my dad had a 2000 megane hatch, so its pretty much the same car.  never had any problems with it.  he had a 1.6 and it returned good fuel milage, nearly 47mpg infact.  tbh i think as long as its been looked after there is nothing wrong with a renault, plus they are some of the safest cars on the road.  i think a 1.9dci model would be a good choice.  unsure why you dont like the new megane estate, i think it looks quite nice.  its just like the laguna estate but smaller.

We've seen one other possible. A Citreon Berlingo 1.9D Multispace (2001). Again I've read all the reviews and forums and people seem positive.
I've got nowt against French cars, my family have always had Renaults or Peugeots (me being the odd exception) and never had any complaints or problems. The problem is Matt that we have certain criteria and within our budget these are the best options out there. I'm not getting a friggin' Opel after last time and the same goes for BMW! Alas the Audis were quite a bit older than other equal priced cars we looked at (no surprise, they are good!) so that was a none starter.
Also we want something we can sell easily as come the end of summer we might well be moving out of Hungary.

Go for any other car but that Mégane.

It's kind of the "startup eastern european family" car.


Except of course you go for the new one...


Btw: VW Bora/Golf Variant?

ozzy72 wrote on May 5^th, 2007 at 1:06pm:


Well, I am on BMW number five now. Never had a problem with one yet, except today. I had my brain in neutral and did not push the dipstick all the way back in after checking the level. I noticed after a few miles though when I though, what is that smell and waft of smoke coming from under the bonnet. You would be quite surprised at how much oil was expelled into the engine bay from such a small orifice. The biggest problem was finding a garage that would let me pressure wash it all out. Luckily BMW diesels are bullet proof!..............now that is the kiss of death

Matt

Björn wrote on May 5^th, 2007 at 5:39pm:


A Skoda, Björn, he wants to drive it, not push it.

Matt

expat wrote on May 5^th, 2007 at 5:54pm:


I beg to differ, since our Skoda is running extremely well ('06 Fabia)...

WDR 4...how horrible...

We've been discussing it and we'll probably get the Renault. We are going to get brother-in-laws father-in-law to give it a once over as he is a mechanic.
Thanks for all the advice
Ohh and don't knock Skoda. These days they're just VW with a different badge (along with Seat) and damn good cars (they have VW prices here!), and before they were part of VW for over 2 decades they produced some of the worlds most successful 1.3 and 1.6 litre rally cars. I mean 22 years out of 23 on the RAC they won their class in both catagories

Skodas are quite cheap...at least way cheaper than VWs (luxury cars shouldn't be named VW).

Not at all.


I dare to say that the common VW Passat's interior is of a higher quality than the one of so-called "luxury cars" (BMW and Benz).

More experience with plastics?

Then the other week you had Bambi in your car. You know the Greenpeace people will come round your house and break your kneecaps soon Matt. All those dead animals and bits of forestry