First car - Focus, Corolla or Civic?

Ok to clear a few things up:


Fords are ok, nothing worth bragging about as the moment you do, they either depresiate or fall apart... litterally.

the Mazdas: 323's... never was a great car, always rusty, would sheer its cam shaft if rev'd high ( to over take, building up speed for the motorway... etc )
Even now in there current state, they seem to Hate... and mean it with a passion, their: Head gaskets , clutch master cyclinders and any/every eltronic gismo put into it.

the only relyable mazda ive seen is the rx-7... tryed and tested, sure it needs a bit more routine maintenance and the econemy is rubbish, i'd rather cry about fuel prices then having the AA know me by first name!

Moving swiftly on,

colm_mcm: You must have driven the chinese/indian 1970's taxi knock off or something because all the 00-08 models ive been in are generally nice cars... the car that say... a mechanics Wife would own... or indeed he himself would ( if he wanted to differ from the usual audi/old renault usual buys. )

I find them quite comfortable, quite more so then most cars in its range, granted its no Bmw but still, for the price is a respectable and no the almera isnt a go-kart but when there pushed to legal limits on the road... you can't exactly complain, as theres no way you can, its a respectable performance for a modest car.


now,

the focus - there ok, i honestly, after the amount of times ive killed myself trying to fix them... i couldn't possably own one... just too many scar's... litterally from doing everything any anything to them... namely trying to replace there brakes/axle.... needless to say i won't take them jobs again.

Civic: the civic's been around since what... 1970+ ?? in them 30 years... they havent managed to Master the car. I know you won't understand so ill spell it out for you you little fan boys: Honda, much like other car makers rely on a tuning company to give performance... correct ? ( i.e mugen for honda, m sport bmw, m sport for dodge ( they made the SRT engine and sold it to them.... thats off topic ) etc. ) but the one thing i can understand is, today you can go out, buy say a 3 serise, and there a great car, near 50/50 weight distrabution, handling is second to none, power is there ( regardless of engine at this stage ). In order to cut down on build costs , you'll 1 screw will hold 2 parts on... so yeah, taking 1 part off, takes another off... which makes them slower to fix, more repair costs.

What do you get when you buy a civic these days ??

Sure the eg6/ek4-9 had a unibody design ( more then likely the best thing honda have done apart from the s2000/nsx ) but now you get a car that sends you through the windscreen when you shift, understeers you into a pole, high rev's you till the point of head gasket failure ( trying to extract the... 160 WHP ? ) See theres that, the Poor reputation that honda drivers have, not for the modding but for general sense of driving, not to mention the civic was and still is the most stolen car in Ireland, as far as my memory goes. So OP, dont let me stop you, if you want a Civic, by all means, They can be Extremely relyable ( as any car can be ) but with no clean ones around... you will have to pay through the teeth for a ex - nun owned one
as every other one has Halford Deal of the Week parts installed... Cmon... how can Lowwing a civic 60 mm on cheap springs help handling ?? maybe in a straight line but jesus... 60 mm is toooo ( and again ill say it... Tooooo ) much... !

So, whats there left in that budget to buy ?? Corrolla or almera... pref 02' Onwards as its the relyable serise, or mark in the production life span of the almera... though im sure a new one will come out and blow this one out of the water then the new one the next new one etc.

IF theres one peice of advice i can give its this: Buying a car , be it new or used is the luck of the draw IMHO: New cars, even being the same model... out of 10... atleast 5 will be good but some have issues, which is nothing to worry about, get the dealer to sort them out under warrenty, your sorted. Used cars, the same kinda thing, almost all dealerships now give warrentys except for trade sales.

Im just sick of people Branding one car bad and one car good as, id rather go out and drive a old bmw all my life then suffer driving , say a type R civic or a under powered golf...

groupb wrote: »

Do'nt know but I would still consider the only German hatch with jap realiability
- The Focus.

I thought Fords are American, no?

Well maybe they are made in Germany but it is an American marque? I am sure not all Toyotas are made in Japan etc?

it has 115k miles black with standerd body kit aloys white spoiler for 3500 email me for num if interested:)