TIG welder

I much prefer tig welding mate, its just much nicer and neater
With dc tig you can only weld ferrous metals, to weld ally you need an ac/dc machine.
you can pick up a cheap 200 amp dc machine off ebay for 150 odd quid, which will weld up to 6mm steel IIRC.
An ac/dc machine will set you back at least 4 times that for a cheap/old machine.
the tips are not expensive, about 2 quid each, filler wire is about the same as mig wire.
and you need good quality argon/argoshiled with tig for nice welds. You cant use C02.
I vote tig all day long.
I'm saving my pennies to get an ac/dc machine, as i need to make an inlet manifold for my supercharged 1uzfe

I use tig for delicate/ornate work stainless and ally and also for a few jobs that can be done better by tig such as joining the edges of two sheets together..

For all general car repairs and most steel fabrication I use the mig its much much quicker, easier and cheaper, tig I find is much easier to use on a bench, for working upside down or at an angle mig is king...

Having both is best but if I were to only have one it'd be my mig everyday

Price wise argon is more than Co2 and you get through tig tips much quicker than mig tips..

A decent secondhand 240 ming say 180amp will cost around 300 wheras a similar standard AC/DC tig will cost around 550..

Foot pedals are for me a must for really neat welding on thin stuff, I'd hate to tig without one, though it does keep you stuck at the welding bench...

The inverters seem good value and nicely compact though the only one I tried was rubbish with really poor power control, though that was a real cheap Chinese one so i'd hate to condemn them all on that one.. they are basically using an arc welder to supply the grunt for a tig torch and quite often they are scratch start, low power and rarely AC/DC

I was talking 3phase but i'd imagine 240v ones wouldnt be to much more...