Hello All,

I changed my work car, a 2007 Corsa D 1.3CDTI Sxi 95hp for a Seat Toledo 1.6 TDI SE last September and next week am changing my 2013 Audi Q3 2.0TDI SE for a 2015 Audi A4 1.8 TFSI 170ps Se Technik. I thought I would give you a review of how these cars have performed sao far.

1) Corsa 1.3 CDTI

I bought this car from a Vauxhall dealer in 2011 with 38K on the clock. It was bought for my work commute which is 92 miles per day, although not every day.

Reliability - The car never let me down. The only issue other than routine servicing was a broken ABS wire. Unfortunately my local garage were unable to pinpoint the fault and so it ended up at the dealer. This cost me 350.00 in total.

Servicing - Depsite the car having 20k intervals I had an oil and filter every 10 and a service every 20. The local garage charged me £70 for the oil and filter and the services ranged from 100-200 pounds

Tyres - I had a a selection of tyres on the car. Fronts seemed to last about 28k and rears about 50k. Barums proved to be a good buy. Not to noisy and gripped well. The worst tyres I had were the Wanli tyres it came with. They lasted well but were scary in dampy conditions as they had little grip and did not instill confidence.

Generally I was happy with the car. Fuel consumption ranged from 48mpg on Asda Fuel to 52-56mpg on BP ultimate. It was comfortable to drive and in my opinion happy particularly good seats. On the downside the engine was hard work to drive. It did not encourage rapid progress and could not in anyway be described as a pleasure to drive. I sold it through WBAC in the end which was a pain free experience and they provided a better quote than the Seat garage did in P/X. It was traded in with 100K on the clock and I received 2k in p/x against a purchase price of 6500k 3 years prior.

Replacement - Seat Toledo 1.6 TDI SE

I endced up buying this car through chance, a visit to the Seat Dealer with my father and the car caught my eye. I bought it for 10.5K exactly a year old with 5k on the clock. This was back in September and the car has now done 15k. Impressions thus far;

Reliability - No issues thus far

Servicing - This car is on variable servicing whereby it would seem I will need a service every 18k +/-. I have probably confused it though by changing the oil and filter at 10k.

Tyres - Still on its original set which are Bridgestones. Little road noise and seem to grip we..

Impressionsd thus far. For the money I am very pleased. Fuel consumption is consistently in the mid 50's. Spacve wise the car is a revelation. People are consistently impressed by the legroom and boot space. It has become our main family car and is proving very capable in that respect. It has a good level of equipment and for the price I am hard pressed to think of anything that comes close expect possibly a Dacia, And I am very sceptical about them at the moment. I see an increasing amount of Toledo / Rapid Taxis now which instills confidence, That said I have heard of them having issues approaching the 90k mark. Time will tell.

Audi Q3 - This gets traded in next saturday for an A4. It is financed on a PCP deal and IO had little intention of changing it. A call from the dealer offering me an A4 1.8TFSI 170 SE Technik for the same monthly payment and a noticable reduction in the Final payment compared to the Q£ swayed my mind. This is no doubt due to the A4's replacement being imminent but I am happy as we have got a high spec new car with a very significant discount.

Onto the Q3 -

Reliability - It has never let me down, My only quibble is that occasionally when the car has been staqnding overnight when you went to pull of there would be a noticable judder through the clutch. It visited the dealer, but they never managed to replicate the symptons and as such it remains.

Servicing- Expensive... 300 for the first service, which despite the thick ream of paperwork that accompanied the bill amounted to an oil and filter really. A checklist detailing how they had checked the operation of your windscreen wipers seems ludicrous seeing as we live in England. Nevertheless if you buy an Audi you cant expect cheap servicing. Nice shiny glass showroom with an expensive coffee machinbe if you rate that sort of thing.

Tyres - Still on the original Goodyears at 21k, No complaints here.

Overall impression. The high up seating position of this car is great, I can see why these SUV's are popular. As a motorway cruiser it is great. We took it down to the South of France whilst my wife was 6 months pregnant and founds it capable and comfortable. I (perhaps wrongly) think that is where the supposed prestige brands show there worth. It is far more refined and comfortable than the Toledo as an example. In terms of practicality it is not that great. We opted for the optional spare tyre (I have no faith in cans of goo) and that eats into your boot space but does provide you with a reversible wipe clean boot floor (great if you have a muddy pushchair). The boot is not overly big and the parcel shelf is frankly irritating. As such it was taken out of the car shortly after delivery and has lived in the spare room since. Fuel consumption has not been spectacular. The A4 20 tdi it replaced averaged about 52 and the Q3 about 45mpg. Now that our annual mileage for this car has dropped to about 11k pa (due to the success of the Toledo) we are back to petrol for the next car.