I'm looking for low tax & great mpg, Volvo V50 ?

stylie

Hi,

I have a Golf 1.4 petrol and currently get 38-40mpg.
I need to be able to save money long term so I am looking for something with low tax and great mileage 60+mpg. The Volvo V50 was recommended to me so I would like to hear other peoples opinions and alternatives. Boot space is a big plus for me, the more the merrier.

Thanks

biko

Do you do enough mileage every month for a difference of 20mpg to make a big difference?

v50 doesn't give >60 mpg. And the cost of a new-ish car will mean that the money you plan to save later will be used now to purchase the new car. No win really.

Take the car you have now and calculate the cost over 3 years: tax, petrol, insurance, some maintenance, nct.
Then take 4-5 other cars and do the same calculations for them. Remeber to add the price of purchase too.
Consider buy a bike (that's what I did after seeing the actual cost for my car)

stylie

Hi,

I am spending around 70-80 a week in fuel. People I have talked to that have the V50 have reported 60+mpg. A 50% increase in fuel efficiency coupled with apprx 50% off in tax is probably going to save me 1,500 a year. I would plan to have the car for 4yrs so looking at a 6,000 savings in fuel and tax. I am ignoring maintenance and NCT as they should factor in the same, heck the Golf has cost me a big chunk of change so maintenance on anything else over 4yrs might be cheaper than the Golf over the same period.
Also boot space is important to me, the Golf hatchback is just about enough but would like some leeway when packing my gear in.

R P McMurphy

stylie wrote: »

Hi,

I am spending around 70-80 a week in fuel. People I have talked to that have the V50 have reported 60+mpg. A 50% increase in fuel efficiency coupled with apprx 50% off in tax is probably going to save me 1,500 a year. I would plan to have the car for 4yrs so looking at a 6,000 savings in fuel and tax. I am ignoring maintenance and NCT as they should factor in the same, heck the Golf has cost me a big chunk of change so maintenance on anything else over 4yrs might be cheaper than the Golf over the same period.
Also boot space is important to me, the Golf hatchback is just about enough but would like some leeway when packing my gear in.

Boot space in a v50 is not great at all. Fuel consumption is good at 5.6l/100km. Very comfortable drive especially on motorways

Scortho

stylie wrote: »

Hi,

I am spending around 70-80 a week in fuel. People I have talked to that have the V50 have reported 60+mpg. A 50% increase in fuel efficiency coupled with apprx 50% off in tax is probably going to save me 1,500 a year. I would plan to have the car for 4yrs so looking at a 6,000 savings in fuel and tax. I am ignoring maintenance and NCT as they should factor in the same, heck the Golf has cost me a big chunk of change so maintenance on anything else over 4yrs might be cheaper than the Golf over the same period.
Also boot space is important to me, the Golf hatchback is just about enough but would like some leeway when packing my gear in.

As you are doing this for a savings purposes, the three most important things are your annual mileage, where you drive (city centre, motorway, countryside,) and how much it costs you to change car (new car price-what youd get for the golf)

Henry Ford III

V50 won't average 60+mpg. 50-55 mpg would be more realistic.

R.O.R

If the OP is getting 40mpg from a 1.4 Golf, I'd say 60 mpg from a V50 1.6d/D2 isn't a totally unreasonable expectation.

Boot space in the V50 isn't massive, but bigger than a Golf and easier to load up (unless you need to remove the tonneu cover, that's a pain).

Probably worth the change for the upgrade in comfort alone. Just make sure it's full leather.

L-M

I had a van (lighter) with the same engine, over a few different tests it came around 45 mpg average (Good bit of mixed driving) on the motorway it would do around 51-54mpg. This was a 5 speed.

I too had a 1.4 Golf and managed late 30's.

Have you considered the cost of change into your 6 grand savings plus a higher depreciation rate if the car is newer?

