Good review, Slo....and fully embrace your sentiments.

I, too, have given up losing far too much money on cars over the years....my current 3 litre V6 Toyota Estima will stay with me now for the foreseeable future (brilliant vehicle but will be worth little in time given the market and economy vehicle development).

My wife has 13 plate Toyota Yaris with less than 30k miles ( her third) and loves it, but yearns for an SUV (sound familiar.?..lol)...so I've said ..great...let me know when you've saved up enough money to buy one.

I think your choice of an Avenis estate is sound.

Edited by SLO76 on 09/09/2018 at 12:00

I’m done losing thousands every year on cars.

As you know there is something very satisfiying about owning an old but well engineered car that has fully depreciated and a few dings and scratches don't matter.

I still have an Avensis estate in the list of cars to replace my Forester (reluctant to give it up while it's still dependable). Mondeo estate would be a possibility but I don't like the choice of petrol engines, diesel is out due to lot's of local journeys. Plus I think that they are just too wide. I spend some time winding around narrow country lanes with deep potholes and blind corners - I think it would feel cumbersome. I've had an Avensis before and they're solid as a rock. I can't deny that it would be a lot cheaper to run too.

I wish the Subaru dealer hadn't washed my car when it was having the wishbones replaced after breakage. I like to have the window down when driving. They used some sort of super wax on the body work, and every time I turn left after it's been raining, a ton of water slides across the roof and onto the electric window switches :-)

Having been busy, and then had friends staying with us, this is the first chance I've had to frame a decent reply to your post SLO.

As you may remember, we have a similar car, a 1.6 2WD iDTEC, currently on 76,000km. It's broadly the same spec as yours, with a different name ("Elegance Plus") with added satnav, as we live in Austria. When we bought it in October 2015, it cost c.€29,500 which at the then exchange rate of €1.35 to £1 equates to c.£22,000, so significantly cheaper than yours ;-). We bought it on what they call "leasing" here, which is more like a UK PCP plan. We paid €10,000 deposit, with monthly payments of €200 for 4 years, and a projected residual value of €13,000. The last figure was determined by the dealer principal scanning the local Autotrader equivalent website, wetting his finger and holding it in the air! We reckoned on 25,000km per annum (c. 16,000 miles), which we're broadly meeting. A significant departure form the UK norm is that there is no penalty if we exceed this, it will simply hit the residual value.

Broadly I'd agree with SLO's comments. It's very likeable, and a particularly good motorway car, we've covered many kilometres on the autobahns during our trips to and from the UK, including one trip with four up plus luggage. However, the overall fuel consumption since new is only 52mpg, c. 5.4l/100km, although I recently tried V-Power diesel for the first time and managed 57mpg over the tank (measured brim to brim. Next tank on cooking diesel was 52 again, so last night I refilled with V-Power again, to see if the improved consumption was a fluke or repeatable.

I don't agree with the lack of cornering grip. It still has the Goodyear Efficient Grip tyres it was delivered with, and they're only about half worn, although I do use winter tyres for half of the year. A set of those lasted only two winters, perhaps 25,000km? They grip perfectly well, and I'd buy them again. The biggest bugbear is the road noise, but it remains similar irrespective of whether it's running on the winter or summer tyres. I also don't find it too roly poly, except on some of our more testing mountain roads.

I've also had the clutch judder problem. I believe it's more to do with damp rather than oil, and having approached our local dealer, they contacted Honda Austria, and the answer was to use more revs (c.1500) when manoevering from cold - counter intuitive, but definitely helps. The problem clears after 5-10 minutes. Whether it's the truth, or whether it's oil, will never be known!

The slightly worrying thing is that I've noticed two or three passive regens recently, which were the exception up until two or three months ago. This engine, from what I understand from SLO and other sources, is normally considered better than most DPF-equipped diesels at keeping itself clean, and I don't believe our journey pattern has changed, so it's something I'll need to keep and eye on.

I've written some more detailed reviews in the Owners Reviews section on this site, and kept them updated.

Our lease ends next October, and I now have a few dilemmas regarding replacement. I'm tempted to buy it, but it's a manual, and SWMBO, despite driving manuals for years with the exception of our previous car (Saab 9-5) which we had for 8 years and 160,000 miles), seems to struggle with selecting the appropriate gear, and I'm not sure if my nerves can stand another manual ;-). The next part of the dilemma is petrol or diesel, or even hybrid. Currently thinking perhaps Peugeot 3008 1.2 auto, but have heard no good reports of the all-digital dash, with too much being hidden in sub-menus. Like the idea of the VW 1.4TSi, but not keen on the cars we could afford that it's fitted to, given we'd like another SUV type vehicle, and there is the DSG auto issue to contend with. We're not overloaded with cash, and the easy way out would be to just buy this car, but being manual and diesel, it's not ideal. Still, there's another year to contemplate this particular brainteaser.