Best cheap modern car

M

Meglomaniac

538
I have just come back from my holies in South wales and while we were there we hired out a Ford Focus 1.6i zetec, ok maybe not the most powerful of cars but good enough to drive to the beaches, cinema and stuff.
And its not so much the performance but the Interior and the cars facilities are fantastic CD player which came in handy for playing slipknot and Rammstein and Climate control etc and it was a really comfortable car, ok i am not a driver i am 15 but from what my parents said about it well my mom at least its alot of fun to drive, so i wonder, how this car would compare to a VW Beetle or a Golf 1.8T GTi i have seen the specs but if anyone owns a car that cost between £10,000 to £15,000 how good is it compared to the Focus.
Specs for Ford focus 2.0 zetec ESP more powerful than 1.6i
Engine-4/1989, 128bhp
0-62mph- 9.3 secs.
max speed-125mph
Price £13,745 this is buying one off a dealer.
So which car do u think is the best within that price range.
 
We're getting the Focus here in a couple of months. My partner and I are bit out of that market now (we run a Subaru Liberty/Legacy, so we're more in that medium sedan market of the Vectra/Mondeo), but I've heard good things about it from a few English friends - should go well here.

I have had a fair bit of experience with the Beetle, and they're rubbish. Don't go, don't handle, poor interior packaging. Rubbish.

I haven't driven the current model Golf but had driven the previous one in 2 litre form, and it was a pretty solid little car - wasn't particularly outstanding in any areas, but did very little wrong - nice interior too.
 
We hired a 1.8 Zetec Focus a year ago, and I can honestly say that it blew me away. I thought the performance was excellent (given its size) and the handling was fantastic. In terms of the interior, it was standard Ford fayre, but well screwed together and free of squeaks. Very impressed.

As for its comparison to the Golf, I haven't driven a Golf, but I have been a passenger in several. Found them to be similar in terms of fit-and-finish to the Focus, and also in equipment levels. However, the 1.6 seemed excessively sluggish, especially compared with a similarly-loaded 1.8 Volvo V40. I think that if you want a Golf, there's only one to go for, and that's the (wait for it) GT TDI PD150, which is a 50mpg flying machine.

Also, have driven a 1.6 Vauxhall Astra, which was competent but uninspiring in any way. Not particularly rapid, but probably quicker than the 1.6 Golf. Hugely prone to understeer too, absolutely no life from the chassis at all. Interior again bog standard Vauxhall issue, which I happen to dislike, but it was fairly solid and with a strong aircon unit.

The Peugeot 206 is really a two-seater car, with absolutely no legroom in the back seat. Also, it's fairly cheap and nasty and with truly objectionable interior trim. Ventilation and aircon are somewhat weak, and the 1.4 engine was completely lacking in torque.

Drove a Renault Megane 1.6 5dr hatch (yet another hire car!), which was nippy and nimble. Renault seem to build cars that are light, or for some other reason punch above their weight. it was a perfectly acceptable machine, although I didn't really detect any real advancement over our current 10-year-old Renault 19.

Also been a passenger in an Audi A3 1.8 Turbo Sport. Liked that quite a lot, although not much room in it for four adults. Quick car though, and - as one would expect - very well screwed together.

I think that's all the cars in that class that I've been in. If I remember any more, I'll be sure to post!
 
I've driven a Focus, and I was relatively unimpressed. It was not really bad, anywhere, but nothing shined to me. I had expected much more involvement when driving. It seemed happy enough to do its job, but not really willing to put in any overtime.

The thing that struck me was how large it was on the outside considering how small it felt on the inside. It also felt kind of heavy.
 
I'll ditto Mazkid. I've heard a lot of good things about the Focus. Unfortunately, quality still seems to be a major issue. There have been an absurd amount of recalls on the things.

You might want to look at the Mazda Protege, too. It's not very high powered, but handles well, is fun to drive, and seems to offer a lot for a fairly low price.
 
The Canadian version of the 1.8T golf was pretty impressive when I drove it. Unfortunately, I don't have a compairison as I have not driven a Focus.
 
Yea the Protege is an exellent car. No problems at all, they are very inexpensive, well built, and they last forever. My grand parents just bought a Protege 5 and pain 18K with all of the options.
 
2 words.....

