Engaging motorway cruiser/all-rounder?

Sunday 10th November 2024

Hi P/H!

Finally created an account after many years now I have the money and scope to upgrade from my 1.0L 2020 Fiesta. Looking to tap into the excellent recommendations from this forum as I'm somewhere stuck between fuel and car types...

My situation is that I largely work-from-home in the week, so the the bulk of my journeys are twice-daily < 5-10 mile shopping runs in a city. However, 4 times or so a month I will cover ~ 300-400 miles for work/family on the motorway network, and of a weekend, I'll be up to London (~150 miles) or around the country having an explore on motorways and blatting around B-roads. It's not uncommon for me to cover 500 miles or so in a weekend, and my annual mileage is somewhere around 18000 -- 20000, mostly motorway. In the future I'd like to head over to Europe on road trips to France/Germany as well.

The Fiesta is now creeping up to 40000 miles, and while it's perfectly happy to sit on the motorway at 70-ish with the cruise on and take me around town, I can't help but feel this isn't what it's designed for and there'd be a more refined way to travel. What I do like about the Fiesta is the slightly peppy handling that means it's still fun to rag down a B-road, the infotainment is generally quite good (CarPlay), and it's a relatively nice place to be at least for 90 minute stints.

Requirements

I have a budget of around 17k to move into something new. My requirements are, in general:

Happy sitting on the motorway but equally happy to be pushed a little on the B-roads with enough poke to nip past cars when needed. Probably sensible to be lean more toward 'motorway' than 'B-road'.
A nice place to be for 4-5+ hours per day (my commute is 6 hours round-trip often)
Low bork potential -- I can't afford to be off the road at any point so I can get home to the family if necessary, and I'd rather sacrifice on fun than pick something up that can throw big bills.
Something that has CarPlay, or something that can be added relatively easily/inexpensively.
Must be CAZ/ULEZ/LEZ compliant and future-proof against these changing.
Not an EV - terraced houses/flats so I have nowhere to charge.

I'm open to manuals or automatics -- I prefer engagement from a manual, but I will admit I get a sore left-leg on the commutes and the experience of my first automatic in an X3 M40i in hire car in Munich was very positive!

Nice-to-haves:

Reasonable MPG (say, 40+) -- Fiesta manages 52 mpg, but with the small tank I'm still in the petrol station several times a week.
I've been thinking largely petrol cars, since my short trips are the bulk of my journeys by number and due to the CAZ/ULEZ compliance (aware Euro 5 diesel is OK, but the 'future-proofing' worries me slightly).
ACC.

Things I don't need

Much rear passenger space. 95% of the time it's just me in the car, and I'm single with no kids and no pets. 4% of the time it's just a single passenger, 1% of the time it's two colleagues needing a lift.
Much rear boot space beyond two suitcases and a backpack - I do travel a lot for work so need to be able to take my bags, but they fit in the Fiesta just fine.

Cars I've looked at

I've had a look at the following cars already when I was looking for the Fiesta, essentially all C-segment:

Mazda 3 Gen 4 ('19->), GT Sport trim. I test drove one of these a few years ago and liked the interior, with my only complaint being the visibility, more road noise than I would expect after the changes they made from the Gen3, and what felt like a slightly underpowered engine as it was the 120 hp model. Excellent gearbox, though, and fully-loaded. Not sure if I'd get better than this, but adding 70% to my p/x price to move up a single segment seems poor value.
Golf. I test drove a Mk8 and didn't like the infotainment nor the fact that everything on that example was broken, but haven't looked into a Mk7.5.
Octavia VRS. Not driven one of these but heard good things.
Audi A3. I test drove a diesel a few years ago - car was fine but found the interior somewhat soulless and they seem poor value compared to the VW/Skoda offerings.

I have been steered in the way of the 320d/i (obligatory Chris Harris reference), or the 2-/4-series GCs by colleagues but haven't got much knowledge on the German offerings as I grew up with Citroens and Corsas. A brief look on car selling sites puts me in a 7-ish year/old three-series -- would I start to expect borkage in the following years with this sort of age?

Any suggestions on the above I've already looked at, other cars I should be looking at, or any requirements which simply don't work together would be much appreciated!

