[quote=“itakitez”]ahhh… it may be hyundai, but its beautiful looking 
Re budget,
I pretty much figured out the same, so we have set our budget at 50-80k, any less and you may as well pick up a free car from somewhere (more easily done than it at first seems, you wont get what you want, but in our case we just want some wheels)
Without trying to sound like a repost, what are reasonable running fees? We have a free parking space at home, so just tax, fuel and maintenance, I am currently guessing around 8-10k per month?
So on a more serious note,
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is a hyundai just going to be a brick? (money trap or whatever your preferred expression) I’d quite like a fun car since we’re still pre-rugrats so it would only be a 2-3 year commitment before sending for scrap - but I don’t want 2-3 years of being late for work and waiting for tow trucks… I would still get in touch with sulvaca and get the pre-buy checks - or is that really just gonna be an all round waste of time?
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is an 8-10yo march (or equiv, civic…) going to be any cheaper anyway? :ohreally:
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what’s the gig with nissan being slagged for all their cars, except the march - did they just magically pull out one great mechanically sound car and the rest are sh*te, or the others are just a march with longer bodies? ie, nissans are reliable but only a taxi driver should consider them[/quote]
Nissans are fine, in fact any car is fine as long as you accept it for what it is. As I mentioned somewhere else Nissan has a different market tactic than Toyota but they tend to be compared with each other all the time and then the Nissan comes off worse. Its not that its a worse car though, just a different product for a differing range of expectations/requirements.
A Toyota Camry vs a Nissan Bluebird/Teana/Cefiro for example. The Toyota will be more reliable, will retain its value better and may be more desirable after a few years. The Nissan wasn’t expected to be as reliable as the Toyota, but that’s also because price for price the Nissan will usually come with a plethora of extras that the Toyota won’t come with. Its very difficult indeed to find a reasonably reliable car with as many extras and options as a Nissan without being enourmously more expensive.
The last Nissan Cefiro is one of my personal favorite used cars, but I wouldn’t recommend one to anyone else. I love them because they have heated seats, video screens, a quieter cabin than a Rolls Royce of the same age, a V6 engine, massage chairs, supple albeint squishy suspension. I like them because I can fix them myself. For me they aren’t a hastle and they’re dirt cheap to purchase and repair. I wouldn’t have purchased a new one however as they didn’t retain their value as well as a Toyota.
I purchased a new Toyota Prius two years ago and two years later it has only lost approx 20% of its value. Sure its fucking expensive in parts, but its reliable enough that it doesn’t need any. I replaced a wing mirror that was smashed off by a hit and run artist the other day and it cost a whopping 2,600nt. 4 plastic wheel caps are 8,000nt! Go figure! For the person who wants luxury in a reasonably reliable car at low, low cost then get a Cefiro.
Nissan March:
No it may not be as reliable as other, newer small hatches, but its dirt, dirt cheap to fix and all in all will work out far cheaper to run and insure than an alternative in my opinion. It is realible enough to use and not worry about though, which is the important thing. We are comparing Japanese cars remember and they tend to be more reliable than any other country’s car in the first place, so we are splitting hairs somewhat.
The Hyundai you pictured and the one linked to in a later post are two different cars. The later link was to the most recent Hyundai Coupe, so that will be a very different car. Also for more acurate ideas of reliability you may research the “JD Power Survey” available on the BBC Top Gear site. The JD survey takes into acount cars of an older age and provides owners satisfaction ratings which are more valuable than journalist’s ratings. Journalists reporting on reliability are usually way off base as they don’t actually run those cars themselves and usually only report on new vehicles.
Later Hyundais have improved in their ratings over the years and may not be as bad as they once were, but if you are going to be driving a white goods car, then you may as well have one with all the trimmings in my mind or at least the very cheapest or most reliable one and in that case, the Hyundai in my honest opinion is none of the fore mentioned and is also rather impractical, which is why its so cheap. The March is cheap becuase Nissans always drop in value quickly and besides the better March has been in production since Adam and Eve, so there are so many to choose from. The more there are, the cheaper they become.
[quote=“itakitez”]
5. Regarding all the above, if I end up with an 8yo car and maintenance is through the roof… would you (anyone) advise just popping down to toyota dealership and trying to get a 4yo camry or whatever with car loan?
thanks for any advice[/quote]
If I were just looking for a cheap beater to drive around, then I’d either go for a March or an old Toyota. I’ve found plenty of relatively low mileage albeit old Camrys, Coronas etc for around 50,000 which still have years of life in them.
As far as running costs:
- Basic insurance perhaps around 10,000 per year.(very approximate)
- Tax around 20,000 (Many brackets exist however)
- Parking in Taipei city anywhere from 3~6 thousand per month for underground parking with a guard.
I don’t know if that helps.
:bravo: