Need a car mainly for school runs/shopping

[zed0070]

Pretty confused and I've been like this for a few weeks. Not sure whether to buy a car or cheap lease/PCP (£250-300pm)

My budget is around £13k but I want something fairly economic. My old M340i didn't make sense as it was mainly used for school runs and shopping,

We do a few long trips during the year.

I don't want an electric, maybe hybrid.

I was considering a BMW 320D 2015+, Lexus IS300h (because of hybrid and my use case)

I was also considering a 330D 2015 but I don't think I'll be getting 35+ mpg for school runs. One for sale 80k, FSH, few optional extras £12.5k

Any other suggestions will be greatly appreciated. I want to keep this for at least 3-4 years maybe more..

Currently driving my dads X5 40D for the last few weeks, which is absolutely fantastic car but it's not great mpg for school runs.
Is there a best of both worlds out there?

Thanks

[p4cks]

For the type of driving you’re doing, a diesel would be rock bottom of the list.

Maybe a Corolla Hybrid? Mine gets about 75mpg tootling about (not great on a motorway though)

[zed0070]

p4cks said:

For the type of driving you’re doing, a diesel would be rock bottom of the list.

Maybe a Corolla Hybrid? Mine gets about 75mpg tootling about (not great on a motorway though)

Thanks for the suggestion I'll look into that . I guess the Lexus IS300h, Rav4 hybrid would be similar mpg?
What mpg do you get on the motorway?

Thanks

[wyson]

For the latest lease deals for the Corolla Touring and rebadged Suzuki Swace, look on the Best Lease Car Deals Available Vol 10 thread, page 662.

If you want the best MPG, I’d stay away from a big bulky SUV like the RAV 4. I was interested in getting one, the dealer told me I’d get around 40mpg around town. A C segment hatch with the latest hybrid system like a Corolla will beat that significantly.

For your sort of use, if you don’t want to charge, a petrol hybrid is perfect. Like the other poster said, stay away from diesel.

Edited by wyson on Monday 29th July 20:26

[edc]

How many miles a year are you doing on school runs and supermarket trips? The cost of the fuel problem isn't going to be a major factor at a low annual mileage.

[zed0070]

edc said:

How many miles a year are you doing on school runs and supermarket trips? The cost of the fuel problem isn't going to be a major factor at a low annual mileage.

We are doing around 7-8k per year

I would be happy with 35+ mpg

[zed0070]

wyson said:

For the latest lease deals for the Corolla Touring and rebadged Suzuki Swace, look on the Best Lease Car Deals Available Vol 10 thread, page 662.

If you want the best MPG, I’d stay away from a big bulky SUV like the RAV 4. I was interested in getting one, the dealer told me I’d get around 40mpg around town. A C segment hatch with the latest hybrid system like a Corolla will beat that significantly.

For your sort of use, if you don’t want to charge, a petrol hybrid is perfect. Like the other poster said, stay away from diesel.

Edited by wyson on Monday 29th July 20:26

Yeah I did look at the corolla. My wife doesn't like the touring.
The reason I want to avoid plug in hybrids is if its a 5-6 year old car then it would definitely have lost some range and if it was 25-30 to start with you'll be left with less than that.

[CivicDuties]

Get a Vauxhall Ampera for about half your budget, and then quietly ruminate on why you didn't just get a full EV...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407111...

Honestly, a Nissan Leaf is the perfect car for this job. Use the money saved on fuel to run a petrol-engined fun car for kicks.

[zed0070]

CivicDuties said:

Get a Vauxhall Ampera for about half your budget, and then quietly ruminate on why you didn't just get a full EV...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407111...

Honestly, a Nissan Leaf is the perfect car for this job. Use the money saved on fuel to run a petrol-engined fun car for kicks.

We had a 2016 Leaf for 3 years. We saw some good times and bad times.

Good times were : it was costing us around £1.20 to fully charge the car

Bad times were:

Winter range was about 80 miles. Summer 110-120. On a motorway run you would get less

Range anxiety whenever we were travelling more than 40-50 miles on a motorway. I remember we travelled from Coventry to Brecon Beacons and a couple of chargers were not working. We eventually managed to find a charger and had around 10-11 miles range left.

There were many occasions where our home charger would not work and the support team were not very helpful.

I wouldn't completely discount an electric car but the range would have to be minimum 200 miles.

The only half decent car on SS is Kona but thats about £470 a month. Works out over £10k for 2 years, which is a lot.

[CivicDuties]

zed0070 said:

CivicDuties said:

Get a Vauxhall Ampera for about half your budget, and then quietly ruminate on why you didn't just get a full EV...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407111...

