60,000 on a 3 year old car?

The message from snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) contains these words:

Towing one behind as a lifeboat?

Heh - Now there's a thought, other twin engined cars do it for power, a twin engined Alfa is to double your chance of getting home...

LOL

Dave Baker - Puma Race Engines

I'm not at all sure why women like men. We're argumentative, childish, unsociable and extremely unappealing naked. I'm quite grateful they do though.

A bicycle in the boot would be better.

[...]

It doesn't harm asking the vendor questions about when the clutch was replaced & possible paperwork. It will happens, sooner or later. (My psychic prediction :) When I sold my Croma some years ago, I handed over a boxfile of all repair bills for 10 years. I don't think the buyer bothered reading it, but apparently it gave him confidence.

As for being psychic, it's very simple: Why sell a perfectly good car?

Well as a company car at 3yrs that's the tax break point. & going by mine I expect most Audis never have the clutch replaced :-)

The message from "mrcheerful" contains these words:

But less stylish.

[...]

Oh, a clutch free car then?

Reminds me that I once had a FIAT 132 1800 GLS, the clutch cable broke. However, with some learning, I managed to drive it anyway. Starting was a headache; I pushed the car along on the door frame and jumped in just at the right moment and started in a high gear. Gears were changed by ear. The worst was getting caught at red lights on a uphill slope, careful timing was essential. Though not recommended for obvious safety reasons, but I was younger and foolish.

it is not very stylish to stand beside a broken down car either!

The message from "mrcheerful" contains these words:

Dunno - it's been years since I had to - I run a diesel Maestro.

Depends on the oil and filter changes. Every 3K - excellent. Every 6K - OK. Every 12K - it's scrap. Regards Capitol

I'd agree on a low mileage town bound car, but on a 20k per year car the oil will not have been badly contaminated by cold starts and short journeys.

My 7 month old Mondeo TDCi has now covered 28400 miles. Service intervals are every 12500 miles so it gets a service every 3 months - whether it needs it or not! :-) At this sort of mileage it does not have many cold starts. Most journeys are despatched at about 80mph in sixth gear turning over at about 2100rpm with cruise control locked on. It's real mile muncher, and averages 50mpg.

60k in three years is not high by any means.

But how can you tell :-)

6th gear?!

Why the hell does anyone need 6 gears? - tested a 6 gear Punto Sporting and found that the ratios were needlessly stacked right on top of each other.... 2nd to 6th wasn't a problem in most situations!

Well if you a drive a metro yeah, but back in the world of post 70's design that'll be fine.

Why not? 20k is nothing and could quite easily have done hundreds of cold starts and short journeys. I manage 50k/year doing 2 trips in and out of London every day. Ok, so it doesn't do many cold starts or short journeys, but it does do a lot of idling, where the oil isn't really getting properly up to temperature. A car doing 20k/year could easily have done *loads* of stop-start work.

Peter

The message from Duncan Wood contains these words:

It's got "Maestro" on the back and I put diesel in it!

The message from snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk (SteveH) contains these words:

I do 2nd to 5th in my car frequently.

It's just quieter & more relaxed, eck I remember the days of four speeds & somebody round here can probably remeber less.