Geo Metro, cost less than 10g brand new, cant go above 80mph, perfect first car, just not mine :)
 
Originally posted by Sertsa
I'll ditto Mazkid. I've heard a lot of good things about the Focus. Unfortunately, quality still seems to be a major issue. There have been an absurd amount of recalls on the things.

You might want to look at the Mazda Protege, too. It's not very high powered, but handles well, is fun to drive, and seems to offer a lot for a fairly low price.
Click to expand...

I'll ditto the ditto, if only to add a total lack of interior comfort. Is it just me, or are the headrests designed to keep your chin in your chest? I will say it handled okay, (a 1.6 version, I think; some loaner car), and while progessive at the limit, the limit was low and snuck up on you sometimes. Decent brakes, if you forgive that you weren't going fast to begin with.

In sum, it's a well-packaged economy car...for an economy car. I give it a "eh*".
 
Originally posted by Rumple Foreskin
ive always liked the civic.... its reliable
Click to expand...

The old Civic was nice (the one before the new one) but the new one's dash mounted gearbox is horrible in my opinion. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer them on the floor.

And the new mk2 Focus (slightly different front, overall revamp, same price) has just won reliability award.

You can't go wrong with a Focus, and Insurance is a doddle (group 5 for a 1.6 or 1.8TD LX)
 
while looking through all the cars on Topgear i found engines in some car manufacturers to be even smaller than 0.9i infact can u imagine a car called an Aixam with a minute little 400cc 5 bhp 2cylinder top speed 28mph, it was enough to almost make me sick though, it was i guess a very small very cheap but not modern car.
But enough of that, i do agree that the civic is a great car to drive and is recommended by top gear.
By the way did anyone watch Clarkson- full throttle on UK horizons? It was great, its on Saturday at 7:00pm UK Horizons, its just to get a good look at heavily beefed up cars.
Ok so if all these small cars are decent what is the new mini like compared to the Beetle, surely the mini is the better of the two what do you think.
I have also heard that the new Vauxhall vectra sucks big time!
 
Yes the new Vauxhall Vectra sucks onions.

The mini is really another 2 seater. it may look reasonably roomy on the outside, but by some sort of bad designing, it's actually got LESS legroom than the old mini apparently.

I've got Jeremy Clarcksons "Full Throttle" on video. It ROCKS!('specially that Capri)
 
Hooligan, I don't know what you mean by the headrest deal...normally they aren't like that. Also you should try the ES 2.0, they are faster and drive better...
 
Originally posted by MazKid
Hooligan, I don't know what you mean by the headrest deal...normally they aren't like that. Also you should try the ES 2.0, they are faster and drive better...
Click to expand...

I should forward this by saying the Focus wasn't mine by choice. But in the three weeks it was loaned to me, I could not figure out how to tilt the headrests to something more sensible. I even checked out other Focus' and saw that they're all the same. People seem to just extend them all the way up, where it just touches the top of their heads. But I still want to try an SVT, and actually look forward to seeing the RS.
 
That's a good shout actually. The Bora's a great looking car. Do they do it with the 150bhp diesel?
 
Originally posted by alexy2k
I think the engines are pretty much the same as in the Golf?
Yep there's a 150 bhp version but your looking at £17,550 compared to £13,825 for 100bhp :2cents:

Were you thinkin of getting one GG?
Click to expand...

Ha ha! No, I'm still virtually uninsurable, but for a while it was looking like I was going to get a company car, in which case it would definitely be worth looking at.

£3.5k for 50bhp? Sounds like a bargain to me!! :)
 
Ok the focuses highest engine range is 2.0 170st i think with a top speed of 135 and 0-60mph in 8.0 seconds, which is pretty good, although it may be quite costly.

I have just met a person who reckons that all of VW's cars are the best ever made, ok he is only 10 but i smashed his face in for saying that, VW i think make some revolting cars like the old beetle, and new beetle, and what were they thinking when they built that lupo,( no offence to owners). His dad has an old passat estate which i think sucks, i told him why don't you take an interest in some manufactures like mini, ferrari, BMW, mercedes, Audi, chrysler, and chevrolet, but nooo he said that he liked citroen better, i was almost sick. He thought he knew everything, but half the stuff he said came from his butt, he even said a ferrari F60 existed(I DON'T THINK SO)!!!!

Though i really like golfs, my dad used to have one, but we got rid of it coz our family needed a car with a bit more space, we later got a Porsche 944 3.0 which was awesome!
 

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