Back in the market... again.

bear1

Ok so this time I really do need to change the car.
After dropping a fortune into the Passat the last few months and now more issues reappearing I've more or less lost faith in it.
So I need to sell it and then replace it.
It will probably take me a couple of months but I've started looking already.
100% diesel as I'm on 30k minimum a year.
Good spec, xenons and heated seats would be my main options.
Need an estate due to the kid and regular trips but if anyone has an idea of a saloon with a large boot I could consider them.
No less than 170 bhp but could drop if the car was a good one.

Wife doesn't want a fiat or an Alfa which is really annoying the **** out of me so I've asked her to check out a tipo estate with me.
Saw a Hyundai ix55 v6 which was unreal inside but 9.6/100km would kill me.

I've seen quite a few superbs for sale but just wondering if all I'm doing is getting rid of a Passat and buying another.
Budget is about 11k.

Note. I'm abroad but would use the examples here as a basis.

colm_mcm

Accord?

bmwguy

Will you get a fiat Tipo even remotely close to 170bhp?

There's probably not a huge amount on the market for 170bhp+ in diesel except for the premium brands. Its quite a high power output for irish engines. Most will be 110-140 I would imagine.

Pity she isn't into the Alfa the 159 estate (sportwagon I think.its called is lovely)

bear1

colm_mcm wrote: »

Accord?

I thought about the accord but the s version with 180.
Just hard to find here.
About the tipo, nah 120 is the max you'd get but I'm willing to take a look at one as I quite like them. I'd remap it then
170 isn't such an issue where I am so you can fire away with the premium brands.
And yep about the 159, there is a gorgeous one with red leather and ti spec for sale and I'm trying in vain to get her to take a look.

bmwguy

bear1 wrote: »

I thought about the accord but the s version with 180.
Just hard to find here.
About the tipo, nah 120 is the max you'd get but I'm willing to take a look at one as I quite like them. I'd remap it then
170 isn't such an issue where I am so you can fire away with the premium brands.
And yep about the 159, there is a gorgeous one with red leather and ti spec for sale and I'm trying in vain to get her to take a look.

Is the 159 black? A black Ti model with red leather would be top class.

bear1

bmwguy wrote: »

Is the 159 black? A black Ti model with red leather would be top class.

No I think gun metal.
Has the 5 pot engine..

bazz26

Volvo V70 D5.

bear1

Got the wife to agree that I include a 159 into the search
Took a look at a few Volvos and just thought it looks a bit... bland.
The interior is nice though but I read that the auto box is a bit slow?

Cannon_fodder

bear1 wrote: »

Got the wife to agree that I include a 159 into the search
Took a look at a few Volvos and just thought it looks a bit... bland.
The interior is nice though but I read that the auto box is a bit slow?

Bear1, cannot figure this out. If you asked for a car that would suit your mileage and comfort, most here would have flagged a Passat. Did you buy a lemon or is the Passat out completely and for what reason(s)? Going for an Alfa me thinks will be just as costly IMO.

bear1

Cannon_fodder wrote: »

Bear1, cannot figure this out. If you asked for a car that would suit your mileage and comfort, most here would have flagged a Passat. Did you buy a lemon or is the Passat out completely and for what reason(s)? Going for an Alfa me thinks will be just as costly IMO.

The Passat is a grand car and is a nice place to be for a journey and has a very nice turn of pace. It being the 170 model.
But the endless turbo issues and in April it cleaned me out in repairs which now have reappeared along with a strange increase in water temperature have me worried.
No idea why but the temp started moving passed 90 degrees unless I'd slow down and be gentle.
The turbo doesn't like it if I start accelerating up hill and has led to numerous "break downs" within 24 hours.
In all honesty I've lost faith in it.
It's also got an annoying issue with it's away belt clip which constantly thinks you're not wearing a seat belt.

By all means I'm not aiming for an Alfa but I like that I've got the option and if it comes down to it I'd have no issues getting myself a 159 ti.
But that said I've also looked at the v6 c5 and the bi turbo insignia but not easy to find personal opinions on these.
Staying clear of bmws as the years I'm looking at would put me in timing chain issue territory.

