• Budget up to £7,000
• Must be able to tow 500kg unbraked trailer tent
• Octavia sized boot
• Up to 6 years old
• Do an average of 45mpg
• 0-60 time of 10 secs or under

My immediate reaction would be another Octavia. All your requirements would be met by the 1.4 TSi or even a 1.2 TSi

An alternative would be the Seat Leon 1.4 TSi but the hatch has a smaller boot and the ST (estate) has probably not dipped below £7000 yet unless is a high mileage tatty example.

As an example come March just over £7000 would buy my 2013 Leon 1.4 TSi 140 PS with under 30,000 miles on the clock.

2 questions

Why do you mention 0 - 6- time. In the real world its irrelevant unless you are a boy racer intent on winning every traffic light grand prix. The in gear times i.e. 30 - 50 and 50 -70 are much more relevant and the 1.4 TSi excels in these, even the 1.2 TSi goes as well as most normally aspirated 2 litre petrols.

Why do you want an auto. If its for medical needs fair enough, if its just to save changing gear yourself forget it and get a manual.

Personally I would not buy a VAG DSG (hate all auto's but the 6 speed diesel DSG must be my biggest hate - 7 speed petrol was better) but it is a fact that a vast majority of these boxes have given trouble free service for many years. Here is the problem, go on any VAG forum and you will find a large number of owners who have their cars chipped to beyond the limits of the box (VAG limit the torque of the engines to protect the boxes - example, that is why the 1.8 TSI and 1.4 TSi have the same max torque) and sell them just as the warranty expires. They thrash them constantly and post vidoes on Face Tube and U Book etc and happily say that its the next owners problem when the car inevitably breaks. Get a carefully driven and well maintained example and it should be fine. Never read about a 1.2 TSI DSG having problems, probably because no one chips them and the engine performance is well within the boxes limits.

Annual mileage is 11,000 (consiting of 32 mile round commute with about 4 miles being stop start; aprox 500 miles towing; aprox 500 motorways & aprox 1600 miles consting of a mixture of journeys from 2miles to 50 miles).

With regards to unbraked trailer weights being 50% of the cars kerb weight in respect of some cars this doesn't seem to be the case, for example the Toyota Arius (non hybrid) as a kerb weight of approx 1400kg but only has a unbraked towing limit of 450kg.

I am considering an automatic as the 4 miles of my commute is quite oftern at an average speed of 6mph so a lot of clutch pumping and aching leg.

Fully appreciate the comments about 0-60 times being a irelevant however it's not that easy to find 30-50mph times always, does anyone know of any sites that provide this useful information?