LPG Bargemobile

Personally, I'd be asking them to provide me with a diesel barge and fuel card under those circumstances.

Unless you're being paid a very attractive mileage rate, running your own car for the benefit of the company rarely makes sense (remember, you'll need business use etc on the insurance, too)

Get a Makro card and treat them like filling stations? ;)

Vauxhall did likewise

Not found business use on insurance to be a problem. Didn't alter renewal on the golf at all. Mileage rate is pretty good. If I were happy to shit the golf up, I could make a profit on running that.

Audi A8?

not in luxobarge though (or did they do a bi-fuel omega?)

from memory your choices for factory were S40 1.8, /S60/V70/S80 2.4, Astra

1.8, Vectra 1.8.

Looking increasingly like an Audi A6 estate may be the car to go for. Big, fairly speedy. Possibly get it as a diesel and leave it be, or buy a beast like an RS4 and LPG it...

Business use cost me a big fat zero extra for the past two years running. And even on 40p/mile for the first 4k miles, then 25p/mile, resetting every April, it has easily covered my fuel, tax, insurance, servicing, tyres etc. In fact I made about two grand profit (not counting the cost of the car) when you take into account I do my own servicing and I've got a car I bought with the intention of running into starship miles.

My employer doesn't do company cars. It's hire car or own car so the choice was drive some Mondeo/Vectra/407 (it was a Megane Scenic when I had to use one last week, due to me needing to do the brakes on the 306, which I did today) with all bills covered but no extra in my pocket, or my own car with the benefit of bills covered and cash in my pocket.

Having the company car in my last job *was* cool; hassle-free motoring and all that, but I don't fancy shelling out all that extra tax every month when I could be using it for other things.

Hmmm, tax is virtually sod-all unless you're a higher rate tax payer - I've been careful to avoid this trap, 'cos it' is better to be on a slightly lower salary to ensure you pay the lower rate of car tax....

(Passat, incl. fuel card is around £120 / month.... can't say fairer than that for £19k worth of fully expensed car, including private diesel use)

My insurance is actually cheaper if I'm mobile rather than solely in premises. Which is nice.

Small petrol tanks are common on 4x4's but not for normal cars.

Smart car uses (used?) a small petrol tank to make room for the LPG tank.

1490 filling stations - just a shame that many are not 24hr but still on fitters sites that only open 9-4.

RS4s rock - in the old 2.7 twin turbo guise. My current fastest ever speed in a road legal car is in an RS4 with MTM bits and a little bit of N2O....

OTOH how do they last? I'd have a Mitsubishi VR4 but I need something that's going to last a couple of hundred thousand miles and not cost me £3k in parts every year.

Need constant fettling if highly tuned, just like anything else pushinf >250bhp per litre...

For low maintenance and running costs you have to look at naturally aspirated cars or big diesels.

Agreed - I'd probably look at a Superb TDI-130. Cheap as chips and known reliability with low running costs.

Not really cheap to buy and not really my bag. I don't like modern cars much at all - the A pillars are far too wide for me to cope with, and electric steering is horrible.

That was what I thought. A6 with an A8 V8 mebbe? It'd even be on topic.

With VagCom you can turn down the amount of power assistance from the electro-hydraulic systems. I have.

Entry level for a 4-5 year old example appears to be £4k, so not quite as cheap as I thought they'd be.

For your kind of mileage, I'd forget about old cars because they're what you'd prefer to drive, you want comfort, reliability and cheap running costs.

Which means a 'family sized' diesel - but you'll still have your Golf for the weekends.