Car plans 2022

Considering financial burdens I have to deal with at the moment, I have no option but to keep my 15yo corolla at least until mid 2023. However, ms jou's plans changed drastically since she got strong advice from our mech to rid of her car asap. So now, instead of keeping her 131 ASX for a few more years she's waiting for a call from dealer to collect her new and shiny car. That'd very likely happen this month.

I plan on getting a 430d or 435d or something that's not stupidly expensive to tax. Current car is 2010 M3 and seems a little pointless to own right now. I did two track days precovid but it's a waste just using it around the city.

75mpg ..... Must have been very light footed to see that regularly, possible though no doubt. Nothing petrol will rival that ...maybe a hybrid yaris on ideal driving I suppose.

I'd see close to under 5l/100km from a 3l on a predominantly 80kmph trot if traffic was light.

Those figures are nearly bang on to my 1.0 Octavia, usually just shy of €90 to fill it from the fuel light and usually gives me a hair over 700kms, best ever was 755 but usually more like 710, 720ish. I think it's a good return on what it is, works out usually around 48-50mpg old money.

Granted €90 is a lot for a tank but it's not the cars fault petrol has went up 50% in the last year.

My old 1.6 diesel Golf wasn't giving a whole lot more MPG wise in reality, thr only difference was the diesel was cheaper at the pump.

Car plans for 2022? The missus is picking up her new car this week, i'm half sorry i bought the Octavia, i really probably didn't need it in the first place, nice and all as it is and i'm tempted to sell and get into a bangernomic.

No, actually. Mainly based on price, to re-PCP into a half decent spec Mk8 was working out north of €500p/m which seems excessive, to use the eternal phrase - "for a Golf". Couple that with a higher balloon payment and it just seemed to be getting dear. The Mk8 is a nice car but not worth that much to us.

Getting a new T-Roc which i'm ok with, basically a Golf 7 on stilts, there's a few odds and ends lacking in them (no different to the Mk8 in it's lackings somewhat) but the run out models are very well spec'd and a change is as good as a rest. Only concern would be will the T-Roc provide any equity in 3 years but with a GMFV of €11.5k should see us ok.

What I should have done is not buy my Octavia and buy the Golf we are trading in. We probably would have bought out the 7.5 otherwise as it suits us grand, very low kms, but when we bought it in 192, my missus was doing 200kms a day, then when the car was 6 months old sure she was working from home like the rest of the world and now her new office is in the same town we live in so it's really struggling with the low mileage as she does drive it to work.

So... yeah.

Well I've recently sold the DS3 (2 viewings, 2nd person bought it there and then) - it is very much missed as it was tonnes of fun to drive and just spotless inside (2013 1.6T with 79,000KM, I did 2600 of them) but it was just not needed as I'm at most, going to be returning to the office 1/2 days a month. Decided to take advantage of the time of year and the current used car market and sold it for €300 more than I paid 15 months ago.

At the same time, since the Karoq feels quite small with the 2 kids + their "luggage", we decided to reinvest in a new Kodiaq Sportline (which is what I wanted to go for in the first place but couldn't afford). The missus is getting a work van too so with the savings in ownership from the DS3 (tax, insurance, NCT, maintenance etc) + the trade in value, it's actually not costing us any more a month - happy days! Dealer says it will be here end of Feb.

Completely agree mate! We actually went with the Style 1.5 TSI in the Karoq for the leather seats (which are not available in the Sportline) but the facelift Kodiaq Sportline seats are half leather (I put leather covers under the kids seats anyway).

New one should look like this with the Sportline Pack, Virtual Cockpit, same 1.5 TSI DSG (amazing engine).

Bought a Cupra Formentor last year with the 1.5 TSI engine and I actually find it very fuel efficient for a petroleum engine , has the two cylinder shut down in Eco mode as well and will get around 43-45 mpg on the motorway which is good for what it is …also a really refined engine with good mid range power , was unsure when buying but it’s great for what I need these days and the car is fab can’t say enough good things about the Formentor so defo a keeper for me …

On the fun end I’ll be hopefully respraying my Boxster S ahead of the summer to enjoy , all mechanical up to speed since last year if funds allow maybe refurb the seats as well…

I don't have anything major planned. I will keep driving my 180sx day to day. I've been driving in daily for almost 5 years now and put 53k kilometres on it. It's only getting 24mpg so it hasn't been great to run with the recent increase in fuel prices but I know the car so well and it has never let me down so I will just keep driving.

For the R32 Skyline, that won't be back out until April but it's going for some paintwork soon. Back arches are starting to rust, plus some parts of it I am not happy with, so getting both quarters, roof and rear of car painted. Other than that it should be mechanically sorted for the year.

Aside from that, old jap car life gets a bit tiresome at times. I've been thinking about something more modern lately.

Reading about the GR86, finally a new car to get excited about. 4 pot, 2.4 NA, 1275kg, 230bhp - looks better than GT86 also I think.

Ill be keeping the E36 and NC MX5 for now as they still feel fairly special but would love a GR86 in 6-7 years. No doubt, there will be some drama with try to get one here. Toxic tax, purchasing or insurance costs or the possible reality they wont get sold here. Same for the Alpina A110 it seems.

No real plans except to sort out a rusty rear wheelarch. Well I think I say this every year, but I really do plan on fixing it this year as the rust is starting to spread and it is starting to look quite ugly now. Once that is done I will take it to JC Autocare to get the repainted areas ceramic coated, and the whole interior and engine bay detailed. For once in my life, I can't think of anything massively wrong with the way the car drives, well of course there are a few things that annoy my OCD, but for anyone that's not as OCD as me, there's really very little wrong with the way it drives. It's getting an Inspection 1 service next week also.

Last year it got new subframe bushes, diff, catalytic converters, headlight polish, bumper re-alignment, genuine backbox, genuine rear bumper apron, and many other bits, so that was more than enough love (and expense) for it. It also got new handbrake cables, and I have finally discovered that BMW handbrakes are not rubbish after all. I had changed backing plates (for genuine BMW items), shoes more than once (again for genuine BMW items) and while there were issues there, it was only once the cables were done that the car now as a properly functioning handbrake. 4000 miles since the handbrake cables were fitted properly and it still hasn't needed adjustment despite me parking the car on a sloped driveway almost all the time. It simply couldn't do that before for more than a couple of weeks. Sometimes it's the simplest of things that make such a big difference!

Being a 19 year old car, I've been thinking a lot lately that it really is time to consider replace it with something newer (at least as a daily driver), but the truth is, it's so hard to look past an E46 for how well they drive, and with the way things are going in the new car market, that advantage is only going to increase as time moves on.