AI meets BFC: Car Buying Thread: No Rentals and No Salvage Titles

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > AI meets BFC: Car Buying Thread: No Rentals and No Salvage Titles

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

Proposed Budget: �7-15K maybe a bit more if it makes sense
New or Used: Used
Body Style: SUV/4x4
How will you be using the car?: 60% general family stuff, 40% hauling stuff to the farm
Do you prefer a luxury vehicle with all the gizmos?: at least aircon and a good tint to the windows
What aspects are most important to you?: reliability, manual transmission, reliability, not more than 10 seconds to 60mph, okay with bad roads/limited offroad, will fit adult sized people in the back seats, reliability, will take a roof rack and reliability is also important
If you do not live in the U.S. you should probably say so: I say so, UK

Recently I looked at toyota prados/mitsubshi pajeros but the vast majority of the time I won't need the extreme offroad capability they offer at the cost of things like running expenses, high second-hand cost and road comfort/agility

currently looking at hyundai santa fe's and skoda kodiaqs but have no idea whats good and the more I look at reviews and comparisons the more confused I get

# ¿ Jan 10, 2023 10:19

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 04:56

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

first up, thanks for the detailed reply

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

I assume the farm is modest enough to not require you to tow a lot, really carry all that much or deal with animals as you'd have gone out and bought one of Isuzu Dmax/Nissan Navara/Mitsu L200/Ford Ranger last week, moderately tired examples of which can be had for half your budget. Obviously people make fun of pickups to a certain extent but "I literally have a farm" is about at the top of the actual list of actual reasons to actually have one

bingo- a pickup would get used for actual farm labour and hauling raw materials etc but the vast bulk of what it will be used for won't justify it for the drawbacks, I was pretty much sold on a dmax or L200 otherwise

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

What's a bad road? If it's just "the odd patch of wet dirt" as likely in that there are not really many truly bad roads in the UK, then a good set of AT or adjacent tires (n.b no giant wheels with low profile tires here, more sidewall = better - pretty much true in general anyway) is 95% of the solution to that problem, no reason why anything that can push both axles around shouldn't do you fine so no objective need to entertain the expense of some massive body on frame thing if you don't need to, or worry about the precise details of this 4wd system over that one etc. I can justify it here in Canada, and do...but it would be harder back in the UK. Though, diesels do make it less painful!

bonus cat

it gets fairly potholed and worn in areas and my current car (audi a4 b6 with quattro) is lowered and scrapes whats left of the underside easily

fun though

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

IME people are insanely bad at tires over there in general, to a degree that now seems completely insane to me. No, the �30 part-worn offbrand ditchfinders aren't ok for your �30,000 car.

agreed, I never skimp on mine but it's common to see mismatched no-name bargain basement stuff on really high end cars

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

Do you do mostly short trips (say, <20mins) or do you regularly drive far enough for a vehicle to fully, properly warm up? The former will kill off modern diesels as (simplifying in the extreme) there's a lot of emissions bits which require hi temps to function properly.

my commutes are often around 20 mins once or twice a week, longer runs every week or two and probably more of those in the next few years

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

Do you have or regularly carry a sufficient number of childs to need or want a 3rd row of seats? Is there a minimum volume or set of dimensions below which a vehicle (with/without seats folded etc) just won't work with the farm?

I don't really need a third row but also don't mind having it (always kinda wanted a dog) but my kids are pushing 6ft and will go past that so the second row needs to be spacious even with me (6"5) in the drivers seat

A4 has 460 litres of space (I was surprised its this much, it's not very easily accessible) and thats an absolute minimum, I have managed to fit 2.4 metre timbers in the cabin using the magic of swearing but if I'm fitting a roof rack thats less of a concern

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

In the mid to upper zone of your budget...

If you're particularly focused on the smallholding aspect, a Dacia Duster can probably be got gently used at 2-3 years old, basic and unsophisticated and fairly small as these things go but all the mechanicals are essentially 10-20 year old Renault and sound. Pretty much the closest thing to an actual 'offroad vehicle' you can get while still being a normal car-ish SUV (ie, it's cheap and basic enough for what it is that you won't feel the need to treat it like it's made of glass, and you can pick up some cheap 16in steel wheels and stick larger tires on with no drama). You may or may not gel with the interior, it'll be rougher and noisier and less luxe than anything else you'd likely buy but then again you won't shed any tears if you spill a bag of fertilizer or the family sprays a milkshake in it. Avoid 1st gen ones 2010-2017 (esp the ones built in India which rotted to pieces at 3 years old) as your only car due to rust, newer ones should be ok. Can probably get an early one cheap enough to have one as a 2nd car, mind you!

