My apologies. I'd edited my post before putting it up, and had changed "to be horribly blunt, an act of stupidity", and altered it to "an act of idiocy".

By trying to be less rude than normal, I was actually more rude !

As I say, my apologies.

I can entirely understand your want for a diesel, they just drive much more nicely than a petrol on that 'wall' of torque.

However, as SLO says, these are pretty complex machines, and really don't do well running on a tight budget. You'd probably get a hell of a lot more Mondeo diesel estate for your money.

Also, bear in mind that, with all the emissions control equipment on modern diesels, one fault can wipe out 2-3 years worth of fuel savings. Add that to the fact that a petrol version is usually cheaper to buy, and the overall savings from running a cheaper-to-fuel diesel start to look very small indeed.

What sort of annual mileage do you do, and what sort of driving is it (mostly Town, mostly motorway, etc) ?

Thanks for the time spent looking at these. Funnily enough I looked at the avensis and mondeo too. Presumaby the other diesels other than ford 1.8 have dpfs?

If you dont mind driving an older car get a Peugeot 406 diesel, in my opinion they are the most reliable car on the planet, the 8 valve Hdi engine is virtually bombproof and has no DPF it will also do 60 mpg driven carefully, and they are very cheap.

Edited by Peter.N. on 18/09/2017 at 11:47