AMKC

Would you look at a SAAB 9-3 Sports wagon or a Renault Laguna MK3 estate if you could stretch that far. Mazda 6 estates and maybe Suburu's could be some other options. t

bear1

AMKC wrote: »

Would you look at a SAAB 9-3 Sports wagon or a Renault Laguna MK3 estate if you could stretch that far. Mazda 6 estates and maybe Suburu's could be some other options. t

I did indeed look at the 9-3 but it's very cramped at the back when you put a child seat in and the boot isn't great either.
Laguna I've also seen and they are in budget, the gt 4 control 180bhp version.
Mazda 6... unusual this but people don't seem to say good things about them. Interior they say feels cheap and the engine is prone to dpf failure.
Subaru unfortunately wouldn't be in my budget except the notorious diesel 150bhp model.

bear1

Anyone have some thoughts about either the Octavia vrs tdi (I imagine this is the exact same engine I've got?) Or the superb? Superb seems like I could even make do with the saloon as the boot is quite big.

bmwguy

bear1 wrote: »

Anyone have some thoughts about either the Octavia vrs tdi (I imagine this is the exact same engine I've got?) Or the superb? Superb seems like I could even make do with the saloon as the boot is quite big.

Neither of them are my cup of tea but anyone I know that got the superb for the space it offers is chuffed with it.

bear1

Unreal for the rear seats.
Couple I saw had heated seats at the back too.
Know what you mean, at the end of the day I'm just in a bigger Passat

bmwguy

bear1 wrote: »

Unreal for the rear seats.
Couple I saw had heated seats at the back too.
Know what you mean, at the end of the day I'm just in a bigger Passat

Yeah my buddy has heated rear seats in a superb. It's not something I would put any value
on. Have it on my car at the moment and another car I previously had and the only time I ever used it apart from checking if it worked was to make a friend uncomfortable on a hot day as a joke! He hadn't a clue.

bear1

bmwguy wrote: »

Yeah my buddy has heated rear seats in a superb. It's not something I would put any value
on. Have it on my car at the moment and another car I previously had and the only time I ever used it apart from checking if it worked was to make a friend uncomfortable on a hot day as a joke! He hadn't a clue.

It's more a novelty, my wife sometimes sits in the back with our daughter and the winters here are terrible so it's useful in that sense.
Same as the massage seat in the c5, pure gimmick

mossy50

VW CC

GustavoFring

Coming from the Passat I don't think the Octavia will cut it. The mark 2 isn't the most comfortable tbh, and they're quiet noisy.

bear1

mossy50 wrote: »

VW CC

Not sure a cc would be big enough and unfortunately out of my price range.

bear1

GustavoFring wrote: »

Coming from the Passat I don't think the Octavia will cut it. The mark 2 isn't the most comfortable tbh, and they're quiet noisy.

So essentially they aren't as refined?
Would the vrs stationwagon not be a good balance?

James Bond Junior

I have a auto d5 Volvo. If you want comfort look no further but be warned, they are heavy on juice and front suspension parts and engine mounts. Try find one with those bits recently replaced. Other than that, fairly bulletproof and they make a good solid mile muncher.

bear1

James Bond Junior wrote: »

I have a auto d5 Volvo. If you want comfort look no further but be warned, they are heavy on juice and front suspension parts and engine mounts. Try find one with those bits recently replaced. Other than that, fairly bulletproof and they make a good solid mile muncher.

How bad on fuel are they?
How is the rear legroom and is the boot big enough for say a pram and few suitcases?

James Bond Junior

bear1 wrote: »

How bad on fuel are they?
How is the rear legroom and is the boot big enough for say a pram and few suitcases?

I've an s60 and the rear leg room is pretty bad but a v70 would be better I'd imagine. And the boot in a v70 is about 4 - 5 acres!!