Honestly, a Nissan Leaf is the perfect car for this job. Use the money saved on fuel to run a petrol-engined fun car for kicks.

We had a 2016 Leaf for 3 years. We saw some good times and bad times.

Good times were : it was costing us around £1.20 to fully charge the car

Bad times were:

Winter range was about 80 miles. Summer 110-120. On a motorway run you would get less

Range anxiety whenever we were travelling more than 40-50 miles on a motorway. I remember we travelled from Coventry to Brecon Beacons and a couple of chargers were not working. We eventually managed to find a charger and had around 10-11 miles range left.

There were many occasions where our home charger would not work and the support team were not very helpful.

I wouldn't completely discount an electric car but the range would have to be minimum 200 miles.

The only half decent car on SS is Kona but thats about £470 a month. Works out over £10k for 2 years, which is a lot.

Ah, OK. I've had great results running a Leaf for 7 years now for school runs/shopping/commuting, but I have a petrol estate car too for those longer journeys and days out.

[TheInternet]

p4cks said:

Maybe a Corolla Hybrid? Mine gets about 75mpg tootling about (not great on a motorway though)

Not great mpg, or not great all round?

[Gastons_Revenge]

TheInternet said:

Not great mpg, or not great all round?

Having been a passenger in a mate's Corolla hybrid on long journeys, it's fine for the motorway. He had fuel efficiency in the mid 50s on our trips.

[p4cks]

TheInternet said:

p4cks said:

Maybe a Corolla Hybrid? Mine gets about 75mpg tootling about (not great on a motorway though)

Not great mpg, or not great all round?

Fantastic all round, really fantastic. Motorway you'd expect to see 50mpg (which is not fantastic, but I've been spoiled)

[zed0070]

p4cks said:

Fantastic all round, really fantastic. Motorway you'd expect to see 50mpg (which is not fantastic, but I've been spoiled)

I had a brief look earlier, do you have the 120bhp or the 190bhp?
Is there anything to look out for ?

Thanks

[p4cks]

Mine's the 1.8 so the 120bhp one. The 2.0 has more power, but you pay the price in mpg (more so). I do 70 miles a day, majority being motorway and I get 58mpg; if I was just tootling about the streets I'd get 75mpg

[CivicDuties]

How about a SEAT Leon PHEV? Do your school runs/shopping on cheap electricity, and longer runs on petrol.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406301...

[zed0070]

CivicDuties said:

How about a SEAT Leon PHEV? Do your school runs/shopping on cheap electricity, and longer runs on petrol.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406301...

Hi, I did consider a PHEV but something that's done 70k+ won't have much range left on it. Only getting 15-20 miles range is not worth it imo.

A lower mileage will cost £14-15k+

[CivicDuties]

zed0070 said:

CivicDuties said:

How about a SEAT Leon PHEV? Do your school runs/shopping on cheap electricity, and longer runs on petrol.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406301...

Hi, I did consider a PHEV but something that's done 70k+ won't have much range left on it. Only getting 15-20 miles range is not worth it imo.

A lower mileage will cost £14-15k+

It's surely better than getting 1-2 miles range on a non-PHEV hybrid.

But I wouldn't be so sure the battery will have lost half its capacity over that mileage. Highly unlikely to be the case. I bet you'd be able to do 25-30 miles on battery in that at least.

[ZX10R NIN]

zed0070 said:

Pretty confused and I've been like this for a few weeks. Not sure whether to buy a car or cheap lease/PCP (£250-300pm)

My budget is around £13k but I want something fairly economic. My old M340i didn't make sense as it was mainly used for school runs and shopping,

We do a few long trips during the year.

I don't want an electric, maybe hybrid.

I was considering a BMW 320D 2015+, Lexus IS300h (because of hybrid and my use case)

I was also considering a 330D 2015 but I don't think I'll be getting 35+ mpg for school runs. One for sale 80k, FSH, few optional extras £12.5k

Any other suggestions will be greatly appreciated. I want to keep this for at least 3-4 years maybe more..

Currently driving my dads X5 40D for the last few weeks, which is absolutely fantastic car but it's not great mpg for school runs.
Is there a best of both worlds out there?

Thanks

Kia XCeed:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406130...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406080...

Mazda3 hybrid:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406210...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202406050...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202405019...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407272...

Kia Optima hybrid:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202405290...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407111...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202405219...

ProCeed GT Line:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407021...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407171...

330e:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407222...

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407262...

[zed0070]

Thanks for the links, not sure i would go for the bmw 330e, its a tiny battery to start with, you would be lucky to get 10-15 miles on a used one.

What about the Auris 1.8/Lexus 1.8. Does anyone have any experience with those? Is it the same as the 1.8 corolla?