The Panda Nut
Nutty about Pandas Infected by Panda virus and OPD
and possibly still worth 2750 or may be more if scrubbed up !The 169 Panda has the potential to be one of the cheapest cars to run that you can buy, period.
That said, they're all over 10yrs old now, and with a car of that age, the economics of ownership are rather different from what you'd find with a newer one.
The key to making it work is keeping the repair bills at a reasonable level. It helps greatly if you can do some or all of the work yourself - owning any car of that age may not work out well if it has to go to a garage every time something needs doing. If you want to keep repair bills down, go for the simplest models; there's less to go wrong with a 2WD petrol than with either a diesel or any 4WD version, and if it does, it's likely to be easier and cheaper to fix.
There are a few potentially costly 4WD only issues; both front and rear subframes are unique to these cars, prone to corrosion, expensive and almost unobtainable; once the corrosion reaches the point where it would fail an MOT, the car is basically a write off. So inspect these areas very carefully if you go this route. We've also had reports of failures with the centre propshaft bearing and viscous coupling; when faced with replacing these, several owners have just removed the propshaft and used it as a 2WD car, which defeats the point of buying one in the first place.
The diesels suffer from clogged emissions control components, burned out glow plugs which strip on removal, and camchain breakage (the latter will scrap your engine, unless you can do all the work yourself and have infinite patience). Access isn't great, so , for example, unblocking a clogged EGR isn't what I'd call a pleasant job. At this age and mileage, the engine could basically be a lump of coal. In my opinion, the real world difference in economy isn't great enough to justify the added complexity and potential for costly repairs.
If you can find a decent one, I'd go for the 1.2 dynamic eco from 2009 onwards; £35 tax, a bulletproof engine and 50mpg+ if driven sensibly. It's also ULEZ compliant, which helps if you need to drive regularly in a clean air zone (but hasn't made it any easier to find a good one at a sensible price).
But I'm biased; I've got one which I bought new in 2010; it now has over 110,000 miles on the clock. It's cost less than £200 in repairs in 13 years, and averaged more than 55 mpg. It cost me about £6600 back in the day; motoring just doesn't get much cheaper than that.
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