I'm getting an indicated 43/44mpg which is really about 10% optimistic and that's doing a 90km/h feathering the throttle kind of drive. Around town it barely hits 25mpg. A full tank costs about €90 and I get 650 miles out of it doing mainly national roads and a bit of city driving none of which is with a heavy foot. I just remind myself that I paid sweet shag all for it and it is supremely comfortable which offsets the mpg. An 06 320d doing 50mpg would have cost me 6/7k at the time and I paid 2.5k for the Volvo so there is a lot to make up between the two.

AMKC

bear1 wrote: »

I did indeed look at the 9-3 but it's very cramped at the back when you put a child seat in and the boot isn't great either.
Laguna I've also seen and they are in budget, the gt 4 control 180bhp version.
Mazda 6... unusual this but people don't seem to say good things about them. Interior they say feels cheap and the engine is prone to dpf failure.
Subaru unfortunately wouldn't be in my budget except the notorious diesel 150bhp model.

Laguna I've also seen and they are in budget, the gt 4 control 180bhp version.

Have seen a few of them around and they look lovely. The 4 wheel steering on them is really good too.

bear1

The Passat has started going over it's usual 90 degree temp. Went to 95 today and would only go down if I slowed right down.
Looks more likely I've got head gasket issues which means I'll probably be in the market much earlier than I had hoped.

bear1

Went to view two cars today. 1 a tipo turbo petrol and.... a 2.4 q4 159 stationwagon.
It was a stupid idea as I keep thinking about the car now.
Things I didn't like, fair amount of scratches along the body, drivers side window looked like someone keyed it and the inside needed a good clean but nothing drastic.
What I liked, my god it's a good looking car. The boot is better than I expected, it's more deep than long so we will need to test how it takes a buggy.
The seats were unreal, white heated leather.
The car started no problem and on the button, think a fan belt tensioner or possible fan belt itself may need changing soon as it had a slight squeak when starting.
The dpf has been removed so I've not decided if this is good or bad.
Spec wise I'm struggling to find a combo of sat nav and heated seats but I think I can kinda live without it.
Has xenons and parking sensors.
Need to head back soon for a test drive and if the pram will fit.
Price is 6k negotiable and I can purchase a 1 year guarantee which I intend to do.
Was supposed to view a Mitsubishi outlander but it was sold.
Still need to check a few more marques and also see another 159 to compare the two..

Redsoxfan

The 159 is not a big car. I own one. You will find it cramped compared to a Passat. The big issue with the estate is the high lip on the boot.

bear1

Redsoxfan wrote: »

The 159 is not a big car. I own one. You will find it cramped compared to a Passat. The big issue with the estate is the high lip on the boot.

Shhh don't be giving me those negative vibes!
The q4 is going to be even higher due to the suspension set up but tbh if the pram pops in and the car handles well then it wouldn't stop me.
Now.. if I could get a q4 5 pot ti I'd gladly take the divorce papers.

166man

bear1 wrote: »

Shhh don't be giving me those negative vibes!
The q4 is going to be even higher due to the suspension set up but tbh if the pram pops in and the car handles well then it wouldn't stop me.
Now.. if I could get a q4 5 pot ti I'd gladly take the divorce papers.

Go for the 2.4 if you can Bear. The 1.9 diesel is a good engine but they have very weak gearboxes - it's well documented online. The 2.4 has a stronger gearbox and substantially more power.

bear1

166man wrote: »

Go for the 2.4 if you can Bear. The 1.9 diesel is a good engine but they have very weak gearboxes - it's well documented online. The 2.4 has a stronger gearbox and substantially more power.

I don't intend to go for the 1.9 at all.
Apart from the steering rack are there any known faults with that particular engine, car? Can't remember if the steering liquid should be red or green..

bear1

Weekend approaching and I've 3 cars lined up.
One is a 159 sportswagon 5 pot in ti spec but without leather, heated seats or sat nav and seems to be the more meh 200bhp version.
Next up is an accord, don't really want one but it's close by and worth a look.
Then a Peugeot 308 t7 with 150bhp. Spec isn't bad and a big panoramic roof and xenons.
Alfa is a good 2.5k cheaper than the rest but the most powerful.
See how it goes.

