What Car?

[DanBrain]

Guys, i'm in the market for a new car, I have £12000 to spend. So far, I've managed to narrow my choices down to:

1. Ford Focus ST170
2. Honda Civic Type R
3 BMW 323i, 325i, or 328i sport coupes.

For the money, i'm probably likely to get the Civic and the Focus with about the same milage and in roughly the same condition. Obviously with the Bimmers they are gonna be about R / S reg.

I'm sort of stuck now because, on first thoughts, I really wanted a BMW - lush leather interiour, lots of torque, maximum comfort, exellent buid and love to be driven hard - the down point is that, for the money, I feel it will be quite a high milage car.

Then I realised that for the same sort of money - I could get a nealy new Focus ST170 - fantasic I thought - I love the understated looks, and altho it is the slowest of my choices, it will still be the fastest car I have owned. But then I read about all the problems people seem to be having with it, and that sort of put me off a little - besides, the Type R can do about 10 MPH more, and gets to 60 roughly 2 seconds quicker than the ST. However - what also really puts me off the Type R is the fact that you have to keep the revvs really high in it for you to really get the most out of it, due to it not having very much torque.

I would really value any opinions you guys could give me, good and bad please.

[Clint_M]

i doubt the miles would be that high on a BMW for £12k, that said milage really isnt a problem for BMW's as long as they are serviced.

Out of them 3 cars my choice would be the 323i, but thats just me

have a look on autotrader.co.uk/.com (if ur usa) and check out all 3 cars avg prices/miles.

www.parkers.co.uk or www.whatcar.co.uk for technical data.

Good luck choosing your car, £12k is a nice budget and your gonna get a damn good car which ever one you choose

[Fadec40]

Since most of us who post here are partial to BMW's, I say get the BMW. Nothing against the Civic. Honda makes a great car, I had an Accord for 150,000 miles and had not many complaints. But in no way would the Civic handle like a BMW 3 series. Nor can you duolicate BMW power. These cars are, to put it simply, engineered well, not just made well.
As for the focus. I wouldn't even consider it.


But, hey, just my opinion.p

[BMWBeauty416]

Originally posted by Clint_M@Aug 18 2004, 08:45 AM
i doubt the miles would be that high on a BMW for £12k, that said milage really isnt a problem for BMW's as long as they are serviced.

I 2nd that my old BMW had 112,000 miles on her when I sold her just over 2 years ago and she is still running strong (sold her to a friend so I get to go visit) just make sure it has been well maintained.

~*Teg*~

[Cruzin 323is]

you are comparing Ford Focus, and Honda Civic TO BMW!!! damn, thats SAD!!!!!

[thekid]

I agree with you, the Civic type R really isn't a bad car if you want something reibable and fun to drive. However, like you said you really have to keep the car rev'd up to get good performance out of it. I don't think you would be disappointed in the civic, however, I think that you might be a little happier with a BMW. I would try and get the 325i, this way you might have some money left over, or you might be able to afford a fairly low mileage car. Also there has been discussion on whether or not the 328i is worth the extra money.

[SHAHAB323IS]

definetly not the ford, worst car company there is, if you want reliabity go honda, if you want awesome driving experience, reliability, and luxury, go bmw

[kraze0g]

i wonder why you would ask a BMW forum if a honda or a focus is a better buy than a BMW!!! :P

[DanBrain]

Well, i've asked pretty much the same question in a ford focus forum, however didn't like the honda forum so stayed away.

Yes, most people in the Focus forum do say to go with the focus (for obvious reasons) but there are also a number of Focus fans in there that were cool with admitting the points that a Type R had over the focus (sheer speed / fun) but pointed out that the interiour and handling /comfort in the focus is what they really liked. Their main concern with the BMW seems to be the cost of maintenance and general running.

I 100% expect everyone in this forum to tell me that BMW's are better than the Civic and Focus. I would perhaps even go as far as saying I agree with you, hence why my first choice of car was BMW - the only thing putting me of was getting a car with 60-80'000 miles on the clock, rather than 10-20'000 for the same money - which i'm sure you can all understand. If the miles on the Bimmer were the same as on the other 2 cars, from my point of view there would be absolutely no contest, Bimmer every time.

I asked the question in here because I wanted to know if any of you would really see a problem with the miles in this range - If I were to get the BMW, I wouldn't want to completely thrash it all the time, but i'm sure there will be many a time when I really want to drive it hard. I will look after my car - regular oil changes with decent oil etc so I wont abuse the car, will it be able to handle this? In your opinion, would it handle this better than the ST170 with only 12K on the clock?

Out of interest - any of you lot driven the ST170? if so, how does the handling compare with your 3 series? which one tempts you to drive it harder?

I'm gonna get some test drives arranged on the lot - i'll let you all know how I get on!!

Cheers guys

[_1634_]

12,000.00 GBP United Kingdom Pounds = 21,941.48 USD

euro m3 maybe? m3?

if that's your budget, you can probably afford the cash to take care of the car as well so the reliability issues shouldnt be issues :wink

this one is so easy! :P

[DanBrain]

I'm 22 and yeah, I live in England. £12K is - well £9K is from a loan, the rest is pretty much all the money I have in the world as i've been saving for some time.

I spose in reality I cant actually "afford" to buy a £12K car - but I want it, and I can have it, so i'm gonna.

I would love an M3 - i've heard that our "euro M3's" are more powerful than the US version - only right I say, your petrol is about half the price of ours - we should at the very least expect some better performance!! - saying that, there arent many insurance companys that are willing to entertain me if I had an M3, and if there would, i'm sure they would require that I had my own money printing factory in order to be able to pay them.

Anyway - i'm doing some test drives this weekend - i'm also gonna be driving one of those Seat Leon Cupra R's - 225BHP - 225 lbs/ft torque - 0-60 in 7.0 and on to 150 MPH all sounds like good fun to me!!

[zeidakiss]

ford focus ha ha ha