Doing 100km a day on open road - what car is best?

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wrong2, May 15, 1:25pm
the VW Mk5 Golf consumption figures are eaisly available all over the net

& Golf owners verify them. no one but jazzman claims to get over 20 km/ Liter

its YOU whose spinning baloney
wrong2, May 15, 1:27pm
the 04 corolla i hired didnt give me as good economy as my 93 civic 1300 i use for work

this was an aussie model tho (running on aussi gas obviously) - but i doubt theres much difference between theirs & ours !!!
xr6turbo2, May 15, 2:28pm
Get a bf falcon xr6,my one dose 8.6l per 100ks,and very nice to drive.DONT BUY A VW GOLF it will spend more time in a workshop than on the road!
henderson_guy, May 15, 2:40pm
I'm gonna have to say get a large car, definitely a 6cyl, as an open road cruiser they cannot be beat, and the fuel difference is negligible. There is a reason most sales reps travelling over distance have Falcons, or I've noticed a lot lately with Toyota 6cyl, cannot remember the model off the top of my head I'm afraid.
trogedon, May 15, 2:58pm
Easy fix - DON'T MOVE OUT OF TOWN. You'll just be adding to the pollution, more traffic, wasting your time and $.
picxie, May 15, 3:02pm
Thanks for all the comments, and sorry for being awol! We went down to see the property today and I did a test on petrol usage in my current car - turns out it's more fuel efficient than I though! We effectively got 6.75l for 100km, mainly open road. I had thought it was much higher than that! We are still considering a new car, so will be reading through all your comments, thank you!
picxie, May 15, 3:09pm
I disagree. I am looking into carpooling opportunities which would reduce pollution, traffic and the petrol issue. And I certainly will not be wasting my time or money. Moving out of town is going to allow us to buy nearly 10 times the amount of land that we can afford in town. We have plans to build large producing gardens which will allow us to be as self sufficient as possible. We are going to get the peace and quiet that we want, and the lifestyle that we want. I am more than prepared to commute half an hour each way to work, to get the lifestyle that we have dreamed of. Half an hour each way is surely no worse than someone who lives in Auckland or a bigger city. In fact, when I used to live 20km from work (40km round trip) I would be in the car 25min each way because of the increase in traffic. The added bonus of this particular property is that although it is going to give us the privacy we want, it is still only 2km to a small town with the essential shops. It will mean we will be cutting down on small car trips, as it is only a short walk away and a much nicer walk at that!
picxie, May 15, 3:13pm
Oh . in case someone is working out the timing of things - one property is 50km out of town and takes 40min. The property we looked at today is 43km out of town and takes 30min. I don't think we'd be getting anything much closer than what we looked at today.
morrisman1, May 15, 3:20pm
What car do you have currently Picxie! On the open road those distances arent that far and the lifestyle will definitely be worth it. If you are doing 90km a day, a modern car should get down to 5.5L/100km then thats only a cost per day of just over $10 (for fuel). not much really considering many in the larger cities would go through at least that in coffees every day!

As Ive said, the most important thing is you get a car which is comfortable on the open road
pig-gal, May 15, 3:30pm
Kazbanz what is in, or not in our diesel which makes it utter rubbish compared to the rest of the world! I thought we were running ULSD in NZ now which has to be less than 10ppm
morrisman1, May 15, 3:34pm
I dont think our diesel is as bad as some make it out to be. The diesel taxes however are shocking. The RUC system couldn't be any more unfair on drivers of small economical diesels.
picxie, May 15, 4:27pm
I have a Mazda Famila, one like this - 307860209 - except 1995. $10 a day would be fantastic - I was budgeting more like $20 a day which was getting up there! Based on the mileage we did today it would be more like $13, so not bad! I've had this car for just over 9 years and am quite happy with it - was going to hold on to it until it died - but with fuel becoming a consideration we were looking at something better. However I think I have really underestimated the fuel usage on the open road.
morrisman1, May 15, 4:38pm
Ok, that gives us a better idea of where the starting point is. As well as fuel budget it would be very helpful to know what your purchasing budget is. Jazzpainoman is very good at recommending late model VW without properly assessing if the budget allows for it. Realistically for a nice TDi Passat you need around $25000. I know most budgets dont allow for that so a compromise must be met. On the cheaper end of the economical diesel sedans is the peugeot 406 HDi, A very comfortable vehicle, more than enough get up and go but not as much as those late model diesels but will return fantastic economy. 1200km out of a tank is expected, hell even on an old 1991 model I had with the old diesel engine I could theoretically get 1400km from the tank if I ran it dry. The 406 HDi normally runs for about $12000. The wagons look nice too and would be practical if you are going to run a small lifestyle block. It would be very helpful to know the budget so we can find the best vehicle which will fit inside it
msigg, May 15, 4:44pm
when you purchase another car for $10,000 or more, the depreciation on that car would have paid for all the petrol in the other car for years. be careful of economy figures, at the end of the day be happy with what you have or might be getting and like the other car keep it for as long as possible, that is the best thing you can do . good luck.
morrisman1, May 15, 4:52pm
Jazz, I just used your calculator and couldnt help but notice that the figures are out of date. Fuel prices are out of date, RUC is now $44.30 per 1000km for a two tonne sticker and 12 month licencing for petrol is now $287, and for diesel car $417
johnf_456, May 15, 5:04pm
Yeah not everyone likes pushbikes, nothing like an internal combustion engine!
morrisman1, May 15, 5:09pm
slightly off topic. I fired up dads 405 diesel the other day and took it across town to do some jobs. The best bit of the trip was when i first gave it the beans from the lights, the first time you do that you get a thundercloud worth of black smoke. It just happened to be a prius behind me which momentarily disappeared from view before it got through the cloud. It was a priceless moment watching the prius disappear behind the cloud of diesel smoke. If only I could have seen the look on the drivers face
picxie, May 15, 5:15pm
Sorry, I should have said the budget at the beginning. If we get a new vehicle then we'd possibly put it on the mortgage, it depends on how much the property ends up costing us! Something around or even under $10k would be great but if the fuel difference was quite a bit less then potentially we'd go up to $15k. Of course, the more we pay for the property, the smaller the car budget would be!

