A good website is autotrader.co.uk. Here you can see owners reviews. A lot of "expert" reviews are very biased and often manufacturers pay the big name magazines. The ADAC almost finished because of their scandal into making VW golf look like a good popular car in Germany. They converted 350 real owners votes into 30,000!
If you choose to go for something from the VW group (Audi, Seat, Skoda) be aware about which engine it is because there is the on going problem of the emission scandal and the shit is about to hit the fan for them. Current estimate is a cost of 90 billion euros.
Thanks for all your help, rainer!
Why not Japanese?
I like this very much and it is within the budget. We are only afraid that with the Mercedes the maintenance will be too expensive.
Great point. We do still have our old Megane which can count as a second car for an emergency or when the "main" one is being serviced and/or for the daily grind if needed (I do know that only one car can be on the road at once so thanks to this forum). However both myself and husband prefer public transportation to go to work and it being so reliable in Switzerland we are comfortable with that. Well at least compared to when we lived near Paris.
Thanks! I don't know if I'm too keen on buying a Skoda though.
Thanks, not really our thing the BMW. Too many people telling us to stay far away.
Ps.: To the admin 3Wishes : I'm sorry, you have been editing my posts because I did not see the multi-quote option before. So sorry! Hope this post is ok.
Merc is warrantied so not to much big expenses on most parts. just check what the warranty is about.... ; besides oilchange, brakes, etc. etc. I am also sure they have some kind of package you can buy where changes and maintenance is included; for a premium but well worth the cost if you dont like the car hassle. In any case once the warranty is used up you can have these things done at any garage for MUCH cheaper prices..... .
Of course! Husband just mentioned that we could get a package like you said. This would make the deal more risk-free. Thank you for that.
Wait about 6 weeks on getting a V60 IMHO.
Just before Christmas I was privy to Volvo CH's current V60 stock list. They must have 100-200 V60 D3 Summums back from initial fleet leasing - which dealers are currently bidding on. They're internal prices are around 17k park at the moment - and will retail out from 20k - depending on spec.
You say you don't travel light though which would suggest that you may find the boot capacity of the Volvo a little lacking - and V70s are few and far between at that price. Volvo wins hands down on seat comfort and perceived quality - the latter reflected by the highest retained values after 3-4 years over their life - 45%. The Summums mentioned above will be well specced and comfortable - with a choice of colours and gearbox options. You may find a trip to your local Volvo dealer worthwhile to find out what they can do.
The last generation Passat Estate is about as boring a car as you can hope to find. Opting for one with sports suspension is akin to putting Boris Johnson in lycra and expecting him to win the tour de france - he won't - and the suspension doesn't make the Passat sporty - it makes it hard and uncomfortable. Opt for standard suspension and if you fancy a heap load of toys - go for the Highline trim. Again, there are a hundreds of these coming off fleet leases at present - late model 2011/2012 cars. The 2.0TDI models are the EU cursed ones - which means used prices are depressed - but the fix goes for type approval at the end of this month. If I was buying to keep for a few years I would be tempted by one. Avoid the 1.6 diesel and the 1.4TSI IMHO
Onto other options:
The Saab 9-3 is another car that has superb seats - are is capable of very big drives with little effort. HOWEVER they have very little "trust" in the market and dealers are still expecting people to pay decent money for them. That doesn't mean there aren't bargains to be had - the run out Saab 9-5 may not be an estate - but it has a huge boot - and in top of the range 2.8T XWD guise it is quick, economical on long trips and comfortable - and looks SAAB
The Audi A4 is just a more costly version of the Passat, and the Skoda Octavia marginally cheaper and with a slightly cheaper interior.
BMW offers the 3 and 5 series - the former doesn't have the biggest boot space and the latter is soon to be 2 generations old. The 3/530XD Touring is the best version of either car - with ideally the 245ps engine in the 3-series or the 235ps engine in the 5-series. The current 5-series will be just in budget but you'll be looking at leggy ones. A leftfield choice would be the X1 which has slipped under my radar into the <20k arena - with there now being a good range of cars available - including some nicely specced 28i models.
Mercedes has the C and E - class. The E-Class is a big old bertha of a car but in the right colour combination is a timeless thing. These cars are capable of stellar KMs while showing very little wear - god knows how Mercedes makes leather that looks almost new at 300k km!! The C-class cuts the quality a little - and the integrated navi isn't the slickest solution - but it is a smart looking estate and overall a good choice.
This was great, thank you, dodgyken. I had to read it 3 times, a lot of information there. It is good to know about the V60 but we have been comparing boot space online and I think the V60 will be out only because of that. We do need more space which is unfortunate because I really like the car and it's true that there are very few V70 out there in this price range. Then again we could go a bit higher.
I am going to check the other options you mentioned on the usual websites but I'm still afraid of the BMW though. Everyone and their mother told us too many problems with them.
I need to show your post to my husband to make sure I got everything you wrote right.
