Hi All

Recently just started work as a home care worker, basically i make home calls. Stop/start urban driving and my vRS is easily burning about £10 per shift even though im only doing about 10-15 miles. Been told it is burning so much because the home calls last for a min of 30mins but most of them are 1 hour calls, giving the car time to cool down, so it burns more fuel to warm up then by the time it is slightly warm iv turned it off again and also if im running late from a call i need to rush, burning even more fuel!

So plan of action is to look into buying a little city car, the Peugeot 107, iv had one before and it was great and burnt hardly any fuel round town ect and it will be perfect for this job.

Is this Just Add Fuel deal any good? £185 per month and every thing (insurance, servicing ect) included, that seems like a good deal to me. BTW id be keeping the vRS and use it for runs out ect and the 107 purely for work

What do you think?

I think VW's Up has a better offer at the moment.

deposit £2335 and then 36 payments of £79!

Factor in £99 for three years servicing, £1200 for 3 years insurance and you get a much better car (car of the year) for only £6478 over the 3 years, £6444 for the Pug.

Suppose it depends if youve got £2k handy, but I know which I would go for.

I'm pretty sure the Peugeot thing is just a 3-year lease, you don't own the car... but not 100%.

I'd go with the Up!.

EDIT: yup. Check this out.. HonestJohn on JAF.

Sent you a message on the book of face.

I think VW's Up has a better offer at the moment.

deposit £2335 and then 36 payments of £79!

Factor in £99 for three years servicing, £1200 for 3 years insurance and you get a much better car (car of the year) for only £6478 over the 3 years, £6444 for the Pug.

Suppose it depends if youve got £2k handy, but I know which I would go for.

I think there is an initial payment of about £1200 for the JAF offer which makes it really expensive in comparison to the UP

Say you do 20 shifts per month, at £10 each for fuel in the vRS, total cost £200 per month.

Pug 107, 20 shifts per month, at say £5 fuel per shift, = £100 + £185 leasing charge, total cost per month £285. Therefore £85 per month worse off. Even if the 107 used no fuel whatsoever you would only save £15 per month.

...can't see how you're ever going to save any money by doing this. Ok you will save wear & tear on the vRS but...

Just drive the vRS slower!

Ten quid for 15 miles is about 10mpg which suggests your figures are wrong or your car is broken. Or you don't change gear.......

Ten quid for 15 miles is about 10mpg which suggests your figures are wrong or your car is broken. Or you don't change gear.......

+1

It's actually quite hard to get less than 10mpg.

I would suggest a three cylinder non-turbo VAG machine.

We use a 1.2 HTP for those very short journeys. It warms up within the mile and is probably doing its mid-40s MPG after that first mile or so.

The two vRSs we have, a TSi Octavia and 1.4 twin charge Fabia look like the take 4 to 5 miles to get up to temperature and doing good mpg. Diesels, from what people have said and my experience with numerous VAG 105 and 140 hp diesels took another mile or two longer than the petrol to get up to proper temperature ie oil and all and therefore would be about half of the book/normal urban fuel consumption ie twenties/thirties.

Horses for course.Yes it takes some adapting changing between cars that have 60hp, 180hp and 200hp , manual, DSG but hey , a bit of variety!

Edited 28 April, 201214 yr by lol

ok yeah maybe so, i reset the trip meter tonight and i do about 30 mile but i am doing about 8-9 cold starts and not going for each trip, not enough to warm it up enough to keep warm.

I hate driving a cold engine at the best of times, never mind time and time again every day.

If you want a small cheap car to use for work to save abusing the Octavia with the short trips then by all means go for it, but dont go into it thinking it`ll save you any money, JAF or not your still paying two lots of tax, insurance, fuel etc etc so it`ll take a huge amount of fuel being used in the octavia before it becomes a cost saving exercise.

+1

It's actually quite hard to get less than 10mpg.

My neighbour just had is M3 serviced. The computer said he had never pressed the "M" button or driving aggressively so why did he had an M3.

He was so offended he cained it, prssed the M button, emptied the tank in 120 miles and therefore did about 11 mpg. Stints of 140 mph. He has decided to go and get a 335D. He should try the M5 first, much more economical!

My TSI VRS was doing about 10 mpg between Liverpool and Manchester a couple of nights ago, took me two hours crawling in city traffic, bring on the hybrid version please!

Wow iv just worked out something rather interesting;

Running Cost of Octy per year (estimate)

Fuel £1920 (based on 2 tanks a month @ £80 per tank)

Insurance £1200

Servicing/MOT-£125

Tax- £170

Total; £3415

Running costs of 107

12 months @ £187 - £2244

Fuel- at 2 tanks per month (35 ltr tank) x12 - £1200

Total; £3,444

£29 more then the Octavia..like i said that is an estimate on the fuel for the 107 (could be less then two tanks a month) and estimate on the insurance for the Octy (could be less)

It use to be very much warned against not getting a car up to operating temperature as it use to rot the exhaust due to carbonic and sulphuric acid biulding up in the exhaust through intermediate temperatures. Happens less these days with low sulphur fuel.

