[squibby]

Gents,

Having bought my wife an Evoque at her bequest a couple years back I've discerned that she treats it the same way she did her sun damaged bomb of a toyota yaris that was replaced by it. She backs it into post's even though it has sensors and a reverse camera, slams up curbs damaging every wheel in sight, never cleans it or even tidies the loose rubbish out of it, parks it where other dickheads can open their doors, reverse into, or otherwise chip the paintwork, split the front bumper or otherwise. She gets angry if I ask why she wasn't using the rear view camera when she backed into that invisible post.

Besides the above, it fumigates me every time I start it up and uses tonnes of fuel (which I have to pay for), and the interior lights turn on and off by themselves all of the time. It is however, a nice car, nice to drive, suprisingly tough under the skin, I can see at least a little Range Rover DNA shining though, it's not ALL Victoria Beckham.

Anyway, that thing is doomed. I'm getting a Diesel Grand Vitara or a Diesel Subaru Forester. I remember the good times I had on Fraser in a suzuki. Salt water, scratches, dings, nobody cared it was great fun.

What do you reckon is the best out of the two vehicles quoted? The boxer subaru wins out in my mind so far, although, I imagine not as much cop offroad.

[Gwagensteve]

nOt SuRe iF sRs?

I would run a mile from all three but of the options offered, keep the Evoque would be number 1, with the forester a distant third.

[Brenno]

Is neither an option...

[squibby]

. The key point though is - the Evoque is going.

Help me find an alternative, roughly about half the value @ 10K - 13K, that sips the diesel and can still do fraser if it has to.

[watermouse]

what about a beat up Evoque?

[Gwagensteve]

I'd like a unicorn too but you're going to have to settle on some compromise.

Surely you've been around this site long enough to know the diesel NGV is a massive lemon? Ten years ago they were an unreliable mess and on the verge of being mechanical write off once all the dash lights came on. I can't imagine they've magically become reliable.

I don't know much about the Subaru diesel but considering pretty much every petrol subaru has the engine out at some stage in the first 5 years of its life It doesn't bode well for the diesel.

[squibby]

Good info. So they are both rubbish. That's the sort of input I require.

[Brenno]

Pajero? 3.2td, reliable, fairly good offroad, can tow, drive better than most big 4wds, 10l/100..

[squibby]

Bit hefty on the fuel. Looking for 6-7l per 100...

[Brenno]

You won't get that in your options, in saying that Tassie fuel economy is much worse than mainland due to the hills, so maybe you can. Paj can be in the 7s on highway

[shep]

I stopped buying diesels because the small savings in fuel don’t make up for the high service costs mixed with DPFs and all the other crap that has chocked a modern diesel.

Even my overloaded brick shaped Jeep gets 10.5L/100 on the highway and is $50 for a service

[squibby]

I just drove a 2.0 four cylinder BMW diesel for 6 months in the UK. The fuel economy was unbelievable. The DPF did indeed throw an engine code that was fixed via telling it a lie that the DPF had been replaced, when actually we just cleaned it out. So I get your point, although, I disagree. We drove from UK portugal on less than three tanks of fuel and averaged 1100km on a 60litre tank. this one journey saved more on fuel than the cost of cleaning the DPF by my maths. The vitara diesel economy is not the best around, but the Forrester is indeed up there with the best of them, assuming they didn't lie too much on the published figures.

[Gwagensteve]

There is little difference between diesel and petrol fuel economy now, like for like. with direct injection petrol engines can run as lean as diesels under light throttle, which was where diesel had the advantage. Diesels run lean produce high Nox, which is why Diesel is being legislated out of existence for passenger vehicles. The cost and complexity of Nox scrubbers and DPF/urea etc renders modern diesels costly and unreliable to own.

I don't really get what's going on here. By all accounts you own a car you're fairly happy with.

