Spark has the following safety/build features as standard on ALL of the models:

 

- front, side and roof curtain airbags 

- passenger airbag de-activation switch 

- knee protector 

- side impact beams  

- Anti-lock Braking System (ABS)

 

How many other cars have that lot then in this price range? If you want to look at a flimsy car, take a look at some of the other models which are in competition with it ... the Kia is just one example of very plasticy and cheap looking materials, some sound like a biscuit barrel when you shut the doors!

 

Chevrolet are now owned by GM, a major car player now - if they go down so does a great chunk of the car industry!!!

 

Porky - how long is it since your son had a good look at one?

 

We've looked at loads of these little cars 'in the flesh', have crawled all over them and test driven quite a few - some which you would think would be the bees knees left a lot to be desired.

 

Knock the Spark if you want but at least bother to have a proper look at one first.

[Guest Tracker]

You may well find that projected depreciation will be the downfall of any Chevrolet Mel and whether or not they are are a decent and safe car plays second fiddle to what has the potential to be a very expensive ownership experience?

 

What Car magazine show projected depreciation for most cars and I have no doubt that you are intelligent enough to know that car ownership is not only about discounted price and mpg but includes depreciation and pride of ownership and pleasure of using it too!

 

The longer you keep it the less important depreciation becomes and the longer the warranty the more likely one is to keep it - how about a Kia with seven years warranty then - or Toyota with 5 years!

[enodreven]

Hi

 

Fiat Panda Multi-jet Diesel with Air Con £7995 absolutely fantastic car 3 year 60000 mile warranty 60+ mpg, 100+ mph, £35 road tax

 

Had ours since new cost £6450 on 1st Sept 2007 now done 52000 miles full service history with no problems, webuyanycar have offered £3450 online now I don't think that is bad depreciation.

 

 

http://www.fiatsupasaver.com/SelectACar.aspx?vID=3

 

We will purchase another one, hope that helps

[Guest Tracker]

braunston - 2010-08-05 1:04 PM

 

Hi

 

Fiat Panda Multi-jet Diesel with Air Con £7995 absolutely fantastic car 3 year 60000 mile warranty 60+ mpg, 100+ mph, £35 road tax

 

Had ours since new cost £6450 on 1st Sept 2007 now done 52000 miles full service history with no problems, webuyanycar have offered £3450 online now I don't think that is bad depreciation.

 

 

http://www.fiatsupasaver.com/SelectACar.aspx?vID=3

 

We will purchase another one, hope that helps

 

Plus you get FIAT's legendry customer care at no extra cost!

[Mel B]

Richard ... you know me so well ... I have a spreadsheet anyone would be proud of with all the various vehicle details on, price, spec, warranty, measurements etc, etc, etc! :D

 

We are very careful about what we do financially as well as whether stuff makes sense - and if we'll enjoy it too!!! It's a matter of finding the right balance.

 

As for the Fiat Panda - there are some things I really like about it, but there are other things that just make it unsuitable for our specific needs (I do like the sherbert yellow colour though .... *-) ).

 

As an aside, hubby had a good giggle today - a chap from Chevrolet rang him as he'd asked for a brochure on the Spark to be posted to us. The chap asked him if we were likely to be buying a new Spark to which my hubby said probably not at the moment as we haven't got a dealer near us, the Chevrolet chap, trying to be helpful, said, "Oh, but there's one at Minstergate" (approx 3 miles away) ... hubby "Er, no there isn't! They don't do them anymore". "Oh ... I'd better update the database...." said the chap ....

 

I've just been having a giggle too ... we've put a dog guard up between the front and rear seats as I'm fed up of getting jumped on by Lily and getting dog hairs on the front seats (the dogs always sit on the back seats as we keep the rear for shopping etc). The Renault has a safety feature where you can 'lock' the rear electric window buttons which we do to stop the dogs accidentally opening them, since we got the car we've occasionally tried to work out how to take the rear 'child door locks' off but never managed to find out how (well, we've only had the car 2 years .... :$ ).

