Car choices

Seat Ibiza as I have one (not the ecomotive) and I absolutely love it

L
xx

I have no idea but R wants to buy the Seat Ibiza eco-doobery and is taking his dad to look at it next weekend as i know nothing. i wonder how he intends to pay for it ?

It was very nice (although they were too busy to have a test and to look in the actual eco-wotsit, we had to look at the normal Ibiza). It's cheaper than the greenline, but the greenline has better finance options (and is an estate which helps for the boards/bikes - although we could get a tow bar). I think its the same as the polo, just the older shape (and not so nasty a new car smell) which I prefer. It's also more economical than the greenline, and tax exempt (greenline is in the £35 band) I really need to test them both though.

Anyone got any thoughts on the mini, I only just found out about it, so given it no consideration

He's considering the skoda as well. he'd quite like an estate as we only use the car really for surfing and camping and longer journeys but he's taken by the ibiza. no thoughts on the mini as he gets a bit ranty about them not being mini anymore ?

Thats the reason we're considering it - it will be our main car, so need at least a standard hatch minimum

I think we were more taken on initial viewings by the skoda. But I dont know the full spec of the ibiza (off to google). The Skoda had a plug in thing for your MP3 player (easily pleased) and enough rear leg room. Oh and the estate has the most mahoosive boot!

Personally I'd go for the mini, but that's because I want one, and know nothing about the other cars.

The mini is small so you'd lose carryload vs your other options. Don't know about the exact models but as you say Seat, Skoda & VW are effectively made by the same company but still in different countries e.g. Seat in Spain as far as I know.

In relation to your other thread, what about a car that could be bought as or converted to run on LPG which is cheaper esp than diesel at the mo? There's always the Prius too which in traffic would be good but less economical at motorway speed.

I spent a while looking at them Champagne, and cost wise these are the most economical cars, and cheaper to buy than electric/lpg (the elcectric are much more). The only comparable lpg is the astra, which is slightly more than the greenline and .1p a litre cheaper - all the others are too small (smarts and corsas)

I would choose the mini but it may not be for the reasons you want.

I had 3 glorious years of owning a Mini Cooper. It was seriously th best car I had ever driven, and H even loved the control and 'go kart' feel more than any of the cars he had owned. Excellent reliability, brilliant resale value (we got an awesome deal)....

The downside is that for us, it really felt like a car for 2 people.... there was no legroom in the back and very little space to fit feet even when the seats were far forward. Also very little boot space.

Our main reason for selling it was that we were going down to one car and knew that we would need more space for holidays and to carry our bikes etc. We also wanted to start a family fairly soon after and for us a mini would have been impractical with a baby.

I am, however, going to be a very cool OAP with a mini when I dont have more than one person to drive about!!!