I'm looking at spending about £3k on either a Fabia or Octavia diesel so I have a few questions:

Am I going to be buying a load of trouble if I buy an MY02 with up to 80K miles Fabia or Octavia.

I don't need much space as the car will be used for getting to a new contracted site for work so I will being doing a 300 mile round trip up to 4 times a week so would a Fabia be okay for such long drives. The journey is nearly all motorways so would the Octavia be a more comfortable car to drive.

Is there much difference between the 1.9SDI and the 1.9 TDI engine in the Fabia.

Would the 1.4TDI Fabia be up to such long journeys.

Sorry for all the questions but I'm not an expert on Skoda's yet.

The SDI is the the non turbo version off the the TDI it will be be noticibly slower than a TDI. £3k will get you an early Octavia or Fabia with high miles and a bit tatty. You should pay attention to the cars service history more than the year. Of course a bigger car will be more comfortable on long journeys. High mileage is not normally a problem on any diesel motor, they are after designed with high mileage in mind. Very high mileage Octavias are likely to be ex taxis so look for the tell tales signs. Happy hunting.

Get yourself either the 1.9SDI or 1.9TDI, Both the Fabia and Octavia will be fine for what you want, you will probably get slightly better MPG in the Fabia due to it being smaller and lighter.

The 1.4TDI in the Fabia is actually not a bad motor either IMHO - plenty of grunt for a motorway run, more economical too quite possibly.

I'd try them out

Get yourself either the 1.9SDI or 1.9TDI, Both the Fabia and Octavia will be fine for what you want, you will probably get slightly better MPG in the Fabia due to it being smaller and lighter.

but the Fabia also has all the aerodynamic properties of a brick, which would/could make a bigger difference to mpg than the small difference in weight when you're talking 100+ miles at motorway speeds?

My SDi fabia will cruise at 70 all day on the motorway and very good MPG. Go for one of them

Cheers for the info so far guys.

I have priced up various cars on autotrader and ebay and it appears that the Fabia's hold there prices better than the Octavia, which for me means the Octavia will be the better buy.

I have seen a few 1.9TDI Octavia Ambiente and Elegance's for under £3000 and about 80-90k miles. I know the engine would be fine at that sort of mileage but what about suspension, brakes etc.

WW

Any car with that sort of mileage will need the occasional change off parts, suspension or otherwise. But VAG cars are more durable than yer everyday Fords, Vauxhalls. and are as good as Toyotas, Nissans for longivety.

Not sure about that myself. I've owned Vauxhall's, Toyota's, VW's and Skoda's. Not heard of many Toyota's that needs the front suspension rebuilding before 40,000 miles like Fabia's do, or having doors that can't even keep out water. From my experience, Skoda's are on a par with Vauxhall's, the Vauxhall having worse electrics, but better mechanicals.

The mpg you can get out of a fabia SDI is incredible, 68+ easily achievable but they are slow slow slow (driven one of these a few times), the 1.4tdi fabia is great, quite nippy and v good on fuel (also driven one of these a few times), the 1.9tdi is even better power wise but not quite as fuel friendly (not driven one myself), then the vrs is the next one which I have (had a few of)

If your priority is fuel consumption only and you don't care for speed at all get the sdi, it's extremely light on the wallet but IMHO I'd avoid the sdi in an octy, having experienced it in a fabia I should imagine it's tiresome to drive due to the lack of punch which requires a greater degree of forethought in order to make progress

HTH

I'd go for the 1.4TDI personally - they are now old enough to pick up for decent money, and you can probably get them mapped for fuel economy to make it even better

The SDI would be too slow for me personally - but then I'd try to get a drive in each one of the potential candidates to make up your own mind

Hopefully going to look at an Octavia tomorrow. It's a 2000 1.9 SLX Tdi 110 with 55K.

One owner with full service history and what looks like metallic purple. I'm trying to find out if it's had the cam belt changed.

Anything I should be looking out for?

Any car with that sort of mileage will need the occasional change off parts, suspension or otherwise. But VAG cars are more durable than yer everyday Fords, Vauxhalls. and are as good as Toyotas, Nissans for longivety.

yup, I was well impressed with the VAG solidity & build quality of my brother's Octavia as we were pushing it back into Unit18...in fact it was on my mind the whole journey back to Oxford in my 1999 Ford

I would go for a 2001+ not a 2000, as the car tax is a lot cheaper as they are based on emmissions.. The 1.9TDi (2001) Fabia costs about £120 a year, whereas the 2000 model would cost about £190 a year.

I have 2 x 2001 1.9TDi Fabias. One has 175,000 miles and the other about 135,000 miles. Both still going well. Fabias will need the front console bushes replaced every so often, but you can get a Seat equivalent part for about £8 per side which will last a lot longer. You can find this info on this forum.

Good luck

Cheers Fabby, hadn't thought about the Tax implications