thoughts on a new car comparable to current car?

Sephnroth

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1995 Tigra 1.4 16V
Hi all. My first ever car was a 95 tigra i picked up for £600. Then I later upgraded to my current car, a '99 VW Passat 1.8T which i picked up for 750.

3+ yrs down the line and the passat is absolutely on it's last legs now. It needs a new gearbox, new rad, new ac compressor.. endless list. It makes sense to look at buying something new and i have put aside for this £1500 (the most i've ever had for a car! lol) but I'm struggling to find a car that isnt either completely boring or a downgrade.

Things I like about passat:

SPACE. Its big, but quite sleek looking (esp with the spoiler cuz sports ed) - despite not looking like an ugly box i can still fill it up at ikea no problem. I do alot of camping so its great i have room for me, my wife and our stuff. We are also planning a family soon so space is defininately important.

Practical fun. For the most part it purrs along happily not drinking gallons of petrol and on the motorway i tend to pull about 36MPG. But thanks to that turbo if i choose to put my foot down and hoon it.. it goes. its fun. My mpg drops to 15 but its a laugh. It goes back to being sensible when i do.

I can afford to tax and insure it.

I was thinking of getting another passat, but there are NO good examples near me i can find on autotrader. I guess they are all dying like mine.

I was consider a lexus 200 sportscross but again, none really near me.

im strongly considering a mazda6, maybe a 1.8 or 2.0.

Any other thoughts what i should be looking for?
 
ah the VW Passat, I had one, an old R reg estate, found a couple of pictures from when I advertised it for sale. (Also having a first go at uploading pictures).

VW Passat 01.jpg VW Passat 02B.jpg
 
so far most votes are towards the mazda - thou im still a lil torn between the 1.8 and the 2.0

gladrags: nice :) i'll try and attach one of my passat. The thing is I really like it, it's going to be hard to let go of (im a bit stupid with cars like that. The tigra was a write off and i was still unhappy watching it get towed away!) - but it's certainly the right time! Every time I repair something another thing breaks.

passat.jpg
 
Few left field alternatives worth checking might be a trusty Volvo something like one of the last 850 models or a V40 can be had for £1k+. Subaru Legacy or maybe a Saab 9-3 estate. Many LPT or full blown versions. A 10 year old luxury Mercedes estate may even be found for around your budget now. Sometimes it's worth travelling a bit to get the right car
 
The A6 is the Audi equivalent. I agree that you should also look at Volvo and Saab models. They offer quite a lot for the money.
 
Funny story.

3 days before I was due to sell the Passat I was finishing a long drive home from Bournemouth, to Exeter and then home to Bristol when I had my first ever road incident where someone had stopped, in the rain on a national speed limit road due to an incident infront of them and I aquaplaned into the back :( no one hurt, I was breaking hard but the crumple zones on the Passat did their work and the front folded up.

Long story short, I lost the remaining value on Passat, had to pay £240 to recover the shell back to home (which I was 11 miles away from) and I lost ALL my no claims bonus. In these cases they take 2yrs off no claims, but they only count whole years.. I was 6 days away from earning my third year, so I actually lost all 3 :(

Very frustrating, driving for years but always as a named driver on a fam or friends car which is why ncb was low.

Another friend took pity on me and gave me ridiculously cheap price on a 2003 bmw 5 series (520 es se 2.2ltr) for which I'm VERY thankful cuz thought I would be stuck in a '9x tin can. Insurance was a ridiculous £762 with my one reigistered accident and no ncb but that is pretty much across the board, it wasn't alot extra for the bmw and tbf could be alot worse.

Now I have to drive mega careful for a year and recover that ncb :/

BMW needs a lil tlc but pretty good condition all things considered! Probably post about my antics with it over the next year :)
 

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