1 litre car and long journeys

jennyrusks

Hello,

I'm looking for some advice. I'm getting a new car (used, but new to me) and am thinking of a Toyota Yaris or a Kia Picanto - both come in 1 litre versions and I was wondering if that engine could stand up to an 80 mile round trip 4 days a week?

Am I hoping for too much from a small car? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks for your help.

Jennifer

Eoin

I think that adds up to about 17-18000 miles a year. Not too sure, but that could be quite a lot of mileage for a 1 litre car. It may be more economical (apart from the insurance) to go for a car around the 1.4 litre mark.

seamus

It's a lot of mileage for the car. It could certainly take it, but you'd want to be opening the bonnet and doing the usual checks every 3 days, and scheduling very regular servicing.

If your trip is 80 miles, then it sounds like you can't really afford to have the vehicle out of commission regularly, or for very long, so you may be better off with a bigger car that won't need to go to the garage every three months.

Gurgle

jennyrusks wrote:

Am I hoping for too much from a small car?

Em, no, thats what they're for.
You can do more mileage than that on a 125cc air cooled single cylinder bike.

If you're considering something bigger, don't forget it will cost much more in petrol, road tax, insurance and servicing.

If your doing a lot of mileage on decent roads and not carrying heavy cargo, then the smaller the car is the more miles per euro you will get.

Headleylamarr

The Yaris would be well able for it, as would the Kia probably, but Toyota are proven to build quality motors these days.

As said though its a lot of mileage. Something most people don't do, and it make a huge difference, is to give the car ample time to come up to working temperature from a cold start. Its no myth that most friction occurs when the bores are cold, and although there has been huge advances in oils and even engine materials, this will always be a factor.

On most cars, 2 to 2.5k rpm is more then enough to make progress while you're warming your engine...

After that regular service and consciensious ownership should see you motoring reliably and without undue cost...

fletch

Agreed it may be more economical & more comfortable to go for a slightly bigger engined car. The 1ltr is going to be more strained trying to cruise at 60-75mph & will use more petrol than a 1.4 or 1.6ltr would at that speed.
In saying that though, if insurance is a big issue & you need a 1ltr, a modern engine should be more than capable once maintained properly

edmund_f

i did not think the smaller engined cars would be suitable long distance commuter cars. Although 80 miles is not much of a strain on a modren engine, i would assume that the larger engines would be under less pressure at crusing speed. Personally if i was doing an 80 mile round trip everyday i would like to have the largest car i could afford under me. The Kia's have 3 yr servicing with them?. Have been told that the Rio is basically a Mazada 3?

another option would be to go for an older diesel car, perhaps a VW vento?

bp_me

The yaris will do the job quite nicely, however I personally would prefer something a little larger if I was commuting - simply to have more bonnet in front of me.

D

Headleylamarr wrote:

The Yaris would be well able for it, as would the Kia probably, but Toyota are proven to build quality motors these days.

As said though its a lot of mileage. Something most people don't do, and it make a huge difference, is to give the car ample time to come up to working temperature from a cold start. Its no myth that most friction occurs when the bores are cold, and although there has been huge advances in oils and even engine materials, this will always be a factor.

On most cars, 2 to 2.5k rpm is more then enough to make progress while you're warming your engine...

After that regular service and consciensious ownership should see you motoring reliably and without undue cost...

Are you saying that till you get the temp up you should keep the revs below 2K?

sandyg

This time last year i bought a new fiat panda 1.1. At present there is just over 15,500 miles on it. Three days a week i take the car to dublin from dundalk and find there are no probs with it on the journey (roughly 58 miles each way). It costs me €27 to fill it and get approx 310 miles - depending on how far i put the foot to the floor!!!

Headleylamarr

D wrote:

Are you saying that till you get the temp up you should keep the revs below 2K?

Not necessarily 2k, just low

Oh and that thing of a smaller engine will use more fuel is rubbish - most cars these days are geared to do motorway speeds in and around 3k rpm...

A 1.4 doing 3k rpm is obviously going to use more fuel then a 1.0 doing 3k rpm

Chris P Duck

I have a 1ltr vw polo and do 80 miles a day, 5 days a week. There are 115 miles on the clock and I havent had a problem yet. It aint that hard on fuel either. $35 usually does me for the week and that includes driving at the weekend

Chris P Duck

The $ is suppose to be a €

lomb

for safety sake, i would buy a car in the next class up. say the corolla or golf/focus.

Alun

lomb wrote:

for safety sake, i would buy a car in the next class up. say the corolla or golf/focus.