It may be worth remembering that most service packs last until 100,000km (Volvo 150,000) - and that in the <20k market you'll be looking at non-premium cars (Ford, Opel, Hyundai), less loved engines (Volvo 2.5T - thirstier that than the diesels), smaller models (Golf, Fabia), lower spec, OR the Skoda Octavia.
Volvo D5s take a while to warm up from cold - so if you're doing short journeys the fuel consumption will be much higher than you'd expect. Very nice cars for long journeys though. The early V70s have the 185ps engine which is not the most economical - look for later 205ps or 215ps models. Or the 2.0 D3/D4 models.
You'll want 163ps++ in the V70 - it is a big heavy car with a slushy automatic gearbox.
So if we have plenty of short distance trips and one 2h trip to the border every other week, do you think we should avoid the diesel cars?
Not necessarily - but you may find them to be far less economical than you might anticipate. There is no wrong/right answer when choosing a car.
Your best bet is to sit down and workout roughly how many KM you expect to do a year - so twice a month return to Germany + daily KMs + holidays. Add a fudge factor. If you are doing under 12k a year then fuel consumption shouldn't be a deciding factor, under 15k you might consider it, >20k then definitely worth looking into.
Stop/Start technology will help BUT only works when the secondary battery is full and no major electrical drains are functioning - EG heated seats!
Love Mazdas (10 years without a problem), they are not at all dull and had a Volvo and found it expensive to run and insure
To give you an idea we bought our old Megane with 110000 km 4 years ago and it has 146000 now. We are really occasional/short distance car users. Even if we use the car a bit more here, we would still be below the 15k per year mark. Maybe some people would say so why bother buying a new car? My answer is that we would like to have more space and more comfort now that we are finally where we want to be.
However it sure is hard to choose THE car.
We went here. We got a 2014 VW Golf Estate, fully loaded, automatic (with flappy paddle for fun), Satnav, etc, for 20K CHF. It had 40K km on the clock. They sell off the fleet cars at the end of the year. They are a bit higher mileage but they all have a full service history.
Is Ottos actually well priced or they just have usual prices under the guise of a supermarket?
No idea - but this is a well specced Golf Estate
If I had these kind of objectives (reliable, not expensive, reasonable consumption, lots of space), I would just go for a Subaru Legacy wagon, or a Forester. They can do pretty much everything a normal person might require of a car and they don't ask for much in return.
- on the trailer hook discussion: I'd be less worried that somebody was towing a boat and more worried that somebody else drove into that hook, even if it was just in a parking lot: The car might look ok, but the entire frame can warp...
- "Japanese are so dull" - I found the Mazda 6 not exactly exciting, but hardly worse looking than anything Skoda.
Question on this one: got myself a car for the first time in some years and well: It switches itself off all the time I get it for red lights and I am sure it will save one pecent or so of my fuel. But: This morning was I in the typical stop-and-go traffic going into Zurich. I just cannot imaging that the constant on and off can be good for the car or indeed save fuel?
So: Do you people use the function also in a jam or switch it off?
IMHO - unless you want to win every traffic light GP leave it on.
Back in the day it used to be "expensive" to stop and re-start a car due to the slight over fueling at startup - now, with powerful/efficient starter motors, secondary batteries, disconnected ancillaries, a multitude of sensors and hugely controlled combustion that is no longer the case.
I may have mentioned this else where - but I had the latest Range Rover Sport 5.0SC a year or so ago for 2 weeks. Over 2 tanks of fuel it averaged 15l/100km - which sounds pretty rubbish - but this is a hulking great 500ps petrol powered SUV. That was in mixed driving and included many acts of hooliganism - particularly clearing a parking area of snow by simply driving through the banks of snowplough cleared snow
I got launch control for that...
the point was more of the engine switching one and off a dozen times within five minutes on the "Sihlhochstrasse stadteinwaerts" as the traffic report calls it every morning...
Really well priced. They change the cars out monthly, so you may want to wait a month or two to find the right car. The dealer was friendly and everything was pretty clear, they spoke English. A Swiss colleague recommended them to me. Compared to what I was finding in and around Basel, I was pretty stunned by the price, but we've had the car for 6 months with no problems. Even driving it to the UK and back.
You wonderful gents! Thank you for all the tips and an interesting discussion (I certainly did not know before what was the start/stop thing). I showed your replies to my husband and he spent 2 hours yesterday searching and looking and left me 12 tabs open with options to look at this morning.
He's also not very good at respecting his own budget because all of them but one are ~23000 CHF.
Any of you would have 5 minutes to look at 3 of them that I chose just so we know we are on the right track or we are still totally clueless? Thank you so much!
https://fr.comparis.ch/carfinder/mar.../show/19611037
https://fr.comparis.ch/carfinder/mar.../show/18767293
https://fr.comparis.ch/carfinder/mar.../show/19809150
Bonus one: https://fr.comparis.ch/carfinder/mar.../show/19564132
I don't know why he left this one there but anyway would this be a good option if we up the budget?
Thank you!