Help me choose a new 2nd hand car (UK)

October 26, 2007 6:29 AM

Help me choose a new 2nd hand car (UK)

I'm looking for a 2nd car that needs to fill the following criteria:
* £2.5k - £3.5k
* 4 doors (access for elderly grandparents essential)
* <> 30mpg fuel economy.
* must be manual
* must be big enough for my 6foot5, +300lb frame.

My current favourites are Citroen C5 HPi, Skoda Octavia 1.8T and Saab 9-3 2.0T. These would all be in the 7 year old, 70k mile vehicle territory.

Can anyone offer any opinions on these three, or suggest anything else I should consider?

The road I live on tends to eat car suspension (all cars up there tend to get shot suspension arms within ~40,000 of purchase). Does anyone know how the C5 suspension will stand up to this kind of abuse?

posted by twine42 to Travel & Transportation (5 answers total)

Also consider, perhaps, the Honda Accord from around that time. They're in the same price range for the spec, pretty good fuel economy, and because they're Hondas.. cheap to fix and very reliable. 2 -> 2.5l versions are also available, as you might need the extra power if you're carrying extra passengers. I'd also give the Skoda Octavia a nod. I just went on autotrader.co.uk and found absolutely tons of cars in this price range.. probably the best place to search. Good luck!
posted by wackybrit at 7:18 AM on October 26, 2007

I have a Skoda of roughly the same age and spec you're looking at, and I would recommend it. I didn't explicitly check out Citroen or Saab though so I can't offer any points of comparison.
posted by crocomancer at 8:31 AM on October 26, 2007

BMW 5-series: is workhorse, meets all your requirements.
posted by bonaldi at 9:16 AM on October 26, 2007

Skodas are ace, and in my experience, reliable in the longer term. You should fit in an Octavia fine.
posted by dowcrag at 10:03 AM on October 26, 2007

Octavias are great apart from the bit when their aircon compressors go pfft. Thankyou very much VW. (It's a common fault to all the Golf Mk4 platform cars; the compressor dies & it's 300 quid part + labour + regas to fix...)

Otherwise, yup, the Octavia is a fine workhorse.
posted by pharm at 1:49 PM on October 26, 2007