The Corolla, Golf IV and Mk I Focus all have the same NCAP rating (4-stars) as the Toyota Yaris. With cars, bigger and heavier does not always equate to safer, despite what many (4WD purchasing) people may think.

lomb

i wouldnt go by ncap ratings, i am talking dynamic safety. no one ever talks of this. the next class up handles 'unpredicatable manuevers' and icy roads much better than going backwards thru a hedge in a yaris.

mike65

Buy a diesel, more oomph in the mid-range so more relaxing, more likely to start every morning as the miles mount up, more frugal in all circumstances.

Think about something with a 1.4/1.5 engine. (Citroen Saxo/Pug 106)

Mike.

Alun

lomb wrote:

i wouldnt go by ncap ratings, i am talking dynamic safety. no one ever talks of this.

Well go on then here's your chance ... please explain. I'm all ears. And what's all this crap about hedges?

Headleylamarr

Generally a car with a smaller wheelbase will be nimbler... dare I say more dynamic

Lets compare the Golf IV to the Yaris. I've driven both. For its relatively small increase in size its a heavy auld machine over the Yaris and its fairly soft with regards body roll. Now I'm a big golf fan (having owned a Mk2, Mk3, Mk4 and driven the Mk5) and I wouldn't be too quick to make a call on which has the better suspension when you're talking pure road holding but I'd have to bank on the Yaris being quicker to respond in an emergency situation - if someone were to press me on it.

(I should clarify that when I was talking road holding suspension I was still only comparing the IV Golf... the Mk2 or Mk3 - even in non GTi form both had beautiful chassis and driven by a tuned in pilot would be formidable in a standard production car head to head)

Headleylamarr

But maybe you are better off buying a second hand something bigger...

My sister just bought a 60k mile '97 Golf CL Mk3. Its a 1.4, metallic paint, power steering, leccy windows and sunroof, alloys, factory fog lamps and a nice stereo. Its got nigh on 2 years NCT remaining. She had it serviced straight away and the Main Dealer said most '00 cars that roll in are in worse nick. Bar some scuffs outside its mint. That cost her €4,200.

And it'll most likely be still running fine when it has 230k miles on it like a pals has, or the 195k miles my 1.6 had when I sold it to a happy chap who drove away with a smile...

Anyway shes 24 and got her first insurance policy last week for something like €1200. Tax on that will be €278 a year.

Alun

I drive my wife's 1.0 ltr Yaris quite regularly, and I have to agree. It's a great little car, highly 'chuckable' through the windy stuff, with my only complaint that it's a tad underpowered in the higher gears and a bit noisy at motorway speeds, but apart from that I've no complaints, and I feel perfectly safe in it. Safety wise, it's a newish one so also has ABS and EBD as standard, along with front and the optional side seat airbags.

BrianD3

Alun wrote:

The Corolla, Golf IV and Mk I Focus all have the same NCAP rating (4-stars) as the Toyota Yaris. With cars, bigger and heavier does not always equate to saferthink.

Not always, but usually. You can't really compare NCAP ratings from cars in different weight classes (i.e Yaris and Corolla) You could probably compare side impact ratings but definitely not the head-on impact ratings.

So A 4 star Corolla is safer than a 4 star Yaris. A 5 star Renault Vel Satis is substantially safer than a 5 star Renault Modus. Clever engineering can only do so much to offset the laws of physics.

BrianD3

camarobill

my sister has a yaris,there a great car all round,dont think there cheap dow

Praetorian

You could consider the bigger engine Yaris (is it a 1.2 / 1.3?). They are fairly nippy. I learned to drive in one, and they are definitely happy enough cruising at 120 kph.

For safety though, I'm a hell of a lot more comfortable in my heavy mk4 golf. I don't care what ncap bullshít is going around.

Alun

Surely a 4 star Corolla is only safer than a 4 star Yaris if it's involved in a collision with something smaller than itself. The NCAP category of cars that includes the Yaris also includes some heavier cars like the Fiesta, Clio and Polo, and the frontal impact tests are supposed to simulate a collision with a car in the same class.

The problem with the 'bigger is safer' credo is that you then end up with the situation where people buy bigger and bigger cars thus resulting in a total situation that is no safer than it was when everybody drove small cars.

Anyway, safety, like sex, is 99% between the ears

BrianD3

Alun wrote:

Surely a 4 star Corolla is only safer than a 4 star Yaris if it's involved in a collision with something smaller than itself. The NCAP category of cars that includes the Yaris also includes some heavier cars like the Fiesta, Clio and Polo, and the frontal impact tests are supposed to simulate a collision with a car in the same class.