CJhaughey

bear1 wrote: »

Weekend approaching and I've 3 cars lined up.
One is a 159 sportswagon 5 pot in ti spec but without leather, heated seats or sat nav and seems to be the more meh 200bhp version.
Next up is an accord, don't really want one but it's close by and worth a look.
Then a Peugeot 308 t7 with 150bhp. Spec isn't bad and a big panoramic roof and xenons.
Alfa is a good 2.5k cheaper than the rest but the most powerful.
See how it goes.

In fairness, if the Accord has the sunroof rust sorted and the egr pipe cracking issue sorted its will be unlikely you need to do much else, the I-Dtec is a pretty reliable engine compared the the I-Ctdi and those only had the timing chain trouble which you experienced.

walus

Peugeot 508 SW could be a very good alternative if you can live with 140 hp only. They are reliable, good value and comfortable.

James Bond Junior

bear1 wrote: »

Weekend approaching and I've 3 cars lined up.
One is a 159 sportswagon 5 pot in ti spec but without leather, heated seats or sat nav and seems to be the more meh 200bhp version.
Next up is an accord, don't really want one but it's close by and worth a look.
Then a Peugeot 308 t7 with 150bhp. Spec isn't bad and a big panoramic roof and xenons.
Alfa is a good 2.5k cheaper than the rest but the most powerful.
See how it goes.

2.5k could get an awful lot of leather from a breakers.

bear1

I've been doing some man maths.
Alfa has 200bhp and 400nm of torque.
Citroen c5 2.7 has 204bhp and 440nm of torque.
So engine wise the Alfa is better
added 2 more to the list for the weekend, an a6 with the 2.7 engine but it's quite bland inside and out of sheer curiosity an insignia with 160bhp.
Have a hotel booked for the night so I've quite a lot to see.
I'm still leaning towards the q4 I saw last week.

bear1

James Bond Junior wrote: »

2.5k could get an awful lot of leather from a breakers.

It would but, being here you really need heated seats and it being an Alfa I am not pissing around with it's electrics :pac:

James Bond Junior

bear1 wrote: »

It would but, being here you really need heated seats and it being an Alfa I am not pissing around with it's electrics :pac:

I wasn't sure whether you were in Irelnd or Poland alright..

grogi

bear1 wrote: »

It would but, being here you really need heated seats and it being an Alfa I am not pissing around with it's electrics :pac:

You're in Siberia then...

bear1

James Bond Junior wrote: »

I wasn't sure whether you were in Irelnd or Poland alright..

Aye, Poland.

grogi wrote: »

You're in Siberia then...

Ah come on, winter's in Poland aren't exactly mild.

bear1

So just got back from viewing the opel, Citroen and Alfa.
Citroen I've decided against, couple of reasons for this.
1) it just wouldn't start, it attempted and then died twice.
2) the door felt like it was going to fall off
3) the buttons were just too small and I felt like you had to always look at it when doing something so it's a bit distracting.

The Alfa.
The seller just couldn't be bothered and any fault I found would be met with a well it was fine before.
Aircon was broken and no matter how much he told me to wait it just wouldn't cool down. Could be a leak or could be the compressor.
It needed a jump start..
But it looked very nice and the inside was spotless but the engine looked like it had been washed which kinda make me think it was to mask something but I might be overreacting.
The last 2 things were the seller immediately increased the price by 3k when he handed me the keys and told me it had never been crashed. When I asked why the price has increased compared to the sticker price he couldn't give a proper answer. The being told the car was never crashed seemed a bit odd.

The opel.
Looked great inside, I was genuinely surprised.
The boot seemed more or less like the Passat.
Had cream leather with memory drivers seat. Heated too.
Infinity sound system whatever that is, xenons and sat nav.
The negatives.
The key in the fob was loose and I mean very loose on both keys.
The button to close the boot from the boot wasmy working.
The tyres were in bad condition even though they were continentals.
Brakes needed doing badly.
Timing belt and water pump needed to be done.
The "service history" that they bragged about involved 2 stamps and both for oil filter change..
While driving the check engine light came on.
Number plate lights not working warning.
And I can't put my finger on it but on idle the revs would go up and down and the stay at 1k. Anyone have a clue what could be the issue? I was thinking potential dpf issue?
Positives.
Looked great inside, radio sounded great and it had a generous spec.
Lot of room the famil baggage.
Handled well and no strange noises from the suspension.
The engine appeared to pull well but it was an automatic which was a bit meh.
Need to go and view again the q4 from the other week and test drive it.

