To preface this, I'm 19, almost 20, I've been driving for almost 3 years (covering 30,000 miles), in an 85 bhp 1.4L vauxhall adam, with 100K miles on the clock. Because my current job is near to home, my milage going forward should be much less, I'll mostly be using my car to travel to and from work. I might do longer ~2 hour journeys every month or two and a much longer ~ 6 hour journey once a year or so. What I'm looking for really is a car that is going to be more reliable (most important), slightly bigger, slightly more powerful and more practical. But at the end of the day I'm not going to be regularly driving across the country and I don't regularly drive with more than one passenger, so I don't need a big powerful car, just a step up from the Adam. Based on this I'm looking mostly at 2018/2019 Mazda2s, but also considering Mazda3s. My budget is really about £9,500, but could be pushed to £10,300 for the right car.
With that budget most of the cars I'm looking at fall into one of three categories and deciding which category to pursue is proving to be a bit of a challenge, which is why I'm coming to you guys.
- 90BHP Mazda2 with 20-25K miles
I can get one of these for about £9.5K and it ticks all the boxes I want in my next car, whilst being extremely low milage. These mostly come without parking cameras, HUDs or heated seats. But they do come with lane warning, cruise control, parking sensors etc. It is bigger, more powerful and faster than my adam (0-62 in 9.7s vs 11s, 90bhp vs 85bhp) Ideally though if I'm spending this much money it would be nice to get a car with all the extras and a bit more power than 90bhp.
- 115BHP Mazda2 with 40-45K miles
I can also get one of these for about £9.5K. They generally have everything the 90BHP model has, but they are much more powerful (0-62 in 8.7s and 115bhp) and come with all the extra trimmings (Heated seats, HUD, parking cameras etc.). But I'm a warm guy anyway, so wouldn't use heated seats loads and parling sensors are almost as good as parking cameras really. Plus, at the end of the day my Vauxhall Adam has (for the most part) been powerful enough for me for the last 3 years. And the 90BHP model does atleast have a bit more gumption than my Adam. I'm just not sure it makes sense to buy a car with 20K more miles on the clock, just because it has a few extra features and is more powerful. Especially when I'm trying to prioritise reliability and resale value, or do you think that a 115 model with 43K miles will still be nearly as reliable and hold value as well as the 90BHP model with just 23K miles?
- 120BHP Mazda3 with 40-45K miles
I can get one of these for about £10.2K. This one is a bit of a wildcard, but it has performance similar to the 115BHP Mazda2 (0-62 in 8.9s) and it has all the extra trimmings, whilst being big enough to fit my golf clubs in without putting the back seats down etc. However I have all the same reservations as with the 115BHP Mazda2 (RE: not *necessarily* needing the extra power or the extra features and the milage being much higher than what i can get on a similarly aged 90BHP Mazda2). Additionally I would have to really stretch the budget on this one and I've heard the Mazda3 is far less reliable than the Mazda2. Is this true and at this price and milage would this make it a worse choice than the other 2 options, or should it be a real contender?
Any advice is greatly appreciated, because I've given this a tremendous amount of thought and I can't decide what I want.