The reasons you're giving for selling, which appear to be spite and poor fuel economy don't make any sense. The depreciation you'll cop would pay for many, many tanks of fuel. The difference between the economy of anything you'll buy vs the loss you'll incur on a sale would probably pay for multiple years of driving. The difference in value of a slightly scruffy car vs clean car, all other things being equal, isn't that great. Sure it might feel like you've made a mistake buying the Evoque, but don't compound the mistake by buying something else that's also not well suited to the job.

That's assuming the car you replace it with is A) really as economical as you hope it to be, B) can do the job and C) is reliable.

A 11-13K small, late model diesel SUV that's Fraser island capable is going to be a ticking time bomb of very costly repair.

Rose coloured glasses are a powerful force, but the cars you're nominating are a whole generation (or two) along from even a jellybean GV. They're lighter duty, endlessly more complex, and much more expensive to repair. I wouldn't take any of the current crop of small SUV's anywhere near Fraser Island.

[squibby]

Really?

I just did the maths to do 1000kms around town cost's me $249 in an evoque running 95 RON (manual specifies 98RON). In the Forrester it'll cost me $165 with diesel.

Everybodies challenges to Diesel fuel economy are very strange when the contrasts in price at the servo is so stark. Not even close. I can only assume it's because you don't know what you are talking about. I expect an unreliable diesel will cost more long term than a reliable petrol though, so I definately take your points on the suburu being a bit crap in your opinion, I will avoid it. I'm not sticking with petrol though. forget that. Need a viable stop gap before I go electric.

[turboguzzi]

saw Forester in the title, so thought it was good time to post at last.... Besides loving my 89' SWB vitara, im a big subaru fan for the last 20 years, we currently own two foresters here, been through two Legacy before, but they all were EJ20, one of the most reliable engines ever.

things started go down hill with the ej25 head gaskets, was pretty bad story. but the subaru diesel has been their biggest ever flop, total disaster, shameful reliability, here in europe it almost destroyed the brand, indeed, not being built anymore.

so avoid any diesel subaru, no matter how cheap it is sold. here they go for half the price of similar year gasoline... IF the engine is still working

[squibby]

turboguzzi wrote:

saw Forester in the title, so thought it was good time to post at last.... Besides loving my 89' SWB vitara, im a big subaru fan for the last 20 years, we currently own two foresters here, been through two Legacy before, but they all were EJ20, one of the most reliable engines ever.

things started go down hill with the ej25 head gaskets, was pretty bad story. but the subaru diesel has been their biggest ever flop, total disaster, shameful reliability, here in europe it almost destroyed the brand, indeed, not being built anymore.

so avoid any diesel subaru, no matter how cheap it is sold. here they go for half the price of similar year gasoline... IF the engine is still working

Thanks, that corroborates the other good advice above from others. There is no smoke without fire I say.

EDIT: interesting anecdote while i was reading up on the EJ20 - commonly used in light aircraft. The suzuki H25A was also used in light aircraft thanks to reliability. Nice.

Anyway, hunt continue maybe I'll just go with a BMW diesel and ditch all hopes of ever going off road.

[Gwagensteve]

*experimental aircraft. Lots of people run all sorts of engines in experimental planes, including a bloke claiming to offer better than 130hp out of a g13 for use in ultralight aircraft but it’s a huge step between there and actual certification.

Flat engines always get the planey people excited though because their 1950’s vintage lycomings are flat* so that’s what they lay in bed dreaming about.

Amongst other things, certified Piston engine aircraft require complete ignition redundancy, i.e twin plug heads and two completely separate ignition systems. Porsche had a twin plug head for their flat 6 and as they were air cooled they were theoretically a very appealing alternative to lycoming. I think the whole idea died during Porsche’s near bankruptcy in the mid 80’s, I don’t think they were ever certified.

*There’s a Bell H-13 Sioux helicopter in the Vietnam veterans museum on Phillip Island, Vic. These run a 6 cylinder lycoming with a frankly massive turbo on external wastegate on it. Because Sioux don’t have any tinwork it’s all on glorious display.