Shame Skoda's 1.2 HTPs and 1.2 TSIs are not under 120 grams CO2 per kilometer. Skoda/VAG should have really achieved this after several years in the 120-130 gm CO2/ Km. Perhaps soon.

Edited 28 April, 201214 yr by lol

Wow iv just worked out something rather interesting;

Running Cost of Octy per year (estimate)

Fuel £1920 (based on 2 tanks a month @ £80 per tank)

Insurance £1200

Servicing/MOT-£125

Tax- £170

Total; £3415

Running costs of 107

12 months @ £187 - £2244

Fuel- at 2 tanks per month (35 ltr tank) x12 - £1200

Total; £3,444

£29 more then the Octavia..like i said that is an estimate on the fuel for the 107 (could be less then two tanks a month) and estimate on the insurance for the Octy (could be less)

But that also includes buying/leasing a brand new car. If your looking to save money then dont do it. If your looking to save the octy and want a cheap run a round then go for it. But tbh I would probably look and buying an old 107 or similar, should work out cheaper plus then you can sell it on when your finished with it.

Ok someone tell me if im missing something here;

Apparently the 107 will do 61mpg round (thats most likely bull and it will be less then that) So 61 miles to the gallon, the 107 has a 7.6 gallon tank = 509 miles per tank

Octavia does about 35mpg round town, working out to 423 miles per tank if constantly driven at 35mpg, yes that is less then the 107, only by 86 miles but for an engine with 140bhp more and effectively not a tin can...i think i can live with that?

The one thing that im doing wrong is im not able to get an accurate reading for the ltrs of fuel i burn at work, as i use the car for other things and i know these tanks are unproportional (the needle will fall quicker in some places then other) so after all maybe my diesel is not doing too bad i just think it is :think:

Ok someone tell me if im missing something here;

Apparently the 107 will do 61mpg round (thats most likely bull and it will be less then that) So 61 miles to the gallon, the 107 has a 7.6 gallon tank = 509 miles per tank

7.6 gallan tank at 61mpg = 463.6 miles

One thing that hasn't been mentioned. Does the Just add fuel insurance cover you for business use?

ok yeah maybe so, i reset the trip meter tonight and i do about 30 mile but i am doing about 8-9 cold starts and not going for each trip, not enough to warm it up enough to keep warm.

I hate driving a cold engine at the best of times, never mind time and time again every day.

The engine & oil won't be completely cooling down each time so you won't really be doing a true cold start every time. A big old cast iron diesel engine block retains heat for ages after the engine is switched off, even if its not enough to register on the temp gauge.

This sort of treatment doesn't tend to harm diesels as much as it would a petrol engine. The only issue may be the DPF, but get that removed and end of problem :-)

some of the calculations above explain the (fairly) obvious - you are highly unlikely to same money by spending it!!!

Fuel is expensive and we notice it as it come out of our pocket every week, but it still actually a small part of the cost of running a car - depreciation is by far the biggest cost.

I pay about 12p a mile for fuel. Fuel costs for 60000 mile = £7200

Depreciation over 3 years will probably cost me £10-12,000.

add servicing, insurance, tyres etc.

By all means buy a cheaper car to run - but running 2 cars will not save you money

No i kinda came the realisation that id need to get rid of the Octy if i planned to get the 107 but turns out id be spending more on the pug to run per month then i would the octy. As if i was going to get rid of the Octy id buy a little couple hundred quid project car (205 GTi ) so at least id still have something nice and work on that in my free time ect then run the 107 for work

Depending on if you have a lot of kit to transport, and how far spaced your calls are have you considered something like a little 50cc step through ??

10-15 miles a shift sounds like it might actually be worth your while looking at something left field like the Renault Twizy. If you've got somewhere to charge it.

Edited 30 April, 201214 yr by Aspman

Depending on if you have a lot of kit to transport, and how far spaced your calls are have you considered something like a little 50cc step through ??

10-15 miles a shift sounds like it might actually be worth your while looking at something left field like the Renault Twizy. If you've got somewhere to charge it.

Id rather crawl to each client then get a 50cc step through and id rather not have a job at all then get an electric car! A little city car is as far as i would go to save money, im not about to turn stupid. Done the maths and its going to cost me considerably more to get this 107 then run the Octy but i will see how things pan out

Could you not find an older second hand Citroen C1? It was identical, but cheaper to buy compared to the 107 and Aygo.