Bah

Having come to the realisation that a solid reliable, tidy Merc on LPG isn't going to come along very easily, nor is anything else tidy and on LPG going to come along in a huge hurry, I think a Diesel B5 Passat may be on the cars.

OTOH at least it'll make my Golf feel fast until I get round to fitting an ABF.

Reply to
Doki
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Doki - probably not your sort of thing, but IMHO this has to be some sort of bargain for someone (came across it the other day when doing a random search for sub £2k LPG cars...):

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Not a million miles from you either. Peter

Reply to
AstraVanMan

Would've been my sort of thing until I spoke to the Merc Club bods and found out how many things can go wrong, and are expensive.

Reply to
Doki

I had exactly that - a 115 BHp PD thing, with a remap from Celtic Tuning, for something around a year. My summary of good and bad:

Good: Economy (~45mpg mixed, with me wheelspinning at every opportuninty) Performance (ok as stock, good with remap - pulled well from 1.4-5krpm) Stereo (Best standard fit stereo I've ever had) Fit and finish Funky blue-lit dash :-)

Bad: Handling - just crap. Understeer is your only option. Ride - wallowy but quite harsh. Hit a bump mid corner and you get wallow-understeer. Not good. Comfort - I'm not terribly bothered about this, but it was never hugely comfortable, although I suppose that stops you falling asleep on long runs..

Reliability I'm not sure about. I did 12k miles in it, and had to replace the AFM (bosch - £65), and then nothing but tyres (see economy above :-) and a rear wiper motor until the stupid sodding DM flywheel knackered, and then things got expensive.

I wouldn't have one again, and wouldn't advise anyone who enjoys driving to get one either, but if you just want something economical for the motorway, it's probably fine.

Reply to
Albert T Cone

All of the above suggests the suspension on yours was well past it's best.

Mine was a bit wallowy, but never as bad as you describe.

Reply to
SteveH

How expensive?

There's the rub. Get something enjoyable and I soon head down the lines of a VR4 or something equally silly which would only cost me a fortune in bits and make the MK2 Golf seem slow, and therefore cost me a fortune in MK2 Golf bits too. What I need is an enjoyable but comfy estate car. Ideally it'd be galvanised too, which restricts options further. Mondeos have a pretty good reputation for reliability, but I could be sure of losing a mint in depreciation, and it's difficult to get one with a decent diesel for the money I'm after spending (£3k tops for the whole car, so £2.3k + £700 for a petrol with LPG conversion). And I still don't trust Fords to not drop to bits or rust, whatever anyone else says. W124 Mercs seem to have too many expensive things that can go wrong, even if on the whole they're reliable, W210s rust like f*ck, BMW 5 series doesn't really float my boat in E34 form, whereas the E39 is alright, but a bit pricey and I don't want an E36 3 series but I don't really want to stretch to an E46...

After that lot, there's not a lot left that I can think of. A4 or A6 is going to be pretty similar to a Passat, X-type estate is just a fancy mondeo and out of the price range. Apparently 850s and whatever came after are meant to be good to drive but they do eat tyres.

Reply to
Doki

You could spend significantly less that £3k on a decent 850 though, so you'll have plenty of money left to buy tyres!! You'll also have plenty of options to choose from - cars to make the Golf feel fast, or slow!! Or there's the late 960 if you wanted a traditional RWD Volvo, but looking a bit more modern.

Otherwise, how about a 406 V6 Estate? Or an HDi version if you wanted an oil burner.

Reply to
Carl Gibbs

850 or V70 or nowt. I've done the old RWD Volvo, and if I wanted a RWD car I'd get an E30 for fun. IIRC some Volvos came dualfuel from the factory. How do they drive then? I know Clarkson rated them when new. I'd want a "comfort" model rather than a sports, so that it's got a bit of ground clearance and isn't bonejarringly horrible. The Golf's going to have enough firmness for 3 cars.

It's a Peugeot. It won't be very good.

Reply to
Doki

Some people like to winge that RWD is the best, and it what everyone should have blah, blah, blah, so just though I'd mention it. No idea about dual fuel stuff, but my T5 certainly isn't bone-jarring. Ground clearance is better than the SD1, so isn't that low, and I haven't scrapped anything to my knowledge, but the splitter does show evidence of previous issues! The T5R / 850R got further uprated suspension (stiffer and lower I believe), so might be a bit worse though. Although saying that the dampers on my car could just be shagged, but it suits me fine!

