Well my wife has finally made her mind up we are selling the 1.6LX Octavia and she is buying a brand new Nissan Micra 1.2S, in red. Local dealer has offered a very good deal. The List price for the car is Over

I know which i'd choose.

And it's not the Nissan, even though it's built 20 miles up the road from me

I know which i'd choose.

And it's not the Nissan' date=' even though it's built 20 miles up the road from me [/quote']

Everyone to there own, but it is hard to fault the Nissan Micra. If the new model is half as reliable as the old, it will give less trouble than the Fabia would (based on my experience of 2 Octavia's). Remember she was never in the market for a Fabia vRS and the mileage she is likely to do would not justify even the 1.4TDi Fabia. As a small cheap petrol the 16V nissan engine definitely felt better than the rather odd 1.2 Skoda engine. We did not like the 1.0E Micra that she also tried however. If the 1.2 had not been an option, then the Fabia would have won over the 1.0 Nissan.

the nissan micra is actually a Renault Clio!

and yes.. the 1.2 16v is a nice engine.

But will you have enough room in the back of the Micra for when you are 'at it'..... A consideration at least surely??

The other things against the Fabia was longer delivery wait and dealers less willing to discount. Drivethedeal was cheaper than any dealer would offer. Also the Micra has more airbags and electric windows etc.

But will you have enough room in the back of the Micra for when you are 'at it'..... A consideration at least surely??

Believe it or not as a married couple with a kid we have a house for that sort of thing. Or if for some mad reason we wanted to the vRS is roomy enough (just). The Micra will be for her to tootle in and out to work in.

Personally I'd have bought a 12 month old higher spec version of whichever car I went for as I wouldn't want to be without all the toys.

Still , the Microbe is quite a decent car by all accounts. A bit funny looking , but reasonably well made and decent enough to drive

The wife wanted a new car. The Micra is well speced, with side air bags etc. The only thing it lacks is air con, which I offered to have added as an option, but the wife has declared that as long as she has electric windows and remote central locking she is happy. Also the 1.2 engine is more powerful than the 1.6 in the Octy she has been driving (ie 80 bhp compared with 75). Note this 1.2 engine is new and has nothing to do with the Clio (as the deisel would have).

http://usa2.micra.org.uk/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi

Off you go now...

We've got a Micra, too. They're dicounted heavily: ours was around 8k for a 1.2 SE, which had a list price of 9.3k. What's more, Nissan threw in alloys and a sunroof. Residuals are not going to be this car's strong point!

It's actually really good: the keyless entry is excellent, it handles well (and feels more nimble than my Fabia vRS, particularly around town) and is reasonably comfortable. What's more, the wife gets nearly 50 mpg out of it.

The only major criticisms I could make are that it is too low geared, particularly on motorways, and passenger seat isn't as comfortable as the drivers. Also, the aircon is a bit on the limp side.

Fprgot to mention that I got a call from the salesman to say that on the Monday following my order (made on a Friday) a new deal had come out, reducing the price of the S by

The SE is definitely worth getting over the S: the seats are better (different material) and the extra toys are worth having!

I just wonderd if the salesman would have bothered contacting me if the dealer hadn't been planning to advertise the new deals heavily in the local press!

Thats quite a handy improvement to the deal.

I take it they didn't want the octy as a trade in?

The SE is still more expensive than the original price for the S, but on the S the APR was 12.9%, on the SE it is 9.9%, plus as I say a years insurance. The monthly payments over the same time are only a couple of pounds different and the final payment a couple of hundred higher. However I figure the SE will also have a higher actual value to compensate for that.

They would take the Octy, but as it is 5 years old and a Skoda to quote the sales person, it would be just being passed on to the trade so he offered a well below par trade in value. Decided to sell privately as I can afford the deposit on the Micra even if I am still waiting to sell the Octy.

Have you signed the paperwork yet on the finance? There are better deals than 9.9% to be had. In the end, we went through Smile and saved about

No we have not signed up on the finance yet, as we did want to look around first and the sales man says that we only need to commit to the fiance a couple of days before the delivary date to avoid a delay. There are however reasons that make getting other finance options with low APRs harder.

There's a big scam going on at the moment with APRs from finance houses. They advertise a 'typical APR', which is anything but. Alliance and Leicester are guilty of this: I assumed that a 'typical APR' was based on the amount you borrow, but it isn't. They claim it is based on 'individual circumstances' which may be true, but in reality only a handful of people are offered loans at the rate advertised.

From what I can tell, it's not to do with your individual circumstances in financial terms, but on how likely you are to pay back the loan early, and whether or not you have existing business with the company. Believe it or not, if you are an existing customer, they're likely to offer you a worse deal!

When I phoned them, their leaflet suggested that the loan would be charged at 6.7%. In reality, they offered me a loan at 9.4%. I told them where to stick it: I know my credit history is good, and that I'm low risk. There have been quite a few articles about this in the press recently, and new laws are coming in to prevent this sharp practice. In the mean time, make sure you ask what APR you're being quoted: I think they trade on the fact that you assume you're going to get the advertised rate.