Advice on a used medium sized car?

My wife's Mazda 323 1.5 79k car is due for MOT and will require welding to get through MOT, plus wings are badly rusting and wheel arches. What sort of money do we pay up to to get through MOT or say over £700 call it a day and put towards another car.
If we did change the Mazda 3 2010 1.6 petrol TS2 looks nice but reports say under powered. What other cars of similar size do you recommend?

Asked on 6 November 2015 by pegasus

Answered by Honest John

Time to scrap it and buy something else. Never pour money into a rustbucket however well it seems to run. The previous Mazda 6 is modestly powered but no more modestly than a Focus 1.6. I've driven thousands of miles in them, manual and automatic. Not brilliantly fuel efficient. Only about 35mpg. Drive and handle very nicely and look distinctive. The obvious alternative is a Honda Civic 1.8 i-VTEC. Huge cabin an luggage space. Handle well enough. Up to 45mpg.

Tags: buying buying a used car

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