Put simply - if you're in Corolla and collide with another vehicle you're going to be slightly safer than if you were in a Yaris which collided with the same vehicle. The Corolla will be safer no matter what weight the other vehicle is. However if the Corolla hits another Corolla and the Yaris hits another Yaris the the results will be similar. Likewise, if the Yaris and Corolla both hit an immovable concrete post, the results will be similar.

The problem with the 'bigger is safer' credo is that you then end up with the situation where people buy bigger and bigger cars thus resulting in a total situation that is no safer than it was when everybody drove small cars.

Agree completely. However, you're always going to have a situation where there is a mix of different sized vehicles on the road. People don't buy big cars solely on the basis of safety, they buy them because they need the space, power etc. If everyone drove around in light, strong cars like the SMART the roads would be a safer place, never going to happen though.

BrianD3

ds20prefecture

Hi - I did 55000miles in 1.0 Seat Ibiza - mix of city and country driving. Never missed a beat, never felt underpowered or unsafe. Modern 1.0 engines deliver between 60 and 70bhp which is absolutely perfect for typical Irish roads. If you have all motorway, you'll very occasionally miss an extra 100bhp when you want to overtake some fool in a truck doing 130kmh but other than that it really won't bother you. You'll appreciate the lower tax, insurance and petrol bills.

Personally, I would buy a 1.2 diesel Panda, which is a grand cheaper than the 5 door Yaris, but a lot more spacious, more powerful, more economical and better equipped.
http://www.cbg.ie/new_car_detail.asp?ID=2376&frmFilter=All
The issue is that it would lose value a bit faster (possibly off-set by the diesel) and would cost you more on tax. Insurance is probably the same.

I am assuming, of course, that you are buying new. If not, then the Yaris is an excellent choice.

green-blood

oh bloody hell... at a guess I'd say he is limited by cash and insurance. 80 miles is nothing, its drogheda/newbridge to dublin round trip, done every day by plenty of binnies in 1 ltr micra/yaris/saxo etc... you wont even notice the fuel, there is no appreciable road/engine noise problems at legal speeds in any of the cars you mention. Go with the toyota over the kia if ya can, the quality defo shows. A mate who lives in Leitrim makes regular trips to dublin for work and back every week in a yaris 1ltr, has done for 3 years with no probs whatsoever

meanwhile.. "Have been told that the Rio is basically a Mazda3"... well dont bleieve what you get told because thats bull - the mazda 3/volvoS40 and Focus II are all on basically the same platform. Kia may well have acquired running gear from the last generation Mazda 323, I dunno, but not the 3..uh uh, no way siree.

RicardoSmith

I used to do a daily 100 mile round trip across the Dublin Mountains in 1.0 Micra. It was fine and I had no problems, other than a stone which cracked the windscreen. Most comfortable cruising at 60. Once you get to know the road you have no problems overtaking. Once you know your own and the cars limits. The Micra 1.0 is quite nippy. Though I'm quite happy to cruise at 50-55 or pull in for a break if its looks like too much effort to pass a moving roadblock. Quite funny watching people in more powerful cars trying to keep up if they didn't know the road that well.

Thats said I'd have preferred a bigger car, but the Micra was fine. A bigger car is a bit more stable on the road at higher speeds, and more forgiving. A small car is for trundling about the city. Not long distance commutes. I drive quite economically, with lttle braking, and at a constant speed as much as possible. I don't do much hard braking or accelerating. So I got good fuel economy on my commute. Work somewhere else now.

It was me I'd go for a good make. Toyota, Nissan, or Honda.

jennyrusks

Wow, thanks very much everyone for replying. Lots of helpful replies there.

Jennifer

yellow012

If I were you i would avoid a 1 litre car, doing that type of mileage every week in a car of that size and with that type of power would be miserable. Also when you spend that amount of time on the roads, safety is a big consideration. There was an article in one of the papers over the weekend that showed there has been a big increase in serious motoring accident injuries in the UK due to the types of cars British motorists are now buying . Because of the popularity of SUV's, MPV and superminis and because there are less Mondeo/Vectra type cars being sold there are a lot more accidents on the roads between vehicles of very different sizes and the people in the smaller vehicles are coming off worse. IMHO a good compromise for you would be a Skoda Fabia 1.4/Polo 1.2/Corolla 1.4. Anyway whatever you buy best of luck with it.