Buying a car by taking out extra on the mortage sounds like a daft idea, I know. However I did work out the the savings in petrol cost would outweigh what we paid in interest. Although - that was when I thought our original petrol costs would be much higher. We wouldn't borrow money to do it if it was just going to cost us more in interest.

A Peugeot 406 HDi wagon - based on my very quick look on Trade Me now! - could be a possibility. We were considering getting a second vehicle in the next 18 months so that we had something more practical for carting things around in. An old ute was our original thoughts.

The VW's look nice and I think they popped up on my radar last night while I was looking through . I think that anything that delivers the better fuel efficiency seems to be out of our price range though (sorry, should have said the price range earlier!).
icemans1, May 15, 5:23pm
i know someone that got quoted $2.5k to get brakes fixed on a vw golf
morrisman1, May 15, 5:23pm
A lady I work with has a 306 HDi (same engine but with no intercooler and only 90hp) which she does a 170km round trip in, 5 days a week. Its just about to click over 400,000km and it still runs sweet as she says. They are very strong engines and gearboxes but being french will occasionally suffer from electrical glitches. Good news is french are very consistent at faults so there is plenty of knowledge out there if something does go wrong. Parts are cheap from the UK but from the dealer network here some things will be stupidly priced.
thejazzpianoma, May 15, 6:32pm
You can get a 2.0 MK5 Petrol Golf from about 13K if you take your time and look carefully. They are the one car worth stretching the budget for.

For a 40 minute commute they are heaps big enough and more than comfortable enough, its just crazy spending a fortune running a Falcon or other similarly large vehicle for that kind of running. Hang there are many company reps using Golfs who do absolutly massive Km's in absolute comfort and safety.

Remember you are doing quite large km's so going for something to old/cheap can be a false economy.

With regard to whats in our diesel, mostly the issues people are having is because the new diesel has very little sulpher content which has lubricating properties. With low sulpher diesel some diesels (especially some older ones) can have issues with parts wearing. The VW's and Fiat diesels are a good safe bet though.
thejazzpianoma, May 15, 6:34pm
I really wish you would read my posts before commenting dude.
I pointed out already that they need to update those figures. Also, if you had read my post you would have seen the price range of the vehicles I was recommending which is much lower than you suggest. You would also see my references to not knowing their budget.
I am not meaning to be nasty here but when you critique my posts without reading them it just creates work for me correcting things.

I know my posts can be very long, and if you don't want to read them then thats fine but perhaps lay off making references and comments to them if thats the case.
thejazzpianoma, May 15, 6:54pm
picxie, another thought if you wanted to save some money is to grab a 2001 or newer Fiat Punto. They are actually quite O.K on longer open road trips and despite their engine size have more get up and go than the Peugeot HDI for example.
You can pick up a really nice one for around 6K and you still get 4 air bags 4 1/2 star NCAP and 5l/100km on the open road in a manual one and about 5.5 for the CVT auto.
They are really reliable, parts are cheap and they also have long service intervals.
Also, while we are talking about Fiats. A Multipla Diesel is another good option. You can pick a great one up around 8K. The Multipla is super versatile and about as reliable as you can get in a diesel. The Multipla engine is the best proven and longest produced common rail diesel on the market. They are super reliable yet have all the modern technology. Fiat invented the new diesel system called "common rail" so have been producing them for the longest. They also have the best track record for reliability from a diesel engine.
msigg, May 15, 7:15pm
Buying a car and putting it on the morgage is one of the worst things you can do. yes the banks will encourage this thats why the world is in such a state now. But hey I am free of debt , you are in a different situation so each to their own I suppose. There lots of comments on here some more biased than others. Get good financial advise. Cheers.
ceedoubleyou, May 16, 7:38am
Hey, if all you are after is economy, use your common sense, anything with a small engine and the most basic option list, with as little weight to move, will give you economy. As long as you don't intend to make any passing moves during your 100kms of travelling. But if you have a friendly local mechanic, ask him what cars spends the least amount of time in his workshop, chances are it will probably be the most boring, but as always you can't usually have your cake and eat it.