Meh your choice, I know of a few on very high mileages that seem to be doing ok! And the HDi is a decent lump.

Reply to
Carl Gibbs

Do you really need a car that size? - or would you get away with a MkIV Golf estate?

Reply to
SteveH

MK4 Golf Estate. It's not a BFO comfy barge. It's not fast. It's not a car renowned for handling. I suppose I could, but it'd be very very very wrong. One step away from buying a MK3. 306 estate is the minimum size of car that I need, but I want a BFO quiet and comfy machine.

I quite fancy a Galant if they handle.

Reply to
Doki

Never had a Pug, just had a lot of crappy little problems on our Citroens. Very much built down to a price.

Reply to
Doki

A 306 is the same size as the Golf....

Besides, BFO is all relative - the 75 was a BFO car for the era, it's just that 'medium' hatches are now bigger.

This bloating of cars is getting silly - with a B6 Passat being very close in size to a W210 E-Class, ffs.

You are Elder, ICMFF strange Jap imports.

Reply to
SteveH

Yebbut I rub my head on the roof in a 306. I really want something bigger than a Golf. I want to get a couple of mountain bikes in there easily, or 4 people and a load of kit.

Galants are UK cars.

Reply to
Doki

Get a 306 without a sunroof, and/or buy a non pikey model where the drivers seat lowers. Estates are quite roomy, turbodiesels go OK NA Diesel is pretty longlived if regularly maintained. Avoid 1.4 Petrol. It's horrible.

I'm ~6'4" and I got on OK with the 4 306s we've had at Payne Acres.

However: There are 5 seatbelts but with me driving it was fairly strictly a 3 seater unless 1 rear passenger was prepared to sit in the middle at a funny angle. My knees rubbed a bit on the dash centre and door - didn't bother me much though as there aren't really cars that fit me, only cars I can adjust to and endure - 306s are not the worst.

My neighbours in Aberdeen loved theirs. Or was it a Sigma? Some sort of massive Mitsubishi estate anyway. They had it for ages, ran a contract cleaning outfit from the back of it, towed the family twin axle caravan all over the UK and eventually traded it for a Sedona.

I'm not sure they utilised the handling or the speed much, but Aberdonians aren't reknowned for spending money whimsically. It must have been reliable.

Reply to
Douglas Payne

Spot on. And they're bargain prices these days, too. Especially the 1.8T

- everyone wants a TDI, which demand an extra grand on the used market - but the 1.8T will turn in 30+mpg in every day use, which isn't too shabby, considering the performance. (0-60 was something suprisingly quick for a large car with a low pressure 1.8T engine)

Reply to
SteveH

I might agree - it had done over 100k, albeit almost all motorway miles when I got it, however we've had 4 of them in the family now, 3 of which have had less than 70k on when we got them (one new!) and they all have the same basic responses, even with the 'sports' suspension.

It isn't unbearably bad, but it is very uninspiring and tends to stop you bothering to take the interesting route home. My basis for comparison is things like the 405, xantia and primera, all of which encourage you to chuck them about a bit. The A6 estate I had was very similar, although the engine and luxuries were good enough to compensate somewhat.

Maybe the extra weight of the diesel lump makes a big difference, but they don't have a reputation for being much fun in any guise, AFAIK.

Reply to
Albert T Cone

The clutch change was a 5.5 hour job by the books, the flywheel kit was £300, at the very cheapest I could find, but I've no idea if that is a decent kit, or a source of more problems. I sold the car to a chap who thought he could DIY it for less lost than it would have cost me to do it. He then spent a fortune getting it going, but has done another 6k in it since.

You can get the 850 estate with the TDi engine - I had the same lump in an A6 estate, and it's pretty good. It's a 5 cyl thing, sounds really nice (for a diesel) and pulls really surpringly well - I never bothered modding it, whereas I immediately did with the passat. I got over 40mpg average, which I was pretty amazed by. The 850 is supposed to be very comfy, and I'm sure you can get a pretty nice one within your budget. I've never driven one, so I've no idea about handling, but I'd definitely try one in preference to a passat anyway.

Reply to
Albert T Cone

Would I be right to expect an A6 to be similar to the Passat - ie, dull?

Reply to
Doki

Yes, but less comfortable to ride in or drive.

Reply to
DervMan

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