Information: Best touring car for a European trip?

[StatusRed]

Looking for a bit of advice! I'm planning a touring trip of Europe in the late summer, originally my plan was to get a hire car after leaving Paris but then with ~1600 miles of driving I thought maybe I shouldn't go for the cheapest hire car and upgrade it so it's comfy and I don't annoyed driving it.

This made me then start thinking.. how about I have a bit of fun with this and buy an old car, take it over on the Euro Tunnel, use it for the trip then sell it when I get back to the UK?

A decent (intermediate) hire car looks to be about £350-400 for 12 days, my thoughts are if I could manage to buy an old car for under £1K I could sell it back for hopefully the same price I bought it, so my only costs would be 1-2 months of insurance and car tax, maybe a bit of extra fuel and some small parts like new spark plugs etc to make sure it's mechanically good to go before the big trip.

I don't mind this maybe costing me a few £100 extra than a hire car option as I see it as being more fun and I wouldn't care as much about the state of the car so would be less paranoid about driving it (if that makes sense?).

So my questions are...

Does anyone know of any hidden costs I haven't thought through?
Any recommendations for a car to fulfil this role?
Criteria:

• Petrol
• Air conditioning
• Not tiny
• Reliable enough to survive this trip

A friend has suggested a 1999 S class Merc he found for about £800, my problem with this is that it's huge and I'm worried that I'd get too attached to a car like that and then not want to sell it!

Other cars I've found are early 2000s V40s, that go for around £500.

Cheers!

[Martin Cox]

No specific recommendations but I'd be tempted to go for something dead common rather than unusual. It should be easier to find, easier to find someone to fix it should it go wrong and probably easier to sell afterwards. This is the strategy we've used in New Zealand; having a daughter who lives there helps. In practice, it meant a string of Toyota Corollas and various Nissans.

On a few occasions they were sold for more than we'd paid for them!

[StatusRed]

Originally Posted by Martin Cox

No specific recommendations but I'd be tempted to go for something dead common rather than unusual. It should be easier to find, easier to find someone to fix it should it go wrong and probably easier to sell afterwards. This is the strategy we've used in New Zealand; having a daughter who lives there helps. In practice, it meant a string of Toyota Corollas and various Nissans.

On a few occasions they were sold for more than we'd paid for them!

Interesting! I've worked out that if I scaled a year's insurance and tax down to about 2 months I should (in theory) be able to do this for about £250, making it cheaper than hiring a half decent car.

Quite a few V40s reasonably priced, but I'd be driving in France and Germany, so maybe based on what you're saying I should get a French car or a BMW touring or estate Merc? I only want to spend up to £1K ideally.

Does anyone know how these European city taxes work and would hiring a car in Paris avoid these or not?

[Harvey1512]

I think your friend has completely nailed it. Look no further. Mileage in style 😁

[StatusRed]

Originally Posted by Harvey1512

I think your friend has completely nailed it. Look no further. Mileage in style 😁

Yeah I see the appeal haha, however driving it in cities might be a real pain, they're enormous!

[Julianpms]

Originally Posted by StatusRed

Interesting! I've worked out that if I scaled a year's insurance and tax down to about 2 months I should (in theory) be able to do this for about £250, making it cheaper than hiring a half decent car.

Quite a few V40s reasonably priced, but I'd be driving in France and Germany, so maybe based on what you're saying I should get a French car or a BMW touring or estate Merc? I only want to spend up to £1K ideally.

Does anyone know how these European city taxes work and would hiring a car in Paris avoid these or not?

The 'Crit'Air' sticker to enter Paris on weekdays will be required on any eligible car, but you should expect a hire company to provide it. Check in advance with the hirer to be sure. If you decide to buy an older car yourself, be aware that petrols before 1997 and diesels before 2000 are prohibited.
Rules in other French cities vary (and are evolving), while Germany and other countries have other regulations. The updated second edition of my book The Essential Guide to Driving in Europe will be out in May (print and eBook) and will give you more information.

[I-S]

Any £1k S-class, 7 series, A8 etc is to be avoided. These are seriously complex cars with very high servicing requirements that are VERY unlikely to have been kept up by the 3rd or 4th owner. That's why you can't give them away. They are distinctly NOT the bulletproof things that people think they are.

To my mind, for your budget you'd be very hard pressed to find anything more suitable than this. These really are bulletproof.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...01803234863250

[I-S]

Otherwise, if you're set on something a bit more "premium", then this is hard to argue with:

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classif...01712132028039

[Harvey1512]

Originally Posted by StatusRed

Yeah I see the appeal haha, however driving it in cities might be a real pain, they're enormous!

I-S has given some really good advice, I think I got a bit excitable at the thought of an S class.

I would not worry about the size of the car. I've driven in some European cities, including Florence 😱, and size gives you presence, it means others notice you are there and give you space. They recognise that your big car will beat up their Fiat 500, Corsa etc. I would rather be in a bigger car than a little car. This would be different if it was a city I was in constantly, working there, and wanted to duck and dive, park in cute places etc. For your needs it is different.

[volvo always]

Myself I would take my current 940. I certainly wouldn't want to go on a long distance trip in a recently bought car. I would be surprised if any 1k car is fault free with working AC.
I would play it safe and hire. Less hassle and stress free, when the other option leaves you stranded on a dark rainy day at the side of the autoroute with overheating, bust cambelt etc.
My car is too old for European Breakdown cover at 1996, so you would certainly want European cover, even to just get you off the motorway.

James