indyjukebox

Not sure about leasing being expensive, especially if you choose wisely. Wife's new car is a lease. 40k RRP. Total cost over 2 years inc a 15k mileage allowance is 8k. Tax is high due to being a high CO2 petrol with a decent amount of power. But then I dont pay that, the lease company does. 8k over 2 years in depreciation on a 40k car is exceptionally good as it represents a 20% loss in value. Yes you dont keep the car. But if she changed cars every 2 years for 10 years with that sort of a deal as a target, then she spends 40k in total. Which would be equivalent to the cost of buying the same car and letting it run into the ground over a 10 year window. But with the advantage that she is in a new car every 2 years, break down cover provided throughout for free, no tax to pay and all the benefits that come from owning a newish car. None of the repairs associated with older cars either. We didnt have to look for too long to locate this deal either. In fact there was a nice choice of cars at that price point and similar overall costs. She just chose what she has now based on what she fancied for the next 2 years.

Yes, chap who bought it from my wife has it back up for sale at £25k. I suppose he will probably sell it for 24k+ and make a tidy profit. In line with Autotrader's unrealistic valuations. It is interesting that even on 1 and 2 year old cars; people still want to buy from a dealer expecting some sort of magical warranty or peace of mind. I think I am done with buying for the near future, unless I plan to keep it for a very long time and hence absorb the cost price in almost its entirety. Leasing seems to be the way forward, especially if you are the type that likes a new car every few years. No worries about road tax, resale values etc. Overall i still think it is a great car with enormous amounts of room, acceptable compromises and a feel good factor. I just think the purchase price has slowly climbed to an unacceptably high point without any associated climb in residual values.

We just sold the wife's 280. Year old, 12k miles. Listed at £22k. Not a single phone call. Eventually sold to a dealer for less that 22k. What is advertised on AT and what you can achieve are usually wildly different. I speak from bitter experience.

Audi has the worst set up of any brand I have driven recently. Excessively harsh, almost grashopper'ish ride quality. The Superb is much better. No question about it. I am in a friend's Giulia 280 Veloce over the last 2 weeks. Smaller car, stiffer ride; but the damping is so much better. All the ridges and ruts on my usual drive dont jar/thud as they do in the Superb. Which was a surprise for me. I wasnt expecting that.

Interesting. AT suggested 23000 for my year old 280. That is 12k gone in a year. Not pretty at all.

A year of owning the 280 sportline. 20k miles under the belt, less than expected due to a change in working patterns etc. So what was the last year like? Well the good points: 1. It is a stealth car. Most drivers have no clue what is under the hood till they try it on and rapidly realise that there is no way there are going to keep up with you. Predominantly a bunch of Audi drivers in their diesel S lines. 2. Overall it has been very reliable for me. No breakdowns at all. No error messages so far, other than the low washer fluid level message. 3. The interior space is massive. 4. The boot is even bigger! 5. I am impressed by the mileage. Averaging 32-34 mpg with a reasonably happy right foot. 6. Impressive traction. Snow, ice, mushy surfaces - none of them were a problem for the 4WD system. And tyre wear has been even without any need for rotating the tyres. 7. Ride is overall comfortable with some caveats below. 8. Standard sound system is really good, especially compared to say a BMW or Jag. 9. Servicing costs are quite reasonable. Bad points: 1. Lots of small rattles have developed over time. Dash, vents, speaker grills. door trims, glove box. I have now given up on them. Just turn the volume up. But it is poor on a £35k car. Very poor indeed. 2. I am divided on the ride quality. It is comfortable, but the damping is just poor. So you are fine till you hit a pothole or ridge and then you get this loud thud transmitted to the cabin. DCC really does not make much difference to this. You dont realise this till you drive a different car. Also the handling around corners is safe but wallows and gets a bit tiring after a while. 3. Steering is again safe but quite numb and a VW trademark. But better than many of the Audi's I have test driven though. 4. Stop start is appalling. I mean how did VW ever think that shutting down the engine as you are coasting at low speeds is a good idea? The number of times it would shut off the engine at inappropriate times! Also you drive up to a car park barrier, the button is just out of reach. So you unbuckle and reach out a bit more. The gate opens, but the car will now not restart. Apparently the start stop system will not re engage if you unbuckle. So you try and restart, but you now have to put it back into park. then restart, then put it into drive. By which time the barrier has lowered itself again. I just gave up on it and just kept pressing the SS disable button every time I got into the car. Stupidest system ever. Other manufacturers have much less sensitive systems, that work a lot better. 5. Bi-xenons are odd. They seem to be less effective at both settings. Recently compared with a couple of other cars in the family/on test drives and they are sub optimal in they way they do their job. 6. Seats are comfortable, but thigh support is not great. An extendable front lip like in a BMW M sport would solve this issue though. But it is not available even as an option. 7. AV - Sat nav is super slow to start up after ignition. Getting you phone's music to play through your car is unnecessarily difficult. 8. The glossy surfaces on the central console and trim are so prone to scratching. You have to be super careful when cleaning these areas. I just wish they had used a bit more durable finish to these surfaces. This also applies to the glossy B pillar trim. 9. The electronic brake set up is not to my liking. It seems to hold on longer than required on an incline. Which makes parallel parking on an incline very difficult. 10. The windscreen washer tank seems to empty rather quickly. Is it the wasteful nozzles or the size of the tank? Not sure, but I seem to be constantly refilling the washer fluid tank. 11. It depreciates like a rock. My first Superb and I dont think I would ever buy another one. I may lease one though. Overall it has been a good year. I still like the car for all its foibles above. Mainly because it is good fun to drive and the stealth factor. Would I buy one again? Not sure about that at the current price point.

Not at all, parked on the level. Neither faults have reappeared. The SS not restarting might have been my seatbelt; as I do take it off to reach out and swipe the access card against the security post.

I may have taken my seatbelt off. I knew that opening the door would deactivate SS, but did not realise taking your belt off affected it as well. It did it again this morning and I cannot remember if I had unbuckled myself. Presumably lowering the window is not related to SS deactivating? What really worried me was the unsuccessful cranking the day before.

So something odd happened this morning. Got into the car, foot on brake, push start ---> starts cranking and then just stops. Almost like when you turn the key on an older car and stop turning the key before the engine starts up. Odd, but pushed the button again and it fires up fine. Drive 20+ miles and get to a gate. Stop at gate and SS kicks in and engine shuts down. Gate opens and I take my foot off the brake and nothing happens. Just get a message saying "start car manually". So had to put car back into P, fire up again and got going. Any ideas what the cause could be? No error messages on the dash.

Sorry to ask, but what is the difference?

Nice, great minds and all that ........

I really like them too and nearly bought a pair as a winter set. What worried me was that every set of diamond cut alloys, I have had in the past, have eventually got white worm despite waxes/protection etc. And the phoenix has large areas of diamond cut waiting for this to happen and trigger the OCDP in me. Still contemplating what to get as a winter/alternative alloy set.

Perhaps for a short while under ideal conditions, but not as an average. Autocar got 34 on a touring run and averaged 27. The manufacturer claims 42mpg. And we all know what manufacturer claimed mpg's are like. http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/bmw/x5/mpg

Who said that? Unless you know exactly how the Skoda KESSY works and hence the load it puts on the key/car battery, it would be impossible to predict what effects it would have on the cars or fob's battery. Or did I miss something here..?

Well your friends are lying to you then. Or they are the world's greatest hypermilers. I was lucky to get high 20s in my M car. If I drove like a saint. A little bit of fun and 17 mpg is what I lived with.