 

Anyway, there was I merrily typing a response to one of the threads on here when my phone goes ... 'Withheld number' ... who can that be I'm thinking .... "Hello" says I, "Hello" says hubby, ... can you come and let me out!" ... "Where are you", says I .... "In the car ... I'm locked in!"

 

He'd forgotten about the 'child door locks' and had got in the back to adjust the dog guard, shutting the door whilst he did it ... and was stuck! It was either a case of ringing me and feeling very silly or dismantling the dog guard to clamber over the front seats to get out ... obviously feeling silly was the easiest option (he's used to it!!!). :D I did make him wait whilst I took a couple of photos of him and the dogs 'trapped' inside though!!! (lol)

 

Sooooooo .... once released, he dug the car book out again and had yet another read but still couldn't find out how to take the child door locks off ... however, he then had a look in the the electrical section for something else and found that they are controlled by the same button that prevents the rear windows from being opened!!! No wonder we could NEVER get the child locks off as we always have the flipping rear windows locked!!! *-) Oh well ... at least we have the answer now! :->

[Mel B]

Guess what we've been doing today .... :-D ... tempting ourselves with cars again. :D

 

Considering a bit bigger car now, the Renault Grand Modus and the Vauxhall Agila, both nice cars.

 

A good deal on the Agila especially since new ones now come with a life-time (or 100,000 mile) 'first owner' warranty as standard; and a discount of over £2,000 too on new ones ...

 

The Modus is a nice car too, a bit longer than the original standard Modus so more the size of the original Scenic when it came out (which we had and was a great car).

 

Been crunching the numbers ... still thinking about it!

[Guest JudgeMental]

I tried the Hyundai i20 last week, hated the seats and overall quality even with the vat free deals going around not tempted. it drove OK but steering awful (its a man thing:D)

 

I have ended up with a new pre reg ford fiesta, it is in a different league then the Hyundai, like a rolls Royce in comparison, comfort, handling, general build quality, and it cost me only £700 more then the Hyundai *-)

[enodreven]

Hi,

 

I find this site very useful when checking out prices, you can select most items from the list on the left hand side Make, Fuel, CO2 emissions etc. etc. and sort the results in order of preference, I'm not saying the prices can't be beaten but I have found it difficult to beat them myself.

 

They seem to add around £450 to most vehicles for the paint and you don't seem to be able to take a non cost option even though it may show one, also its worth noting that some of the vehicles are pre-registered which isn't a problem for me but if you are looking for the Vauxhall Lifetime warranty I think you will need to be the first owner so its possible that the pre-registering will only give you the standard warranty and not the lifetime but double check.

 

Hope that helps

 

http://www.buyacar.co.uk/cars/new_cars.jhtml

[lennyhb]

Tried out a Skoda Yeti yesterday, very impressed, lots of room for such a small footprint. Absolutely stunned by the performance of the basic 1.2 Lt it's a turbo charged petrol engine performance really good also very light smooth 6 speed gearbox.

 

I want one but there's a six month waiting list & 'er indoors wants to give our money to our daughters for deposits on houses. :-(

 

 

[Hawcara]

We have a Peugeot 107, 3 door although a 5 door would be better.

It does about 50+mpg around town but had 60 mpg on a run. Goes like a rocket and road fund tax £20. Try www.drivethedeal.co.uk

We bought ours through them, delivered to the door, taxed and half a tank of fuel. It is classed as UK car not import so has full warranty. We have had that done through a local dealer, even though the car came 250 on the transporter.

Hope this helps :-D

[donna miller]

I've got the Toyota Aygo, made in the same factory as the Citroen C1 and the 107, but in my opinion is certainly the better of the 3. Mine's a 3 door, but it's available in a 5 door model, 60mpg, £20 road tax, and more than happy to sit at 70 on the motorway.

