Hi again - after some MPG figures

[Lugy]

Hi folks, it's been a long time since I was on here last (August last year ), in that time I might have turned to the dark side I now have a 1986 E30 as my pride and joy/weekend/project/soon to be an show of my engineering skills car .

Anyhow, time to bother all you intelligent lot, I've just got a new job that will involve a lot of commuting for the first couple of months (110 miles per day), my original plan was to use the Golf I bought last year after flooding my Discovery but it blew up this morning .

I'm contemplating something with a 3 pointed star as my new daily hack to keep the balance , obviously a diesel is the obvious choice but with a lack of time to save up it might be quite hard to get something worth having.
I'm thinking a 6 cylinder car could be the answer, it'll be mainly motorways and open roads I'll be driving with nearly no town stuff at all now.

The sort of cars I'm seeing are W202 C240/C280 and W210 E240/E320, are any of these capable of touching 35mpg? If not, how do the 4 cylinder cars fare?

Oh, I should also point out that it needs to be uber reliable too!

 

[hawk20]

You don't mention your budget.

Problem is uber reliable and 'a cheap car' don't often go together unless you happen to be lucky.

Do you not get a car allowance for that 110 miles per day commute?

Doing big miles I would put safety high on my list as well as fuel efficiency. Cars post somewhere around 2002 can pass a much tougher crash test than earlier cars.

Going for 6 cylinders will not get you the best economy and all cars will do way over the motorway speed limit. The 220cdi engine gives excellent economy, and is smooth and refined compared with most diesels.

 

[Sonny Burnett]

my w203 c240 can get upto 36/37 mpg on a motorway run. and quite high around town my E240 has never got passed 32mpg on a motorway run about 16/17 around town

 

[219]

I've noticed a couple of A140's advertised locally by breakers yards at prices in the high hundreds .

Went to look at one , here in the west , A140 on a W plate , vendor asking £780 , which had MOT to October , no recorded damage and only a minor scrape to osr wing , which could have been lived with .

The car needed tyres ' may have needed a battery as it was dead , but may have run down due to not being used . The guy offered to start it and let us take it for a run , but SWMBO didn't want a white car .

There's another being advertised in Fife , 03 plate in black for a little over a grand - both cars were manuals .

A manual A140 ought to be reasonably cheap to run , but I don't know about reliability ?

 

[hamonicab]

I have a 2002 W210 E220cdi and am getting amazing fuel consumption, 44 mpg at 80mph on the motorways cruising, not too bad around town either. These are fairly reasonable priced !!

 

[st4]

Hi Lucas,

I 210 E300TD saloon may be a better bet, nice smooth big diesel, or a late E220cdi 210 or a 210 320cdi. All will exceed 35mpg with ease

 

[seymansey]

The C240 will realistically sit around the 30mpg mark. 380ish miles of motorway driving to a tank (~60 litre).

 

[davidjpowell]

Not to dish MB's, but assuming that if you are concerend about budget and watching fuel consumption a Saab 9-5 might be worth a look also.

Certainly you get a newer lower mileage car, with less rust and better fuel economy for the cash. It's where my money went, and while I like MB I did feel that the lower cost ones were not great value for money when doing high mileages.

 

[tpwuk]

My CLK 430 can achieve 31MPG on a run.

 

[Sonny Burnett]

Not to dish MB's, but assuming that if you are concerend about budget and watching fuel consumption a Saab 9-5 might be worth a look also.

Certainly you get a newer lower mileage car, with less rust and better fuel economy for the cash. It's where my money went, and while I like MB I did feel that the lower cost ones were not great value for money when doing high mileages.

them saabs can go wrong the engines are no where near as well made as a benz engine, we have a vectra with a saab engine, 2006 its problem after problem.. sounds awful.. well thats our experiance my step dad wants out and is going to get a CLS320cdi 100x better in everyway

 

[davidjpowell]

them saabs can go wrong the engines are no where near as well made as a benz engine, we have a vectra with a saab engine, 2006 its problem after problem.. sounds awful.. well thats our experiance my step dad wants out and is going to get a CLS320cdi 100x better in everyway

It's the other way round. Saab has the GM engine. They have a pretty good record in the Saab, other than on the older ones (such as mine) you have to watch for sludging as Saab originally specc'd semi -synthetic instead of fully synthetic. A sump drop and clean sorts it and then good for lots of miles.

Mine is a 2001 model, now done 130k and going strong. Quiet, comfy and can get close to 40 mpg. I paid £1,400 for it and the comparable MB's were either high miles, rusty (usually both) and relatively basic spec.

Not knocking MB at all, I love ours, but casting the net further can be interesting.

 

[Sonny Burnett]

It's the other way round. Saab has the GM engine. They have a pretty good record in the Saab, other than on the older ones (such as mine) you have to watch for sludging as Saab originally specc'd semi -synthetic instead of fully synthetic. A sump drop and clean sorts it and then good for lots of miles.

Mine is a 2001 model, now done 130k and going strong. Quiet, comfy and can get close to 40 mpg. I paid £1,400 for it and the comparable MB's were either high miles, rusty (usually both) and relatively basic spec.

Not knocking MB at all, I love ours, but casting the net further can be interesting.

not really worst car i have ever seen and or driven. it really is that bad.. a 2 liter turbo.. i got my 2001 c240 for 2500 10x the car it could ever be to be honest. better gear box better engine.