Not a 'which banger to buy' post

On the contrary, at 3am you're highly unlikely to need the extra power, but, especially during tourist season, the extra 30-odd bhp over the VAG units will make it much easier to pass dawdling pensioners and part-time pikeys which get attracted to Wales in their thousands.

My local car supermarket has some 9-3s with a silly American badge on the bonnet.

They've lost 50% in 1 year, so come in at under £11k.....

Not sure I have the balls to drive a 'Caddy', though - despite them being 148bhp automatic diesels.

It's a shame it has to be diesel. Was watching a programme a while back=20 where people were getting 60's pretige marques as company cars.

--=20 Conor

I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't=20 looking good either. - Scott Adams

To you. To me it wouldn't be academic, I wouldn't mind paying the extra for the huge extra power, and the fact I got a high spec 3 series Beemer over a crap A3.

That's fine when the car is a 'perk' and not a tool to do the job.

I really don't want to have to change the oil, balance the carbs, adjust the points and grease the trunnions every other weekend.

You don't have the daily grind through rush hour then.

May make a useful test drive comparison though.

If I'm in a car at all, I'd rather it was a nice car. A3s that are not S3s, or at least Slines, are IMHO not very nice cars. One without enough power to outdrag a dustcart would be automotive hell as far as I'm concerned. Where I live it's not feasibly possible that I could be in stationary, or even heavy traffic for the whole commute. But please, do keep trying to tell me my opinion, on what would be my own car, is wrong.

Yea I'm not sure where all these people live, but where on earth do you leave your drive, into nose to tail traffic, and sit there till your destination, unless you live, and work in a city along a main road...? And if you do, you need to accept, that not everyone does.

Quite. I don't grasp how being stuck behind yet more commuter numpties doing 67 in the outside lane in a M5 is much different to a 520i from a power perspective. You can't go any quicker.

I'm expressing my opinion... not telling you yours...

I rarely get stuck in traffic - it's usually the M42 that catches me on a Monday morning - and obviously, visiting sites in and around Birmingham City Centre is a real PITA - which is why I want an auto.

However, these aren't issues I get every day - most of my time is spent on free-flowing A roads where extra power is handy to pass the above kind of drivers.

I've never seen that.

I don't know what kind of roads you lot commute on, but most of my travelling is on free-flowing roads.

It's just that I want an auto because using a clutch hurts my left knee.

The other morning, I *averaged* over 60mph between home and a store in mid Wales, ffs.

You seem to think that a car used to drive to work and back, will spend 100% of it's time on dual carriageways in nose to tail traffic? You're just being weird because it's SteveH's thread. I'd have the Beemer over the Audi for £75 a month more because I think they're much, MUCH nicer cars, in my opinion - you seem to think everyone should just choose the most financially sensible choice regardless of their own enjoyment/preference. It's not even possible for me to drive a whole journey anywhere from home at any time in heavy traffic either - so being able to stretch it's legs on those bits would be nice, and I wouldn't cringe everytime I walked out to the Beemer like I would the Audi.

Same here, to even get to a dual carriageway I have to drive about 15 miles, and even then, it's an empty one.

It isn't that difficult for my commute to involve driving 30 miles where there are no overtaking opportunities whatsoever apart from the A64 / A1 dual carriageway.

When I hack it across from York to Leeds I leave at ~06:30 so as to avoid the bulk of the rush. If I leave much later, I end up having the delightful choice of either 55 in the inside lane or 56 in the outside lane of the A64. In Leeds, it's mostly wretched urban dual carriageway or motorway.

There is occasionally an overtaking opportunity the far side of the A1 / A64 roundabout, in that quarter mile as the two lanes merge into one. Occasionally.

My alternative and favourite commute uses the A162, which is an A-road. Here there are overtaking opportunities. It's a little slower than the A1 most of the time, but avoids dual carriageway numpties.

No, we're discussing which car Steve should choose, and you stated "Power is irrelevent" which clearly, to some people, it isn't. Now, if you'd said "To me, power is irrelevent" you'd have a fair point there...

Nope. If you read elsewhere, I point out that there are three kinds of cars when it comes to overtaking. Underpowered. Okay. Lots of power. The diesel 90 bhp Golf / 105 bhp Passat / 115 bhp Saab 9-3 models are firmly in the middle camp. I've personally had absolutely no issues overtaking slower traffic in these and similar machines. Having 150 bhp now rather than 115 bhp has made no difference to my overtaking.

Having 400 bhp under that right foot might. Having 60 bhp under the right foot does. But 100 - 200 bhp, not really.

Meh?

Wrong again. If this were the case I'd be advocating dropping out of the company car scheme and running something far cheaper to run. I'd also be riding about in something ubereconomical: think; small capacity diesel supermini.

That's entirely your choice of course.

If we're discussing typical mid range company car choices and it comes down to a lower spec, higher powered machine _or_ a higher spec, lower powered machine in the Mondeo class, I'd take the higher spec, lower powered machine, simply because having a bit more power makes jack all difference to the real world performance of the car.

Do I have to put, "in my opinion" here or is that a granted?

You two need to live somewhere less pikey then. Or I've lived in York for too long.

Either way, all of my posts are always merely my opinion - not trying to be grouchy.

Where's the gin and tonic? :-/

Oh gimme a break. Shall I amend my signature? :-)