Mine is the "auto" with tiptronic, but again, available in manual. If you are tempted by the car, don't buy a red one, they are the base model, the Aygo Black ( that's the one I opted for) has air con, electric windows, central locking, alloys etc. There is also a Platinum model, not sure what extras that has.

There is a surprisingly large amount of room in the front seats, and plenty in the back for your dogs, the boot looks tiny but will happily hold 4 bags of shopping.

 

 

Just remembered, if you enquire about one, it's pronounced i-go.

I wish somebody had told me before I went to look at mine. :$

[BGD]

For what it's worth:

 

We had the Opel badged version of the Agila 1.2 petrol (the mark one version....which was also sold by Suziki with their rougher 1.3 petrol engine fitted) here in Spain for about 5 years. Loved it to bits.

 

Looks utterly crap from the outside: square tall boxy mini car; but inside it was really good....for two people plus dog anyway.

Reliable a clockwork, cheap as chips to fuel and to insure, service parts were dead cheap.

They are very popular in mainland Europe, but never caught on over in the UK....I think because of the "boxy" look.

 

Dunno what the mark 2 version is like, but the mark 1 was an excellent little runabout.

 

 

Remember also that you'll save a bucketload of money by buying secondhand.....even if only a few months old.

Let the first owner take the biggest depreciation hit!

 

 

[Colin Leake]

When I retried the theory was that as we would not use the car much small car would do. Having tried a few we redid the calculations and decided that the mileage would be so low we might as well run any car we fancied and felt most comfortable in. In the end we finished up with a Toyota Avensis. Big enough to bring the wine back from France, lug bags of cement and gravel from B&Q, capable of swallowing up longer trips in comfort yet not to big to park. True it does cost a little more to run and buy but given the length of time we will probably keep it and the fact we do less than 4,000 a year in it the difference is not significant and I'm glad now we rethought our plans and went for a bigger car.

[Mel B]

Interesting reading other's views/thoughts so thanks guys.

 

Judge - hubby too has been thinking about the Ford Fiesta, they're completely different now to the old Fiesta, very curvy and stylish, with a much more up-to-date interior to match.

 

We have a good car (Renault Megane 57 plate) with only just over 16,000 miles on it now, we've had it 2.5 years and it already had 7,500 miles on it when we got it, so we don't do more than 3,400 miles a year max, probably even less when I leave work, so the fuel consumptions isn't a major consideration and, at the end of day, tax isn't really, I certainly wouldn't dismiss a car because it was in the next tax bracket (except for an automatic at £300 road tax a year!!! 8-) ). I would like something a little bit smaller but not too small.

 

We do like our Renaults, hence the Modus which is a very nice car indeed and drives very well - we used to have a Renault Scenic (mk 2, before it went all square shaped) and it was a lovely car (I wish they still made them like that) and the Modus is pretty much the nearest thing to it. We've managed to find some pre-registered ones with between 5,000-9,000 on them less than a year old for £7,300, not a million miles away from us, which is about £1,600 cheaper than local dealers can do them for with higher mileages (same spec etc)!

 

We've ruled out the Citroen C3, still can't make our minds up if the Vauxhall Agila is tooo small or not - I think you're right that the lifetime warranty (actually 10 year according to the sale chap) is only for the first purchaser from new, so it would have to be a new one if we wanted to get that but with the low mileage we do it's not a major concern for us.

 

We'll see what comes of the 10 plate Moduses, and if nothing comes of them we will probably wais and see what's available after the new registrations next month - no rush to change fortunately (if at all). :-S

[bertieburstner]

we have a Peugeot 107. In my 40 years of driving the only car which can compete as a drivers car was my 1967 Mini Cooper. It really is fantastic fun and very eager! (lol)

[Robinhood]

Hawcara - 2011-02-13 1:04 PM

 

We have a Peugeot 107, 3 door although a 5 door would be better.

It does about 50+mpg around town but had 60 mpg on a run. Goes like a rocket and road fund tax £20. Try www.drivethedeal.co.uk

We bought ours through them, delivered to the door, taxed and half a tank of fuel. It is classed as UK car not import so has full warranty. We have had that done through a local dealer, even though the car came 250 on the transporter.