I looked at a few review videos and a few adverts online and I'm not sure if the back seat will be big enough, but they are fairly common so will give one a try especially at those price ranges

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

You live on bog island so should keep a harsh eye on corrosion on anything anyway due to the tendency to drown roads in salt.

not just that but I live right next to the sea

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

SUV type things are really much of a muchness on the whole and it's more a question of what size/aesthetics you prefer and what to stay away from; tiny brands that are gimmicky or have questionable parts support (no Sssssssangyongs, no MGs, arrrrguably no Subarus though an Outback or Forester would probably be high up your list in North America), no Jeeps or pre-2014 or so Renault/Nissans unless you're an auto electrician by trade and want to take your job home with you, no diesels if you do a lot of short trips, no Hyundai/Kia 4 cylinder petrols in general and absolutely, categorically no this cataclysmic piece of poo poo which will probably blow up after about 50,000mi in particular, no Nissan CVT automatics (but not really an issue if you're sticking to manuals). Hybrids will advantage fuel economy over the equivalent straight petrol engine but usually compromise cargo space/load floor height which may or may not be worth it for you and obviously won't be manuals (or within your budget, probably).

I would probably look at a Suzuki Vitara (small), if as fairly likely it's not big enough then consider how you feel about Toyota Rav4/Honda CRV/Skoda Karoq/VW Tiguan/Ford Kuga (medium-large), probably in that order of preference from a vague, unsubstantiated reliability POV though practically speaking I'd expect any of them to be fine. I feel like the medium-small SUVs (Renault Kadjar, VW T-Roc etc) are all a bit sad for the money spent unless you have a real size limit, which it doesn't sound like you do. Japanese will more likely be petrols and arguably make better ones in a very general sense than the Germans, vice-versa for diesels.

I like the look of some of them and will apply the size test but I have a dogmatic aversion to fords (and god not a vauxhall)

I do have a bit of a size limit but thats around land cruiser amazon size(the normal land cruiser in the rest of the world) because parking spaces etc just don't fit them very well

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

Lifted/"Offroad" wagons are of course also an option, an Octavia Scout/Passat Alltrack will give you more cargo space than the cost-equivalent SUV, probably nicer interiors on average, actual ground clearance ie real world "offroadability" will be about the same, only real downside will be longer rear overhangs. 95% of them will be automatic/diesels in all probability tho and tend pricier.

had discounted them on rear legroom without really thinking but will make sure to give them a look given im headed to the vw and skoda dealerships anyway

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

Left field options:

- Subaru Outback (exactly what you need from a practicality POV, high tolerance for actually bad roads, can actually be had as a brown manual diesel in the UK which half the car dweebs on the north american continent would kill for in theory, the boxer diesels are AIUI not really very good, quite slow, rare and may be a pain to keep up, can be had quite cheap as a result)
- Ford Tourneo Connect or French/German equivalent (Kangoo, Partner Teepee, Skoda Yeti etc) (it's a van, practical as poo poo, not 4wd [except the Yeti which a lot are, but then it's a bit smaller], your kids will probably make fun of you for buying a van)
- Mitsu Outlander (the regular diseasel Outlander is unremarkable but is large, cheap, simple and pretty much ticks all your boxes, 3rd row seats, interior kind of generic but again is that a bad thing, can be had as a plug-in hybrid so if you're doing lots of short trips to the point where it'd be electric most of the time the economics may make sense, then again they may not because lol the UK electricity situation, PHEV not fuel efficient when not running on electrons)

quite correct on the kids mocking me if I get a van but I wouldn't want to drive one as my car anyway, had discounted subaru on reliability, definitely will keep an eye on outlanders too but I can't charge at home- would be quite open to PHEV stuff otherwise but local electric infrastructure sucks

hopefully heading out tomorrow to look at a few places just for an idea on dimensions and ride height etc before drawing up a shortlist

# ¿ Jan 12, 2023 20:45

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

Well. The road as posted is essentially a gravel driveway so there doesn't seem an obvious reason why you'd need a 4wd vehicle - decent set of wintery-ish all season tires (eg Michelin Crossclimate or similar sort of thing) would seem to solve the problem of it occasionally getting a little bit icy. That'd practically be a 100km/h road around here

