Avensis Purchase

November 22, 2004

Hi, I am new to this forum and was wondering if you could give me some advice. I am considering purchasing a new Avensis Estate (or nissan primera) to replace my Seat Ibiza TDi. I will only have around £ 4-4500 to spend and would prefer a diesel if possible. I am aware of the reliability of Toyota but would like to ask whether purchasing a 2000 2.0TD or the newer 2.0 D-4D with around 80-90k on the clock would be wise in terms of wear and tear e.g. clutch etc. I assume it would have been used as a company car and would just have motorway miles. I would be doing around 15k a year and would aim to own for 2 years or so. Is 130k on an Avensis a problem and is the newer diesel much better than the older version? I notice that the petrol 1.8 is cheaper to purchase and is an option but have read conflicting info on the forum relating to how good the newer engine is compared to the old 1.8.

I would be grateful if anyonce could give me advice. Apologies if this type of topic has been posted before.

thanks

Dave

November 22, 2004

The old shape Nissan Primera is a better car than the Avensis, I've had both.

As regards the Avensis, there not too bad, build is rather shoddy but after talking to a few people, they found the older diesel engine was better for pulling as the new D4D one needs working harder as they have a lot more power and a higher pressure turbo so you get all the power in one go rather than spread over a range.

If your buying a £4000 car though I would just go for the petrol unless your doing a lot of mileage you won't save enough in fuel to make it worth it really.

I would go for either the old pre-VVT-i 2.0 with the 3S-FE engine, but I would recommend the Primera 2.0 over the Avensis.

Have you thought about the old old Camry Estate? You can get one for around £2500 and they are huge, but almost as luxurious as a Lexus if you get the 3.0 V6 one, they do around 30MPG so the fuel costs won't be criplling as the cars cheaper in the first place too, quality is also far better than the Avensis (again we've had a Camry too).

November 22, 2004

The old shape Nissan Primera is a better car than the Avensis, I've had both.
As regards the Avensis, there not too bad, build is rather shoddy but after talking to a few people, they found the older diesel engine was better for pulling as the new D4D one needs working harder as they have a lot more power and a higher pressure turbo so you get all the power in one go rather than spread over a range.
If your buying a £4000 car though I would just go for the petrol unless your doing a lot of mileage you won't save enough in fuel to make it worth it really.
I would go for either the old pre-VVT-i 2.0 with the 3S-FE engine, but I would recommend the Primera 2.0 over the Avensis.
Have you thought about the old old Camry Estate? You can get one for around £2500 and they are huge, but almost as luxurious as a Lexus if you get the 3.0 V6 one, they do around 30MPG so the fuel costs won't be criplling as the cars cheaper in the first place too, quality is also far better than the Avensis (again we've had a Camry too).
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I was going to try and avoid anything above a 1.8. Mileage consists of short ten min journeys to work with big trips of around 250m to see my partner every 4 weeks. A 2.0 would drink fuel for the every day type of driving i do. With the diesel I have at the moment, my fuel bills have alomst halved! I've not considered the Camry. My only concern with the older diesel is that it is only around 89bhp, same as my Ibiza but as the car would be twice the size i'm worried about overtaking capability. I live in mid-wales with twisty roads so i need decent overtaking capability!