Purchase advice, please?

[Rotarski]

Hi guys, I'm currently located in Romania and I'm looking to get a good, reliable Japanese car. I've looked at Mazda, Honda and Toyota and decided Toyota had the better deals so I was wondering, which model should I pick? I don't need a lot of space but I see a baby coming in my near future so I got to have a car prepared for that as well. I'm only interested in petrol engines, around 7000 EURO price, year just a bit over 2010 (so it's labeled as EURO 5), since I'll be using the car in the city with just a few longer trips per year. Are there any issues with any of the models? Any specific aspects I should look at when buying one? What do you think about a 1.8i 147bhp T27 Avensis? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

L.E: I can also look at diesel engines, since these are more common here than petrol engines, are diesel Toyota cars, over 2010, reliable?

[Bper]

Hi Andrei,

If Toyota is the car you want then you have made a very good choice. In my opinion I always think the best way to choose a particular model is to test drive as many different ones as you can. Toyota dealers will be more then happy to allow you do this and that way it will give you and your partner the best options for your budget.

Even if your budget means you will have to look at the private market you will have a far better idea of what models you prefer as you would have test driven a good few.

With a new baby on the way you may want to look at the space in the back for the chair and any potential issues that this may give you amd your partner along with economy etc.

If she can drive it will also give her an idea of how she feels about the safety and drive etc. The best thing about doing this is it gives you both a few options to choose from and remember the best choice you will make will be the one you make yourselves and you can gain a lot of knowledge and fun by doing this.

Hope this helps good luck and let us know what model you decide on.👍

[Rotarski]

Thank you for taking the time to provide your input on this. Official dealers don't often hold cars older than the last generation so I will definitely have to go search for one in the private sectors. I'm not a very picky driver and even though I have my drivers license for two years only, I can drive almost any car. I can get behind any car and almost immediately can adjust my driving. With that being said, I don't think I can afford picking a car by seat position or driving comfort for example but rather based on reliability, gas mileage, maintenance costs and stuff like that, especially when the Japanase cars market here is very little, mainly German cars, as everywhere in this part of Europe. These details can only be learned from owners of such cars. Baby is not in the oven yet :)) but hopefully soon

[paul9]

One of my Romanian friends was surprised and amused that Dacias are so common here in the U.K.

He ended up buying a Peugot 300∞ diesel for his baby, due in July. He is a little disappointed that it isn't a higher emissions standard, but hadn't realised that until after he bought it. I think his is around a 2012 model, my little 2005 Yaris petrol has a better emissions class. 😁

My diesel Avensis was about bulletproof, but I think it was a lower emissions class, 2006 with no DPF and the Toyota engine, the newer models can have the BMW based N47 engine. I had the closely related M47 engine in my Freelander and I didn't think it was as good as the Toyota diesel.

[Cyker]

Toyota diesel engines, esp. the 1.4 D4D, were practically bullet-proof as long as they were looked after i.e. with regular quality oil changes.

That said, I'd not touch a diesel past around 2010 or whenever they started fitting DPFs and DMFs; These two things, the Diesel Particulate Filter and Dual-Mass Flywheel, single-handedly torpedoed the reliability of diesel engines, esp. if driven at lower speeds or gently most of the time, and turned them from being far more reliable and long-lived than petrol engines to far worse.

I think you're right to stick to petrol, although Toyota's biggest strength is their hybrid engines at the moment; Nobody comes close to them on that front.

The Avensis is quite a nice car and probably the most comfortable one before they stopped making them; You'd need to do your research on the engines as one of them had oil burning issues IIRC, but in later-year ones of those engines they'll have fixed all the problems.

I find if you want the best reliability, it's usually best to get the last model just before they released a new one!  

The old gen 9 Corollas were also very good cars but probably well under your budget, and finding one that's been looked after and isn't a rusted to death could be tricky now.

I think you might be able to pick up an Auris hybrid for that sort of money with some luck and good haggling, although it'd likely have a lot of miles on it.