Matt100HP said:

Out of interest, what average MPG are you getting from the 100HP?

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Trip to Cornwall this weekend = 550ish miles.

1st tank was 290 miles on 28.9 litres = 45.6mpg.
That was a good chunk of motorway, some steep hills, a fair bit of country lanes and some spirited acceleration and with essentially 3 people in weight.

SH4RKY said:

Do you take depreciation into your 20p per mile cost? If so, why buy new? Why not buy a year or two old car and save a chunk on depreciation?

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Yes.

If you are buying a basic model of a cheap car, the sum of depreciation + repairs will likely be lower if bought new rather than bought secondhand, unless you are fortunate enough to find a mint nearly new car being sold privately for a keen price (and these are as rare as hen's teeth).

If you buy a late model secondhand small car from a dealer, you'll likely lose more when you drive it off the forecourt than if you'd bought a new one for cash with a decent discount. I got about 25% off list price when I bought the Panda and local dealers were selling 12 month old cars for less than I
paid new.

Dealers make much more profit selling secondhand cars than they do selling new ones.

SH4RKY said:

Thanks for the info, nice to see real world 65+mpg figures. Have you run into any expensive service items yet?

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.

Neither of us have yet!. Mine is due its next service next month. I'll report back if it needs anything unusual!!. Re another reply on the subject, I get 410-435 miles off 28 litres of fuel.

Rmdinho said:

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/ - this is a useful website for real world MPG.

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Not really, its only random figures people decide to enter, probably off of their inaccurate trips.

Checking fuelly.com would give the most accurate realy life MPG figures

http://www.fuelly.com/car/fiat/panda (don't forget to hit UK MPG in top left corner of the page ).

Havent done a full run of figures yet, or found out if its even possible... but had a thought:

Lease an Electric car. Get a Leaf or something. If the price is same or less than the fuel costs of running a little car to and from work (200-250) a month... then why is this not an idea to chase. Especially as I can charge it for free at work! ha!

Trip one way is about 45 miles. A leaf should have a range of about 90-100.

Would still maintain a 2nd car for all the other stuff (but i would keep 2 cars in any case).

Not much outlay, hardly any maintenance, nor worry about depreciation...

Have you seem the price of the leaf? 30k

Dev100 said:

Have you seem the price of the leaf? 30k

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New, without government £5k incentive

Most Easterly Pandas said:

New, without government £5k incentive

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25k for a glorified fridge is still too expensive. Don't forget you have to lease the batteries on top of that.

No don't all rush out at once....

Dev100 said:

Don't forget you have to lease the batteries on top of that.

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No you don't, it's not a Renault

I didn't say buy though! I said lease...

Although as soon as you try and get a lease on an electric car with 25kpa the offers quickly dry up.

Yes the offers do disappear.

Hence why I said buy, but a hybrid or a twin air style car would be better VFM

Yeah, Maybe in a few years when the Renault ZOE has been out for a while and battery leases and what not have equalised and sorted them selves, it could be a potential winner - electric I mean. Apart from general wear an tear on the suspension and body work there is no reason you cant swap out the battery and have a brand new 'life' to a several year old car. Buy a zoe thats a few years old, swap the battery / new lease and away you go, cheap electric motoring.

I bet car manufacturers are gonna love it... Instead of just selling a few spare parts for an existing model - they will now get monthly income from leasing of batteries. They will be paid to 'fuel' their own cars. its a shame for 'us' as the practically zero running costs from running an electric car will go out the window with all the monthly costs imposed by battery usage.

I guess the government will also jump in and want a cut too. The car tax system is not exactly a fair one. A zero tax car could be doing thousands of miles and a car that is taxed 1000£ could be doing 3 miles.... Car tax is for road usage... right? I bet once electric and what not becomes much more common the taxation system will change


For now, my work mule will deffo be a small petrol/diesel runaboot.

SH4RKY said:

A zero tax car could be doing thousands of miles and a car that is taxed 1000£ could be doing 3 miles.... Car tax is for road usage... right?.

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I just renewed the road tax on my MX5 and it cost me £285.
Then got it MOT'ed and found out I have only done 2,800 miles in a year.

I know I bought the 100HP as my daily drive to reduce the mileage on the '5, but I must be enjoying driving it too much, which is saying something when the other car is 242BHP & rear wheel drive!

And back on topic, the fuel consumption is a bit better.

SH4RKY said:

Car tax is for road usage... right?

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no that's fuel tax

Electric cars are free rfl as they're helping the government meet targets, will stay free for a fair while to come. Will be the small petrol cars that start being charged first.

Have had my multijet punto for 5 years now.

Currently getting 64mpg its heavier than a panda has slightly more space, and can be picked up for £1000-£1500, no dual mass fly wheels or dpfs to worry about

£30 a year to tax.

Servicing costs are cheap I do my own for under £100 a year.

Brakes under £60 for discs and pads.
All suspension components are cheap.
The multijet engine is pretty bomb proof with no cam belt to worry about or pay for.

If you budget £2000 for buying servicing and repairing it over a 3 year period (which is feasible) it will stand you at £55 a month in total costs
Over 75k miles would probably work out to no more than 13p a mile

When I used to be able to claim 40p a mile I used to make quite a profit, over £350 for a months traveling.... Not bad really.

The only reason I have for suggesting the punto is they seem to be a bit cheaper than the panda for the same year, mileage and spec.

Look for dynamic models as they have the all essential aircon

AndyRKett said:

The only reason I have for suggesting the punto is they seem to be a bit cheaper than the panda for the same year, mileage and spec.

Look for dynamic models as they have the all essential aircon

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Thanks for the tip! I have started to note this too. The little 'cheap' headline grabbing money saving cars do seem to carry a premium over the slightly larger cars with the same engine and basically same MPG figures....

As you have pointed out; the Punto vs Panda. And I have also noticed it with the Citroen C1 and C2. C2 is a bit bigger, same 1.4 diesel... but cheaper to buy....

Just reporting back as I said I would. Car had its service and MOT today. There were no nasty surprises. No expensive service items.