Older Petrol Cars Recommendations 2L or less

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Batman

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#3353266 12-Mar-2025 17:52

martyyn: But yeah, Euros are unreliable and expensive.

interestingly, was chatting with the local BMW mechanic today, discussing complexity of some of their cars.

turns out, recently someone brought in a late model X5 that had diesel fumes entering the cabin.

turns out the DPF bracket came loose and the DPF broke off and hence the exhaust gas leakage.

but the only way they could get to the bracket was to take out everything in the engine bay including the engine.

there was a lot of swearing at the shop, though most of it was from the owner.

johno1234

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#3353269 12-Mar-2025 18:16

Batman:

martyyn: But yeah, Euros are unreliable and expensive.

interestingly, was chatting with the local BMW mechanic today, discussing complexity of some of their cars.

turns out, recently someone brought in a late model X5 that had diesel fumes entering the cabin.

turns out the DPF bracket came loose and the DPF broke off and hence the exhaust gas leakage.

but the only way they could get to the bracket was to take out everything in the engine bay including the engine.

there was a lot of swearing at the shop, though most of it was from the owner.

That's not good. Hopefully the DPF itself can be accessed and serviced without all that palaver.

Batman

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#3353293 12-Mar-2025 20:30

johno1234:

That's not good. Hopefully the DPF itself can be accessed and serviced without all that palaver.

no idea. i do know that this model has 4 turbos that are both in series and in parallel all at the same time. it's also a very heavy car with very complex suspension system.

perhaps some ingenius german design in packaging all the bits resulting in the bits being quite well umm ... packaged.

the facelift that was released last year has 2 turbos dropped with little penalty to power, still puts out well over 200kW and something close to 800Nm of torque. someone at the factory came to their senses.

Radiotron

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#3353296 12-Mar-2025 20:39

Late to the party, however another vote for 2000s era NZ new Mazdas. A 2 litre Mazda6 might be a thing. MZR chain engine. The 05-08 models (facelift of 1st gen) hold up well. Beware older ones that are 4spd auto, the facelift models got Mazda's 5spd, not the JATCO. If you can stretch to the 2.3l, still economical, mine gets <8l/100km reliably. PS if you don't care for fashion, buy the saloon, not the wagon or liftback. Still a generous boot, but lighter and more interesting to drive.

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