Its the £8k in parts and repairs which is killing you. Some of that is inevitable - tyres especially.

Its interesting to see the fuel in the big scheme of things. I'm always amazed at the people who will spend £5k upgrading a perfectly good car to get 5mpg improvement in fuel consumption - when they only do modest mileage. You're obviously in a different position, with 20k a year to do.

Buying something which is just coming off one of the major lease companies (eg. Lex) at 3-4 years old and maybe 80,000 miles might be a good way of getting a car capable of another 80,000 without major expenditure?

With that sort of mileage (similar to mine) I'd rather buy 5-6K's worth of Mondeo or Vectra - no point spending more and watching it depreciate with high miles, brilliant on the motorway and (especially the Mondy) entertaining in the corners. Slightly left field, the Vauxhall Signum is largely overlooked – huge boot – amazingly well equipped in the top-end models (excellent built in phone system on most “Elites”) and they are a bit sharper handling-wise than the Vectra for some reason – best bit – they're even cheaper than Vectras despite having more kit model for model!

Another overlooked cracker is the Honda Civic Type S 5 door. Punchy (mid-ranged tuned) engine but reasonably frugal, comfortable motorway car with its sensible profile tyres (buy one on the standard 16 inchers), utterly reliable and well equipped - good in the bends - again you'll get a good 'un for £6K.

The Accord is a good choice too. It looks classy, rides nicely at motorway speeds and doesn't go wrong.

I can scarecly believe the 2.1K annual year repair bills for your Golf – German engineering for you? My Jag XJ8 required £1,800 spending on it in £170K miles over 5 years, two wishbones (bushes), a set of front discs and pads and one wheel bearing and that was it other than routine servicing which was surprisingly keenly priced (far cheaper than Citroën charge). Other than the exhaust (£300), windscreen washer motor (£10) and a coil pack (£25), the C5 has had nothing go wrong with it mechanically in five years and I have to bump over a kerb every day to park.