Hope this helps :-D

 

My current car came via Drivethedeal. A bit wary of buying through an internet broker, but I did my homework, and it couldn't have been easier or safer.

 

The deal is actually done with a UK-based main-dealer, for UK-sourced cars only.

 

DTD simply introduce you and your order to the dealer, and arrange a deposit from you to the dealer (Credit Card OK - so protected), taking no money themselves. (they get paid by the dealer for introduction).

 

If you have no p-ex to get rid of, and especially if you are prepared to take a stock car (they will do orders), then there are some amazing deals to be done. (30%+ off for me, that takes a big bite out of the first year's depreciation). Having had company cars before, much like Colin, I did the sums and decided that at that price, it wasn't worth downsizing.

 

My S-I-L followed the recommendation, and got a price from DTD she couldn't beat elsewhere, for an ordered Citroen.

[Mel B]

The search is over!!!!! :-D

 

We've finally done it ... we've settled on a Renault Grand Modus registered 28 June 2010, with 2111 miles on the clock - I spotted it on ebay yesterday and we went to have a look at it this morning.

 

Dealer's site

 

Ebay ad

 

We had a nice long test drive in it (it now has 2125 miles on :D ) and crawled all over it - it's in absolutely mint condition, in a nice grey metallic colour - looks very smart and classy. We have got a good deal too, the car was up for £8,299, with an initial phone call yesterday we were given a PX value of £4,000 which was good, bearing in mind we've only been offered £3,250 previously on a much dearer Modus with higher mileage.

 

Anyway, after some gentle bartering, we've managed to get a PX of £4,300 so are only putting in £4,000 (plus £50 to up the road tax to 1 year). We don't think that's a bad deal at all. The dealer is very pleasant, not pushy at all, we were given the keys to the car and told to go out on our own for a long as we liked.

 

Assuming we can get the insurance sorted, we'll be picking it up on Tuesday.

 

:-> :-> :-> :-> :->

 

PS: Robin:

 

I had a look at the DD website and the price for a new Grand Modus was very good at around £10,800 with metalic paint. But as I have to get to/from work every day at the moment I couldn't be without a car if we sold ours in advance, and I didn't want to have to insure etc 2 cars and run the risk of being left with ours Megane too, so it wouldn't really have worked for us at the moment, but I'll certainly keep it in mind for the future as, when I'm not working being without a car for a while won't be an issue ... assuming that at some point I'll want to change of course, as we're planning on keeping the Modus for quite a while! :-)

[Mel B]

Well, we picked up our new beauty yesterday afternoon, it is a lovely beast to drive, very nippy and manoeuvrable (why can I never spell that flipping word! *-) ), very comfy and loads of space inside despite it being shorter and narrower than our Renault Megane was.

 

Just waiting for the service book and spare key to be forwarded on from Renault (mustn't lose the other key otherwise we're stuffed! 8-) ). Colleagues at works have been drooling over it.

 

Hubby had a laugh today - we'd looked again at the Vauxhall Agila on Saturday afternoon but they only offered us £3,200 for our car, against their demonstrator in bright green with about 6,000 miles on the clock, and looked like it had been a bit 'abused' ... the sales chap rang today to see if we were still looking and when hubby told him we'd bought the Modus he asked what PX we'd got and when told it was £1000 more than they'd offered he spluttered then went quiet for a while ... eventually saying we'd got a very good deal and they wouldn't have been able to get anywhere remotely close to that.

 

Hubby was even more chuffed though on Monday as, when he rang the insurance, he was told he was entitled to a partial refund as the car is NCAP5, so being safer it is cheaper to insure, refund of £43 less £15 admin fee, so £28 to come back, and we'll also get the difference of the remaining 6 months road tax back of £22.50 back (£110 as opposed to £155 for the year).

 

Might actually 'treat' outselves to a meal out. :-D