Going for a bigger car next year....

[C.A.R.]

Some useful and interesting information fella's thanks.

I had a work colleague who had a Mondeo TDCi 130 and to be honest don't remember it sounding too bad, but then I never drove it (he regularly drove us home from the pub...he was often designated driver!) but it used to keep up really well with my 1.8 306 XS down a country lane, so it was adequately fast. DMF failure stories plague the internet, mind.

Ruan, your Ovlov has basically the same chassis / engine as my boss's 2.0 TDCi Focus then I assume? It's a nice car, but they look a bit dull and the boot space IMO isn't that great.

Here's something a bit left-field, which has always been thrown out as a reasonable idea because they have DPF problems...

Pug 407? Plenty about. How easily (if at all) can the DPF be mapped out/removed? They look a bit gormless but they kind of get away with the Peugeot 'smiley face' look that started with the 206 because they're so big, it's almost shark-like. The Coupe even looks 'good' from some angles. Almost. If you squint.

I like Peugeots for their quirkiness / being unusual. The 407 is big but IMO looks better than a Vectra / Mondeo / Saab...just for being different.