Need new used car advice

[CelticAngel82]

the VE./Omegas are great for giants. Despite teh short run of issues our omega had at the start of the year, mechanically it's great. wonderful on fuel too.
car load of people/**** driving from Cairns to Brisbane, took us a tank and a bit.

[Artful-dodgeR]

Don't they have like a 75L tank though? ~90L from cairns to brisbane... 5L/100kms is actually decent. I've got a new Cruze (1.4 turbo) and it only gets ~4L/100kms doing highway stuff on cruise control.

As for a $10k car... Yeah, there's a shitload of them.

My question back to Mellie is what percentage of highway/city will you be doing? Stop/start traffic in the larger cars will drain your wallet quite fast.

[peber]

Seeing as so many are Commodore's I guess it's all much of a muchness which I pick?

That can depend...
A couple of things to check for (depending on the KMs):
*Noisy power steering pump (listen for any unusual whine when you turn lock to lock whilst stationary or at very low speed).
*Slipping gearbox bands (assuming an auto here) - a good way to check is to smell the transmission oil. If it has a burned smell, run like hell
*Any shakes or rattles in the drive train that indicate the car may have had a hard life. Diff lash is a good indicator.

Commodores (post ~VT series) are all pretty solid so you should be fine if you weed out the thrashed ones (like every car!)

[ashman1991]

but if the subie aircon is borked.... get it checked or your not doing it right...

Oh I didn't mean mine is ****. Mine's great (so was the air con in my Liberty before). I was basing my reference off my girlfriends bog standard Honda Jazz.

But I guess some air con is better than none...

[peber]

I was basing my reference off my girlfriends bog standard Honda Jazz.

I'd say that's a reflection on the aircon system rather than the engine then.
Does it need a re-gas? She might have a leak somewhere. You can get a dye put in the gas which shows up under UV... quite useful for finding leaks

[DarkMellie]

My question back to Mellie is what percentage of highway/city will you be doing? Stop/start traffic in the larger cars will drain your wallet quite fast.

Well I live in Launceston so there's 6, maybe 7 traffic lights between my house in an outer suburb and my work parking space in town. Highly unlikely that I'll be going further afield than Launceston.


Have gone with the Magna, subject to a mechanical inspection and a test-drive. For the $8k that offers, I have plenty left over for the 5 year warranty, stamp duty and insurance. Insurance is lol, I'm 34 but as this will be my first car and I don't even have provisional plates, it's $1200 a year.

[Artful-dodgeR]

Forgot you were a Launceston DB monkey

The V6's will suit you just fine then.

[xkrewshe8]

I myself am a Holden boy and love the VE (Have a series 1 VE SS), so I think they are fine and fairly easy to locate cheap parts for labour etc.

However, when I went with the other half looking at cars for her, I was VERY surprised at just how much room the Hyundai I30 had, for a small car it is actually super roomy inside and will be super good on petrol so good economy wise.

Should be able to snap a second hand one for around the 10K mark if you shop around. At the end of the day though it comes down to what you like after test driving them and what shape and model takes your fancy really.

[Agent_Dark]

I had a 96 magna and possibly things got better, but it was a pain to drive.

Turning point was really bad, the car was huge, making it a pain to park pretty much anywhere (unless you like to ding cars on each side) and it was easily hitting 12-14L per 100k.

Now if you're happy with them....

Nah, they must have changed a heap. I'm driving a '99 V6 manual Magna and it drives a treat. Keeps under 10L/100km too

[Jeatalong]

I have a 2002 Magna sports, manual, it's great, almost about to hit 100k km on the clock with it.

It's only very recently gotten to the stage that I would get a Falcon or Commodore over this car.

As for hatch backs for the missus, the i30 diesel and 3 are very popular for a reason.

[Bato]

I had a 96 magna and possibly things got better, but it was a pain to drive.

Turning point was really bad, the car was huge, making it a pain to park pretty much anywhere (unless you like to ding cars on each side) and it was easily hitting 12-14L per 100k.

Now if you're happy with them....

Nah, they must have changed a heap. I'm driving a '99 V6 manual Magna and it drives a treat. Keeps under 10L/100km too

Was that the 3L engine tho?

[DarkMellie]

Necro update.

I bought a car! I had three cars checked by the RACT in the end ($700 worth of testing) and the first two had all sorts of engine troubles despite the car salesman's "you won't find anything wrong with this" assertions.

The first was a Mitsubishi Magna which had water in the oil, gearbox issues and more. The secon was a VX commodore or something? They sell for $24k used but this one was $8k with 290k on the clock.. thinking the motor might still be sweet (because by christ was it nice inside) I had it tested... abysmal failure.

With great trepidation I found another commodore at another dealer with just 130k on the clock, had it tested and the report showed no engine problems! Evidence of major panel repair and three stored faults in the computer, needed a wheel balance and the middle-back seatbelt wasn't routed through the seat properly... all of that's been fixed and $8900 later I'm the owner of this baby...

A 2005 Holden Acclaim, 6 cylinder auto (with rego good to september and new tyres)...





I found it through carsales.com.au so I think I can recommend that based on my limited experience.

So happy!