New Car

[Night Train]

My point was with a buyer of a new car and so the loss in value should be considered. I drive Mrs OTH mad as I hold on to things and keep using the same ones. I have T shirts I have worn for 10 years. Kids don't understand why I don't upgrade my phone when offered one. Most of what I get is old or recycled in some way. So I am with you on that.

I bought my Skoda Octavia Elegance 1.9 TDi estate brand new back in 2001 for £14,500. I specified the colour, trim, accessories, etc. and had to wait nearly 4 months for delivery due to high demand. Now 12 years and 190K miles later it is still going strong and doing all that I asked of it.


It has been a family car, a motorway commuter, a working car, and a van. It has carried people, shopping, furniture, tools, logs, scrap metal, bricks, concrete, sand, plaster, Land Rover axles, gearboxes, bikes, trikes, white goods, etc.
It has taken 3m lengths of timber inside, 7.5m lengths of steel, 8x4 sheets of plasterboard, a steel bike locker, and a recumbent trike, on the roof (not all at the same time).
It happily tows my 1.4 ton trailers, one open, one closed box. It has pulled cars and vans out of mud and snow. It has pulled down small trees. It has a rear winch that has pulled large trees and roots, and an inverter to run power tools and charge tool batteries.

Granted it now has a few battle scars, the odd scuff, some stone chips on the bonnet, two windscreen changes due to breakage and is on its second tow ball, but it has been the best value 'tool' I have ever had on the road, even compared to my previous second hand vans.

I have only had two breakdown recoveries. The first was due to a bad batch of biodiesel wrecking the fuel filter and the second was the clutch failing on the way to the garage to have it changed.

Would I buy another Skoda? I dunno, would I ever need to replace this one???

 

[skudupnorth]

Best choice ever ! Owned old and new Skoda's and worked for Skoda for many years and i cannot find fault with them at all,buy it and enjoy a good,reliable car that will have more spec for the cost of the equivelant VW/Audi/SEAT !!!!

 

[Arch]

I bought my Skoda Octavia Elegance 1.9 TDi estate brand new back in 2001 for £14,500. I specified the colour, trim, accessories, etc. and had to wait nearly 4 months for delivery due to high demand. Now 12 years and 190K miles later it is still going strong and doing all that I asked of it.


It has been a family car, a motorway commuter, a working car, and a van. It has carried people, shopping, furniture, tools, logs, scrap metal, bricks, concrete, sand, plaster, Land Rover axles, gearboxes, bikes, trikes, white goods, etc.
It has taken 3m lengths of timber inside, 7.5m lengths of steel, 8x4 sheets of plasterboard, a steel bike locker, and a recumbent trike, on the roof (not all at the same time).
It happily tows my 1.4 ton trailers, one open, one closed box. It has pulled cars and vans out of mud and snow. It has pulled down small trees. It has a rear winch that has pulled large trees and roots, and an inverter to run power tools and charge tool batteries.

Granted it now has a few battle scars, the odd scuff, some stone chips on the bonnet, two windscreen changes due to breakage and is on its second tow ball, but it has been the best value 'tool' I have ever had on the road, even compared to my previous second hand vans.

I have only had two breakdown recoveries. The first was due to a bad batch of biodiesel wrecking the fuel filter and the second was the clutch failing on the way to the garage to have it changed.

Would I buy another Skoda? I dunno, would I ever need to replace this one???

Wow, put it like that, we should give it a treat or something!

(also, it was when you were fixing the clutch pedal that time, that we first started 'joking' about jubilee clips as rings. So it's been a bit of a matchmaker too! )

 

[I like Skol]

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Oi! Mr Tightwad, you might want to consider putting some fuel in that car occasionally.

Seriously though, The Skoda of today is not the same vehicle as the Skoda of the 70's and 80's that earned them the reputation they seem to be stuck with (We had one when I was a kid it was an E reg and beige). We also had Ladas and they didn't move with the times.

I really like the Skoda advert that is running with the TdF highlights. It really makes them look like reliable, tough little cookies!

 

[Night Train]

Oi! Mr Tightwad, you might want to consider putting some fuel in that car occasionally.

I put in as much as is needed at the time. No point carrying the weight of 12 gallons of diesel when I only need 2 gallons for the week.
Also, if someone stole it they won't get far.

I used to have an old Skoda Estelle and a Rapid, and a spare engine. My then wife did stupidly high mileages on the motorways and so I would service the spare engine ready to swap in to my car at the weekend. Then, after a shake down drive, she would have my car while I repeated the process with the removed engine and her car.

The old Estelle/Rapid were good cars too, just basic. I nearly bought an Estelle recently, to convert to an electric car. The prices are going up as they are becoming rare and collectable.

 

[fossyant]

Nowt wrong with Skodas. The taxi drivers round here all have Octavias, just like and VW branded car inside.

Best buy is to get a nearly new, like a year old, then you have dumped the initial depreciation dip.

