Wotcha car-types. Rather than pollute ukrm with yet more OT car posts, I thought I'd better pop over here. You lot must know what's what.
My A3 has just given me more grief by barely getting me home last night so I'm seriously thinking of replacing it. I think it must have been a Friday afternoon car. It turned out to need a new coil, which the AA man did for me whilst I am at work, so it's sorted and cheaply.
However, SWMBO has never liked the car (for girly reasons like "the doors are too big and heavy") and has given me the go-ahead for a replacement. So I'm looking for something along the lines of:
Mid-sized hatch, probably 5 door this time New or fairly new (up to a year old) At least as powerful as the current A3 (so 150+bhp) Petrol Cruise, climate control, comfortable (so not another A3 in Sport or S-Line guise).
Originally I was looking to replace this eventually with a A3 Sportback but a) I'm not sure I want another Audi and b) they spec & age means I'm looking at the thick end of £20k. Parkers reckons trade in for mine is only £6k, and I'm looking to add a max of £10k to change.
Current list of things to go look at and/or test drive are: Golf MkV or even Mk6 - only the GT and up is powerful enough for what I want and they just don't really do it for me, but they do get cracking reviews. Leon - probably the FR with DSG. I had an Ecomotive diesel as a hire car last year and was underpowered but quite nice in other ways. Civic - haven't looked yet. Mazda 3 - as Civic
Anything else I should consider?