I sit here and receive around 100 emails and ‘Ask HJs’ every day of the year, so I probably know better than anyone else in the country what goes wrong with cars. And over the past few years I have been greatly disturbed by accounts of what goes wrong with diesels saddled with DMFs, DPFs, EGRs as well at turbos and timing belts. Volkswagen actually schedules a timing belt change for your engine at four years, so that will be £350 - £500, thank you very much, even assuming nothing else goes wrong.

The alternative in a VAG car is a modern, chain cam 1.2TSI 105 or 1.4TSI 122 petrol engine. They are much more pleasant to drive than a diesel, but, of course, do not deliver the same fuel economy. The one diesel engine that seems to have the potential problem areas designed out it is Renault's new 1.6DCI 130, as fitted to the Scenic and the Qashqai, but only time will tell.