Passat 1.8 T OR BMW 518?

[R32.]

You bought that Beemer yet?

[SoundillusioN]

If you look you will find the BMW has better paintwork and corroson resistance than the VW.
If I was buying an old car it would be the BMW every time.

obviously putting aside the expense of worn parts and fooked electrics.

[R32.]

If you look you will find the BMW has better paintwork and corroson resistance than the VW.
If I was buying an old car it would be the BMW every time.

obviously putting aside the expense of worn parts and fooked electrics.

BMW secondhand bits are prized and easy to get hold of.  Passats are seen as knackered after 10 years, and not worth bothering about.

[SoundillusioN]

If you look you will find the BMW has better paintwork and corroson resistance than the VW.
If I was buying an old car it would be the BMW every time.

obviously putting aside the expense of worn parts and fooked electrics.

BMW secondhand bits are prized and easy to get hold of.  Passats are seen as knackered after 10 years, and not worth bothering about.

Not by me they're not... both cars can be fine if cared for, also both can be sh*t if not...... In my experience I have seen more wrong with an old, underpowered BMW than I have an old VW... and if either were to fail, the BMW becomes expensive to fix.

[R32.]

You missed my point.
BMW's are seen as special, so people keep them serviced and often for a long time.  Passats are just a reps car, not loved, and keen to be rid of.  So s/h spares are not as easy to get.

[tg1]

the passat 1.8t is soo slow compared to the golf 1.8t, the engines are mounted differently,

bmw would be slower, round town, the passat is getting under 23mpg on short runs, and a full tank shows about 300 miles roughly on the mte

@ r32 its not the car thats special its the owner 

[Peej1981]

You missed my point.
BMW's are seen as special, so people keep them serviced and often for a long time.  Passats are just a reps car, not loved, and keen to be rid of.  So s/h spares are not as easy to get.

I can see your point but then again if he was looking at a 525td or 530 or above then it would be a hole different story. He is looking at a farely old 518 which you can get cheap parts but then again what i have found out is that the bmw wears considerbly more then the passat. I also find that the passat is better built against the 518. The problem i see is that we are talking about a low spec not very popular 518 BMW. Not many of these are driving around and there is a reason for this, they are always low spec, small engine, heavy car, common for headgasket failure, using a lot of oil and gearbox problems.
You have stated that you can parts for bmw really easy and cheap compared to the passat, i disagree with this, you can get hold of parts for bmw ok but they are not as cheap as the passat. For example a heater motor for the bmw is £202 and the passat £132, radiator fan bmw £55 passat £35, cambelt service bmw £600 passat £400. These are just a few things and there might be certain parts that are cheaper for the bmw but not too much cheaper. BMW did also see that the only people who are going to drive there cars are exceutives and people with a bit of money who want to make a statment, as a result they also said that if these people buy this car then they must have money to maintain it, this is why parts are more expensive then passat.

Can i also make a point here that in modern days people driving BMW's are not now seen as special but as tossers, as so many BMW's are now driven by business reps who think they are faster then anyone else and own the road. I use to part own a car sales business and the BMW's where never as good to drive as the VW's or Audi's, unless you start going up into the big engines fr the BMW like M3 and 330 etc where it became seen that BMW actually gave a sh*t about building the car.

Thats just my point of view.  

[nige_s]

I ran a 1999 318i for a few months and even in that the engine was awfully slow.  I swapped the week after I got overtaken by 1.4 diesel Nissan up a slip road.  It was truly awful and didn't handle that well either, rear passenger leg room was poor and the boot space more so.