TIA beer

ZX10R NIN

28,847 posts

137 months

Sunday 10th November 2024

Summit_Detailing

2,085 posts

205 months

Sunday 10th November 2024

As above, diesel would suit your usage perfectly.

A 220d or 420d were the first things to spring to mind, or a 430d if you'd consider a slightly older car with higher mileage.

samoht

6,527 posts

158 months

Sunday 10th November 2024

A colleague has an M235i vert like this https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-driven/2015-bm... , he goes off on long drives for fun all the time, was doing a similar mileage to you at least a while back and very happy with his car. I wouldn't recommend a convertible necessarily but the 3.0 turbo BMW sixes are economical at a cruise and sing out nicely when given their head, maybe an M240i or 440i would be worth considering.

Original Poster

5 posts

5 months

Thursday 14th November 2024

Thanks all for the suggestions! I will take a look this weekend at a few of these - I have the Focus, ProCeed and 420d as the main contenders. I like the IS300h in theory, but I couldn't get on with the (e)CVT unfortunately.

Alfa Pete

455 posts

238 months

Friday 15th November 2024

My requirements of a car are similar to yours and I bought a Mazda3 2.0 Skyactiv X GT Sport.
I liked it so much I’m now on my second.
My options were similar to yours , and previously owned diesels. Previous cars have included a Golf 7 GTD, Mini F54 Clubman SD, Merc A 200d , BMW 320d.
It’s nice to be in a petrol again.
I do 24k miles a year , and average 45mpg but often get 50 on a motorway run.

Edited by Alfa Pete on Friday 15th November 05:08

Time4another

352 posts

15 months

Friday 15th November 2024

Big diesel Merc or BMW

Original Poster

5 posts

5 months

Sunday 29th December 2024

Thought I'd give an update after so many kind suggestions! Unfortunately one of my parents reversed into my car a few weeks ago while in a bit of a flap, which has halted the purchase until February while it gets fixed. In the meantime I'm taking a bit more time to shop around. My usage will also likely change slightly as I move closer to them while some medical things are worked out (hence the flap). My longer journeys will become less frequent, but when I do them they'll each be longer.

With all that going on I've moved reliability right up as top consideration as I can no longer be off-the-road, with a bonus point for the old man's dodgy hip to get in and out more easily than the Fiesta.

The Giulia was leading the running, but in Super spec since the Veloce insurance was very high (27 y/o). Unfortunately it appears these don't come with folding rear seats until Speciale spec (!) which is diesel-only so am having a rethink. Cracking steer, though.

Ceed/Proceed were excellent VFM but didn't strike me as a significant upgrade in terms of place to sit and refinement over the Fiesta.

IS300h is and feels bulletproof and I'm giving it some thought as a result, with the downsides being the eCVT and the interior. Also looked at the UX250h for something easier to get in and out of, but they're only just creeping into budget at high miles.

I'll be looking at the 4-series next - I assume these are the B47/B48 engines; what are these like on reliability and the model in general? Scouting that segment it appears the BMW is the pick, with the A4's EA888.3 engine having some water pump gremlins?

I also had an '24 XC60 B5 on hire for work the other day and that was superb despite my dislike of SUVs - have a drive of an XC40 in the coming days, only considering since the old man can get in and out without issue. At 18k they're higher mileage but seem to wear them well.

Mazda3 is superb and tempting, but can't help feeling that it's poor VFM when adding 8k to a 2021 Fiesta trade-in to end up in a 2020 Mazda 3.

ZX10R NIN

28,847 posts

137 months

Sunday 29th December 2024

Edited by ZX10R NIN on Sunday 29th December 20:12

Original Poster

5 posts

5 months

Monday 30th December 2024

ZX10R NIN said:

R/E diesel: open to challenge on this, but the main concern is flexibility around shorter journeys if circumstances change in future (I'm hoping to keep the car for a good few years), and futureproofing against CAZ/ULEZ changes since I assume the changes would come to diesels first and family live in a CAZ.

Am I worrying about nothing?

ZX10R NIN

28,847 posts

137 months

Monday 30th December 2024

right_foot_left_stomp said:

The next set of ULEZ/CAZ will be based on Euro levels so as long as you've got a Euro6 you'll be fine.

Original Poster

5 posts

5 months