I will try and get some pics of the worst areas for it but there's a few sections around gates that get really muddy, and twice over the years I have helped rescue a fwd car that put a front wheel off track and couldn't get back on as the other driven wheel wasn't getting much traction at all

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

If you have an old A4 estate as is then I suspect you will not gain an awful lot of cargo room by going to a midsize SUV except maybe in height (usually not all that useful). Legroom will probably be fractionally better due to more upright seats but nothing to write home about - I can tell you that at I think 5ft10 or so I found the back of the Escape/Kuga to be tolerable but fairly cramped. The Duster will be smaller (about 4in shorter) than your current so probably a no go.

It's the saloon version, the boot is bigger than you might expect looking at it but the design makes it very hard to make much easy use of

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

A newer Octavia will be about 4in longer, a newer Passat about 4in longer than that. So, you'd probably be looking at those as a minimum, or one of the larger / 3 row SUVs. Your options over here would be pretty wide but there, given what you've said, for a significant jump in space I'd probably be shortlisting for consideration:

- Audi A6 Allroad or Skoda Superb Outdoor or VW Passat Alltrack (big, still not that much clearance really, but can't imagine it wouldn't be enough, relatively rare but parts sharing with the non-lifted versions. I almost ended up with a 2015? Superb as a company car at one point and it was absolutely yuuge)
- Audi Q7 (big big, you're getting into "vehicles that were very expensive new" territory which is always dangerous down the line costs-wise)
- BMW X5 (likewise potential hazard: running costs, probably only consider if it's had the timing chain done recently as iirc they break lots, should otherwise be...ok?)
- Honda CR-V (still a midsize, but Honda are generally the interior space/ergonomics wizards for a given size of vehicle so if any midsize is going to work then the CRV will, should be unproblematic to run)
- Mitsu Outlander (big, boring, cheap)
- Volvo XC70 or XC90 (no Volvos after they were bought out by Geely, I think 2016? But, pre 2016 should be more or less fine, XC70 basically an Outback but euro, XC90s liable to be getting on a bit/often worked hard dragging caravans around and earlier ones used dodgy GM automatics)
- VW Touareg (forgot about these: basically a Porsche Cayenne with a VW badge, big, fairly fun, shouldn't objectively be much less reliable than the equivalent Passat - actually the Cayenne shouldn't either if you get the basic VW diesel in it, but you may get hit on parts prices)

the q7/x5/touareg scare me on the luxury car with lots of stuff to potentially go wrong, finding volvo's of that age that aren't hosed looking/high mileage is fairly rare but CRV/outlander/kodiaq/Santa Fe is probably looking like the best compromise of options with the offroad VW estate group next up

Didn't get to go car shopping yet but did briefly look at an outlander and a santa fe and liked the ground clearance on both

Pretty rad dad pad posted:

On reflection though I hadn't realised how cheap the Mitsu Shogun & Nissan Pathfinder have gotten and both meet your desire to be a big jeep wideboy, so you should in fact absolutely go out and buy one of those immediately

I was looking at land cruiser Prado's and shogun's pretty drat hard after giving up on pickup trucks and gave them up for largely the same reason of the vast majority of the time I don't need chassis cab on frame utility at the cost of day to day driving feel/running costs/car tax- for all it's many faults, my old audi is fun to throw at corners still and I'm gonna miss the hell out of that

# ¿ Jan 15, 2023 10:24

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

as someone having to upgrade to something less "fun" now- lest I have to saw the little bastards legs off- I say chase that dragon as long as you can but FFS get something with four doors or you will hate yourself

If I buy something new outright in cash is there anything I need to know?

Getting sorely tempted at the thought of something with a nice long warranty on it, unfortunately this fucks me over on a few things like the Santa Fe which you can't get as a manual now

# ¿ Jan 17, 2023 17:44

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

Just had a long look at a '19 kodiaq with 21k on the clock for 21k cash and I'm test driving it Friday

goddamn that thing so nice and roomy

# ¿ Jan 18, 2023 13:40

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

this morning I went to a pre-arranged test drive for a kodiaq

they sold it beforehand and didn't bother telling me, no other manual 4x4 ones around, not even a manual 2wd

drove over to vw and I'm gonna test drive a manual 4x4 tiguan next week but I have seen a bunch of reliability warnings about them already so that's probably a no-go

gently caress car dealerships and gently caress their lovely coffee, goddamn burnt isn't a desirable flavour

