New secondhand car

[col]

"high on your list of criteria was ease and cheapness (relatively) of future repairs and parts" suggests to me that what you're *actualy* after is low cost of ownership, and that has at least as much to do with the liklihood of needing repairs as how much they cost. And there is a trade off. I'd guess Fords *are* generally cheaper to fix than, say, a Honda. But they're also far more likely to need fixing.

I'd look for a Toyota/Honda/Mazda with 80,000 on the clock, a good service history and a seller who seems like a decent sort. You'll probably get another 50,000 miles out of it with minimal servicing costs. (And I would echo others' warnings: nothing French. Also, nothing Italian.)

I have to disagree , fords are very reliable I believe.

 

[smokeysmoo]

I have to disagree , fords are very reliable I believe.

As do I seeing as I've never had an issue with any Peugeot I've had, and I've had over 20!
The Peugeot/Citroen diesel engines have long been regarded as one of the best in the world, and FWIW some Peugeot/Citroen petrol engines are actually BMW units, go figure

 

[slowmotion]

Don't even entertain the idea of something from Italy

 

[2wd]

I know I mentioned Jap for reliabilty but my son has a Peugeot 306 2.0HDi (remapped for better economy ) with about 130,000 miles on it and that engine is superb

Starts first time and runs very sweet

Non of the electrical bits work though but the car drives well

 

[growingvegetables]

I'm just judging by the number of taxis - which suggests Skoda are cheap and reliable to run?

 

[GM]

Nobody's mentioned a Nissan Qashqia yet, ticks all the boxes!

 

[twowheelsgood]

Another vote for German. I had loads of cars but the ones I've kept longest haven't been the most flash or exciting, far from it in fact they'd be total junk to many. The best by far have been rather elderly Audis. Totally reliable, cheap and made to an incredible standard. After 4 years of not driving I bought a 1998 A4 TDi from a friend who had bought it new. A car which in the UK would barely be worth a few hundred quid. I bought it mainly as a cheap, disposable, manual car for my wife to learn to drive in. 3 years and 130,000 trouble free km later I still have it and don't have any reason to change it. I can even squeeze 1,100km from a tank of fuel if I'm very gentle with it. Same experience a while back, bought a 1986 Audi 100 for £800 in 1993, ran it 8 years (replaced 1 wheel bearing). 40mpg from an executive class car was good back then too. It's still taxed according tot he DVLA at 26 years old.

I was tempted away a little while back and bought a Honda accord and hated it - don't like the feel of Japanese cars. It was well engineered but the v-tec engine just didn't work well with the old-skool 4 speed automatic, slow and amazingly heavy on fuel for a 2litre (worse than the BMW 528 auto I had after it!). It also was incredibly noisy at speed.

French cars are pretty good to drive but seem to have interiors made out of recycled egg-boxes. I remember having to buy super-glue to put a hired Laguna back together again before I returned it and I remember being very impressed that light pressure on a Megane dash-board resulted in over a inch of flex - something I hadn't seen since a very sick Rover SD1. Utter crap IMHO but my cousin seems to love hers.

Nobody's mentioned a Nissan Qashqia yet, ticks all the boxes!

Funnily enough the guy I bought the Audi from bought a new one to replace it. He'd quite happily have his 12 year old car back. Trouble is it's a lot smaller than it looks, a real lack of useful space inside. It's also less economical than you might think. I also don't think this "tall car" trend results in anything useful, worse handling and fuel consumption. Bit of a fashion victim car if you ask me - don't see the point compared to say a VW Golf.

 

[G-Zero]

Another Jap vote here.

Been running a Toyota Aygo for 6 years and it has never once failed us, even avoiding the brake problem recall.

Added a used Honda Accord Touring iDTEC alongside it last week, which I'm hoping will be as reliable as the Toyota has been. Loads of room in the Honda for family and first dog later in the year, as well as having roof rails as standard for the bike racks and diesel economy.

 

[skudupnorth]

Skoda vote for me ! Had them for years and drove over to the Czech Republic more times than i can remember fully loaded with camping gear in my old rear engine beasties without a single issue.If something did fail then it could be fixed with a simple tool kit ( 10mm & 13mm spanners/socket covered most parts)
Only changed when my family got bigger.....a lot bigger ! and went for a VW Touran 7 seater,it's a good car but still not convinced it's more reliable than the Skoda's due to a few issues i've had with it including turbo If Skoda did a 7 seater i would go straight back to that brand,but now i guess it would be a re-badged VW
We did have a Nissan Tino SE with half leather and all the toys,that was super reliable and survived a trip across Germany a few weeks after we bought it ! No issues at all with it but again not enough room.

 

[twowheelsgood]

Skoda = VW = Audi = Seat. The badge won't even tell you where they are made e.g. some VW Polos are built in Spain (in Pamplona on the site of the old British Leyland factory).

Usually the VW/Audi will have the newer tech first but not always. The Leon had the last generation Golf platform before VW did. The Seat Exeo is almost down to the last nut and bolt the old Audi A4.

 

[cyberknight]

Toyota. Utterly reliable IME and their costs and charges are good. I've given up saying I'll take it to e.g. a tyre depot when they come up on the service sheet - the Toyota dealer turns out to be just as cheap. Which is more than you can say for e.g. Merc dealers IME.

Nice!! keeps me in a job as you can guess what we make where i work
We can only get cars we make in our factry via lease or i would have oneas i know the high levels of quality control that go into making them.Unfortunatly i need an mpv type car and we do not currently make one at burnaston so i have just bought a meriva because our car was on its knees and we got double what it was worth for trade in.

 

[deanbmx]

French, I've had 3 peugeots and never had a problem. All over 120k on the clock.

 

[tyred]

A lot of people criticise French cars but I and many friends and family have had a large number of Peugeots and have very little problems to report apart from maybe suspension bushings on diesel models but I would put that mostly down to a combination of the state of the roads around here and using cheap aftermarket parts. The only real issue I have seen with older Peugeots like the 205 and 306 is with the trailing arm bearings in the back axle which can be tricky to sort if you can't find a decent second hand replacement but it should be good for at least 150,000 miles.

 

[Night Train]

I reckon a Morris Minor or Mk1 Ford Escort, restored, would be very cheap and easy to run.

 

[Nigel-YZ1]

I reckon a Morris Minor or Mk1 Ford Escort, restored, would be very cheap and easy to run.

I'd like to see a comparison between the old stuff and modern cars. Wonder how would they rack up on emissions and fuel efficiency?