I'm a jap car fan, and certainly my car wasn't popular with Nissan and got dumped quite quick as it was in the same sector as a Passatt and Mondeo etc, last edition Primera. It's been a cracking car though, I got it at 10 months old, fully loaded with kit that keeps up with most new cars, but its now 11 years old. Fortunately the. Radical(ugly) design hasn't dated too much. The only big expense it's had are a new air con rad for 400 and then a new cat last winter for 600. I can service it, and can also easily access the computer system to find faults.

Not bad at all. Not selling as I have a great roof rack for the bikes. The car had a tantrum about 5-6 years ago when I went back to commuting by bike. And a big job change, so gone from 18,000 a year to 4,000 with mostly local drives. Got that sorted for the car (think the cat had been knackered for a while) and its running like new.

Don't really care about having the latest car, just need something reliable. I do get attached to cars, like I do with bikes. Oh and the car is almost as clean as the bikes.

 

[Night Train]

Wow, put it like that, we should give it a treat or something!

You could give it a wash....

 

[inkd]

Mrs and I have owned a 13yr old fabia estate for the last 5 years, its a complete shed and its got less go than my ageing gran BUT like my 91yr old gran (who drinks whiskey every evening and still has a few puffs a day) refuses to give up. Skoda`s are excellent work horses and as mentioned in previous posts I would look to buy another when this shed falls apart.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Seriously though, The Skoda of today is not the same vehicle as the Skoda of the 70's and 80's that earned them the reputation they seem to be stuck with (We had one when I was a kid it was an E reg and beige). We also had Ladas and they didn't move with the times.

I really like the Skoda advert that is running with the TdF highlights. It really makes them look like reliable, tough little cookies!

Ahh, but you've got to remember that in the market they were originally built for, before someone decided to start importing them, that you were lucky to have a car.
You may have been on official waiting lists for 10 years, or be lucky enough to know someone high up in 'the Party'


I remember a neighbour when I was a kid having a never ending procession of Wartburgs and Moscoviches

 

[Over The Hill]

I am not knocking Skodas at all. My point is shown at post # 16 with OFF's figures.
Basically they are VWs priced at about 10% less. It is VWs way of selling discounted cars without harming or devaluing the VW brand. We all accept this. So if you want a VW with 10% discount you get a Skoda. It will do the same job just as well.
I just pointed out that as the Skoda will retain less value on the second hand market it actually cost just about the same as the VW over the first 3 years. So then if you have the real cost of a VW or Skoda being the same; why buy the Skoda?

It is then a separate point if you buy a car and keep it for 20 years. Personally I cannot see the logic in that. Either you want to run a new car or you are happy with an old car. For the £20,000 spent on the "new" car that lasts 20 years you could buy two 10 year old cars for £1000 each and save £18,000. Well that is what I do anyway. Mostly though people only keep a new car a few years and then sell it or keep within an age band with their cars. I am happy that there are other people out there buying expensive cars new and selling them on when they are perfectly fine and with years of life left in them for a fraction of what the car cost new.
I have never owned a new car and surely it is really an oxymoron to link buying a new car and saving money.

 

[swee'pea99]

In a related vein...as a 12 year Golf estate owner, I once had to replace one of the rear window motors. I looked it up on YouTube, got one off ebay for about £40, and did the job - a bit of a shag, but no biggie really (and I speak as no mechanic). When I saw a seven year old Merc on the side of the road in what at least looked like immaculate condition, with a card in the window saying it could be mine for £3,300, my first thought was 'hmmm...that looks like a lot of car for just over 3K'. Out of idle curiosity, I came home and did a bit of googling, discovering among other things that that model, at about that age, starts to have electrical problems. One bloke had had to have a window motor replaced. He couldn't do it himself, because they've made it virtually un-DIYable. It cost him £1700.

 

[tyred]

The old Estelle/Rapid were good cars too, just basic. I nearly bought an Estelle recently, to convert to an electric car. The prices are going up as they are becoming rare and collectable.

I've always fancied one too - especially one of the rare convertibles (I await the wheelbarrow jokes!).

 

[Silver Fox]

Basically they are VWs priced at about 10% less. It is VWs way of selling discounted cars without harming or devaluing the VW brand. We all accept this. So if you want a VW with 10% discount you get a Skoda. It will do the same job just as well.

If not better.

My mate has a factory standard Octavia VRS and it's a rocket ship. Even though it has exactly the same engine that's in my Golf it leaves the VW standing. Build quality is just as good too.

 

[I like Skol]

Going a bit OT now. We all call Audi and BMW drivers names but a car that has really been on my radar in the last year or two is the little Skoda hot hatch. Often in bright colours and driven by chav kn*bheads that have little or, more commonly, no interest in the safety of the people around them. It really amazes me that these cars are driven in such a contrasting way to the typical Fabia owners. I am not one to argue against powerful cars or for the nanny state but I really wonder if the manufacturers should be allowed to make such fast cars available so cheaply that the irresponsible masses can get their hands on them so easily? There, I've said it now.

 

[4F]

We have an '11' plate Octavia Tdi estate, & it's the best (normal) car we've had.

I agree, I have the same in a 10 plate as a company car and it is a excellent. When it comes to renew it next year I will go for exactly the same again.