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 13:51

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

knox_harrington posted:

Well that sucks. Time for a Macan S

If the fuckers would sell me one with a manual transmission then it would be shutupandtakemymoney.gif- this is probably the last combustion engined thing I'm ever going to buy and i want a manual one goddamnit

I need to be patient and just bide my time for the right kodiaq to pop up at this point, tiguan allspice (not fixing that autocorrect) is essentially the same but rarer and rarer still in manual/4x4, and the seat tarraco and audi q7 you just can't get manual/4x4 because gently caress me and my luddite ways I guess

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 15:25

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

wesleywillis posted:

Have you ever considered a used 7 series?

They also run into the no manual transmissions available problem

Of 3,910 BMW 4x4s available, 20 are manual

DesperateDan fucked around with this message at 21:34 on Jan 20, 2023

# ¿ Jan 20, 2023 21:32

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

test drive report-

2.2 Santa Fe- I like all the luxuries but it rolls up like a joint around corners, felt a bit brash when I really put the hammer down too

2.0 TDI Tiguan- a lot less roll, probably a little too small and the electronic dash is tilted at a weird angle for tall people

result- I still want a base model 7 seat kodiaq or the tiguan allspice with manual and a 4x4 and I'm gonna keep looking till a good one appears

# ¿ Jan 30, 2023 12:29

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

knox_harrington posted:

I really didn't like the Santa Fe I rented a while back, like you say pretty floppy to drive around.

Those 2 do look like the best options given you have the manual box restriction. I see a bunch of manual Tiguan Allspaces on Auto Trader, are you in NI or something ?

essex unfortunately, but I'm looking at having my own independent republic

right now I'm looking at approved used because vw were offering 3 years warranty, mot and servicing and I could probably wrangle the same out of the skoda dealership and the concept of things being someone elses problem for awhile is really appealing given the tumultuous affair I have had with the audi

Four wheel drive only came on the 2 litre manual allspice (not correcting) according to the vw guy I spoke to today, so it's a bit rarer to find than 4x4 kodiaqs and looking at autotrader it's 1 out of 25 manual allspaces have 4x4 versus 10 out of 31 manual kodiaqs

# ¿ Jan 30, 2023 17:29

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

knox_harrington posted:

Ah I forgot about the 4x4 requirement. Looks like there are a few of the Skodas around anyway.

yeah I think I'm going to wait a little while and see if something else comes up locally but otherwise there's about half a dozen 4x4/manual/tdi skodas in the right kinda price range under 50k miles within reasonable driving distance

childhood me never thought I would be excited about getting a skoda, how the times do change

Edit-

Got a bit impulsive, chucked a deposit on a nice kodiaq with a bunch of electronic doodads and I'm test driving it on friday

DesperateDan fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Feb 1, 2023

# ¿ Feb 1, 2023 09:40

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

kodiaq, 2 litre TDI, 6 speed manual, 4x4, edition model, 2019 plate, 41 thousand miles, three year approved warranty and it's all mine

fuckin' loving it so far, thanks for the assist thread

# ¿ Feb 5, 2023 17:47

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

horseblow.avi posted:

What else am I missing? Which are the best bang for buck? Any models out there that fit my specs but I should avoid?

Thanks for any help.

audi a3 with a tdi and quattro?

the TDI/awd/6spd combo is really nice, probably a few things available on that platform with it from Audi/VW/seat/Skoda in your size range

# ¿ Jun 13, 2023 08:13

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

horseblow.avi posted:

Huh, for some reason I thought the A3 quattro was priced over 40k.

tbh I didn't know about pricing and availability for tdis especially manuals is tight (but there's a good reason for that, they loving rule) and if you can't find an a3 you might find a golf or similar that's largely exactly the same thing underneath the trim- there's a lot of cars on the MQB platform to choose from

# ¿ Jun 13, 2023 12:37

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 04:56

DesperateDan: Dec 10, 2005; Where's my cow?

Is that my cow?

No it isn't, but it still tramples my bloody lavender.

Nitrox posted:

A rental Peugeot 307 takes the most abuse because people seek those out to go off-roading. If it says Peugeot 307 on it, it probably went through a creek somewhere at least once.

corrected for me and a very good holiday on mallorca

# ¿ Dec 24, 2023 20:19

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > AI meets BFC: Car Buying Thread: No Rentals and No Salvage Titles