With a Kia Seed it's just 5%. Just like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Thats because very few people who actually test drove a petrol Ceed of the vintage you were looking at actually bought one. The engine might have had quite a few BHP but there was very little torque which was at highish revs. On the Top gear test track it seemed to go well enough, on the road in the real world it was even slower and less gutsy that a Mazdo 3 with the 2 litre 122 PS petrol.

We loved our diesel Ceed but the petrol one was a definite no. But I would have thought some of the newer 1.0 GDi-T are in that price range now and those should be a bit better (I would hope).

I would make a different assessment to skidpan's - given the current situation surround diesels - dieselgate generally and proposed city bans and hikes in taxes, more people are flogging diesels and buying new/nearly new petrol engined cars, especially ones like skidpan's (TSi).

What also seems to have happened is that because of petrol engined cars, at least since DPFs & Co came on the scene for diesels, are more reliable and thus owners keep them longer, especially if they're a private buyer. Many diesel cars are company cars or hire cars, so there has been historically for at least 10 years more of them on the second hand market.

In addition, many makes, such as Volvo, have been really pushing sales of diesel cars, often to reduce their corporate CO2 average across their range to avoid EU fines, as this was much easier done (up until Dieselgate, that is) with diesel engines, especially with larger cars.

I remember when looking for a replacement for my 12yo Mazda3 1.6 petrol this time last year going to a Volvo dealership and looking on the manufacturer's website and finding practical no petrol engined V40s for sale, and in fact the sales staff weren't interested in selling me one, backed up by similar experiences by other backroomers. The same goes for other makes as well, especially those selling larger 'premium' cars.

This will start to change, but I doubt if we'll see anything near to 50:50 for a couple of years, if not more. The hire and company car market for diesel cars is, if I recall correctly, far larger than the private car buying market, and as such I doubt if things will change that quickly, given most of them will still be diesels, as they flog them before their first MOT is due, giving someone else the headache of keeping the DPF etc in good order, especially now that that test is changing and becoming more strict for diesels.

Not sure if increased demand is pushing up prices as well. I was looking for a large petrol estate up to 2 years old.

I looked at a Skoda Octavia 1.4Tsi priced at 13K. The dealer wouldn't budge on sticker price and only offered the £4k WeBuyAnyCar valuation for my trade in (bought from and serviced by him) .

After seeing the same car quoted at just under £16k brand new (DrivetheDeal) I decided the 2 yr old was overpriced. An extra £3k for brand new with the benefits of 3yr warranty and the sure knowledge it hasn't beeen hired, smoked in, crashed etc was a no brainer.

Buying new gave me the chance to choose my own colour and specify things like all season tyres and a few odds and ends like fold flat front passenger seat.

I went for a Skoda Superb Tsi 150 estate at £18k rather than an Octavia.

The last time I changed my car 5 years ago there was the same issue buying second hand. Most large family cars are bought by companies and the govt tax advantages for diesel meant second hand petrols were few and far between.

Now we're told not to buy diesel cars. So as a used car buyer with a budget of £5,000 - £7,000 I did a used car buyer website search for estate cars in that range. Now diesel/petrol sales are supposed to be about 50:50 yet only about 20% of cars in my price bracket are petrol. Where has the other 30% gone? And if you want a Mazda gloomy on the inside 6 it's even less than 20% that are petrol. With a Kia Seed it's just 5%. Just like looking for a needle in a haystack.

50/50 is across the whole UK market. At the compact/city car end of range Petrol is mich more common. In some ranges there's not even a diesel option. When you get to medium siize, and more so in a price bracket where cars were sold before dieselgate and NoX became news, the fact that most are diesel is not surprising.

We'd certainly never have looked at a petrol Berlingo in 2013, never mind 2005.