Sobanek

We have a 2006 V50 2.0D. Hard foot owners, Air Con is on all the time, and we get an average of 630km on a single tank (€70).
Which means we get an average of 7.5l/100km (37 mpg). On a road trip to Poland with mainly motorway driving, with 3 people onboard, we managed to get an average of 5.5l/100km (51.3 mpg).

We rented a 1.6 TDI Octavia while the Volvo was being fixed and we managed to get a scientific (measured with a calculator, not the computer) 5.1l/100km (55mpg) in MIXED driving. 6.3l/100km in town (45mpg) and 4.8l/100km (59mpg) on the motorway

stylie

I would be buying an 08/09 model, there is a % of depreciation but not so steep a drop off as opposed newer years.
My heart is not dead set on a V50, I would consider anything with cheap tax and good mileage, the more options I have the better.
My budget which is about 10grand and that includes what I can get for the Golf.

TBi

Why not something like a Diesel Kia Cee'd?

Good economy, much cheaper than a Golf or V50 and quite reliable. The estate version would have a massive boot. Would still have some of it's 7 year warranty left.

keithclancy

Sobanek wrote: »

We have a 2006 V50 2.0D. Hard foot owners, Air Con is on all the time, and we get an average of 630km on a single tank (€70).
Which means we get an average of 7.5l/100km (37 mpg). On a road trip to Poland with mainly motorway driving, with 3 people onboard, we managed to get an average of 5.5l/100km (51.3 mpg).

We rented a 1.6 TDI Octavia while the Volvo was being fixed and we managed to get a scientific (measured with a calculator, not the computer) 5.1l/100km (55mpg) in MIXED driving. 6.3l/100km in town (45mpg) and 4.8l/100km (59mpg) on the motorway

Must be lots of stop start driving.

On my last fill I got 768 km from 44 Liters in my 2005 V50 2.0D
That's with German Autobahn and Dutch motorway, working out at 5.7/100 which is 49.5 MPG

If I drive purely on Dutch roads its easily 5.2ish /100km (54 MPG)

If I'm frugal (boring) I can get 900km from 44 liters, 4.8 / 100 (58MPG)

Had an Octavia also for a few years (1.9 TDI) but the seats in it compared to the Volvo were crap, did manage 55mpg pretty consistently.

derry

Spare part for the Volvo tend be high compared to many similar sized cars

Many Spare parts from scrap yards often wont work as they need to be re-programed to work with the brain of your Volvo .Volvo doesn't do re-programing second hand parts so unless you can your buying new parts . Example Headlight pair for the V40 they cost more than €700 so suspect V50 will be similar

So many of the modern petrol cars without Turbos are getting very good MPG and good performance so probably safer to stay with petrol for repair and service bills . Often to get good performance from diesel it requires a Turbo.Its just a extra thing to go wrong. If your doing high mileage every year then converting Petrol to run on gas is the cheapest way to travel but it does require high mileage every year to get money back.If you had petrol car that did 50MPG then driving the came car with natural gas at €0.80 cent per liter is in cost terms like driving a car that returns ~85 MPG to ~90 MPG


Derry

Sobanek

keithclancy wrote: »

Must be lots of stop start driving.

On my last fill I got 768 km from 44 Liters in my 2005 V50 2.0D
That's with German Autobahn and Dutch motorway, working out at 5.7/100 which is 49.5 MPG

If I drive purely on Dutch roads its easily 5.2ish /100km (54 MPG)

If I'm frugal (boring) I can get 900km from 44 liters, 4.8 / 100 (58MPG)

Had an Octavia also for a few years (1.9 TDI) but the seats in it compared to the Volvo were crap, did manage 55mpg pretty consistently.

As to start stop traffic - it's a 5 mile journey at 80kph, then a 25 mile journey on the motorway and another 15 miles getting from Red Cow to City Centre. I think the current consumption is rubbish. We've done a bit of "lighter" driving this week, so I'll fill it up tomorrow and see what MPG I get.
Besides, it's "TIME FOR REGULAR SERVICE" :P