New car question

borisface

So I need to buy a new used car and am looking for something around thee years old. Typically I buy a car of that sort of age and run it for 10-12 years or so. Currently I have a 12 year old Mazda 3 1.6 with 103k on the clock which is fine for my needs and I've never had an issue with it. I do around 12k miles a year. Now the complicating factor is that I live in Portugal and I will be looking to buy a car with Portuguese plates, the Mazda has UK plates and its probably not worth the hassle and cost of matriculating it to Portuguese plates given its age and mileage. The issue here is that cars in Portugal are eyewateringly expensive due to high initial purchase taxes.

One option that I have found is a skoda fabia estate 2017 with less than 20k miles, the possible issue is that its only got a 1.0 75 bhp engine. Does anyone have any experience of these or 1.0 litres engines in general as I see that Skoda are using them in Octavias and Ford in Mondeos.

My concerns are 1) are they seriously underpowered 2) will the engine last over 100k?

Cheers

oxoman

Personally i doubt it for the Ford's, given it's the 1.0 litre eco boost engines that keep going up in flames. I would personally be looking at a 1.2 litre or above with 4 cylinders and not 3. The 3 cylinder engines are highly stressed and require pushing a bit for anything but city or town driving.

photonic69

Skoda's are amazingly bomb proof. We have two. Ones an Octavia the other a Fabia both 14+ years old. Both are diesels. The build quality is very good and the mechanics seem to last. No idea about the 1.0 litre engine though. However if you do regular oil changes using the correct spec of oil I can't see many problems.

jmb1966

My sister has a 15 year old fabia - very boring but does absolutely everything you’d want with no drama. And whilst not exactly a sports car, it keeps up with traffic even if fully laden. She refuses to replace it and it has never had an mot issue.

diamonddog

The 1 lt turbo engine is used in a lot of the VW group cars, I have a Seat with a 1 lt turbo, It is used in the equivalent Audi and VW and I would presume Skoda, the engine is not under powered or sluggish in comparison to my last 1.2 lt 4 cylinder model.
TBH If the Skoda has the service history it should’nt be a problem IMO.

edward.s

Its all subjective. The car will always move, but laden or uphill with 75ps its not going to be lightning quick. Longevity depends to some extent on how you drive it and how you look after it. Be gentle and change the oil regularly and I suspect it will go on forever, most likely it will be other bits that will wear out first.

My first decent car was a 60ps 1.4 Astra estate back in 1994 and that did 170k and had some serious load and towing use and never missed a beat. it was never a rocketship and I didnt try and use it as one though....

We own two petrol Skodas and are very happy with them. The 1.2tsi 110ps Yeti is a nice car and I've never thought 'could do with more oommph' but we tend not to use it fully laden. The other one is a 2.0tsi 280ps Superb which, unsurprisingly, has no issues with being fully laden, towing or anything else. Its deffo overkill for everyday use though, its a driveway queen for most of the week and then gets used for holidays, trips etc.

In summary, the 1.0 will almost certainly be fine, but won't set the world on fire. Skoda quality and service (that I have experienced, its pretty dealer dependant) have been excellent.