One more thing about the insignia, Is it me or is the rear view very very small?

166man

The three of them sound like bad examples to be honest Bear.

Any other examples near you that you could view?

bear1

166man wrote: »

The three of them sound like bad examples to be honest Bear.

Any other examples near you that you could view?

Yeah, there is another 159 about 40km from me which I need to arrange a viewing.
Due to the public holiday coming it's hard to arrange time. For my budget and criteria there isn't much funnily enough here unless I travel a lot.

bear1

I've put 2 more cars on my list.

A Ford Mondeo 2.2 tdci saloon and just out of curiosity I found a nice looked accord tourer.

So it leads me to 2 questions, is the boot big in the Mondeo? It being a saloon.
And with the accord, it's a huge heavy looking thing so would 150 horses be adequate in moving it along?

bazz26

Mondeo saloon boot is very deep but as with most saloon cars the opening is limited and nowhere near as practical as the hatchback.

Accord looks big but in reality it's not overly heavy. Fuel economy is not great on the i-DTEC engine compared to the likes of a Passat/Superb, etc. It should be reliable though.

ba_barabus

bear1 wrote: »

I've put 2 more cars on my list.

A Ford Mondeo 2.2 tdci saloon and just out of curiosity I found a nice looked accord tourer.

So it leads me to 2 questions, is the boot big in the Mondeo? It being a saloon.
And with the accord, it's a huge heavy looking thing so would 150 horses be adequate in moving it along?

Mondeo opening is woeful. Get a hatch

bear1

Perfect thank you both for that.
I've also seen an estate with the same 200 horses engine which looks massive.
I'll see if there is a hatchback available.

bear1

Found my contenders granted the ads aren't in English but Google translator is my friend for these types of issues, my Polski isn't as good when I'm sober.

https://www.otomoto.pl/oferta/honda-accord-sprowadzona-z-niemiec-zarejestrowana-xenon-przyjme-auto-w-rozliczeniu-ID6yYzGh.html The Honda - this would be the last car I'd consider to be honest.

http://allegro.pl/ford-mondeo-tdci-titanium-s-navi-xenon-radar-full-i6910715839.html#thumb/1 Mondea Titanium X estate

https://www.otomoto.pl/oferta/ford-mondeo-200km-titanium-st-xenon-dvd-regulowane-zawieszenie-conwers-subwoofer-ID6yR7rT.html same but as a hatchback. It annoys me though that the seller has used up half the boot space on a subwoofer.

https://www.otomoto.pl/oferta/alfa-romeo-159-alfa-159-2-4-210ps-pakiet-ti-szwajcar-faktura-vat-23-ID6ywxk9.html my princess!

https://www.otomoto.pl/oferta/opel-insignia-webasto-z-pilotem-navi-xenon-automat-historia-serwisowa-ID6yZtot.html spec aint bad on this Insignia

http://allegro.pl/opel-insignia-2-0-cdti-cosmo-bi-xenon-i6920327136.html this Insignia I'm very interested in but it really annoys me that here they will quote you both the net and gross amount so for this particular car I'd need to add 23% to the advertised price.

http://allegro.pl/opel-insignia-2-0-cdti-2009-extra-wersja-prywatnie-i6906378987.html#thumb/1 last Insignia. If the Alfa wasn't an option this and the Mondeo estate would be my pick of the lot.

grogi

Just don't buy anything that is not registered in Poland.

It is a legal minefield and I guarantee you would get screwed...

colm_mcm

I'd have the Accord. The facelift estates are tasty.

Redsoxfan

colm_mcm wrote:

I'd have the Accord. The facelift estates are tasty.

Haven't driven the facelift, but loved the previous version when I had it for a few days.