Oh all right, to keep Jack happy.

Oh you poor bastard. You have my deepest sympathy.

Dads ex replaced her 1.8T Mk4 Golf GTi with a new one.

She didn't keep it long, and went back to a VAG; an Audi A3 2.0 TDI 140, which she was much happier with.

Lost a horrendous amount of money on it too.

I like it. Smaller than the 9000 tighter suspension, but feels comfier. No torque, but I'll need to learn to drive it dervy style between fun blats.

Over complex, under powered, only as quick as a diesel repmobile and will do a stunning 21mpg in town.

Just the job for a slow commute on the M60..... especially a manual.

I did try the auto they had in for a few quid more, and it seemed soggy. Clutch is nice and light, far less bother than the one in the saab, Seats are loverly. Not a mark on them.

i drove one and actually prefered my 328 BMW had more grunt, there a nice motor though, is it 2001 with the f*ck off tax? £250 a year aint it this year on that?

Thrashed and drifted then. Cool.

It's a small 6 cyl engine. It doesn't need torque, it has lots of valve area for its capacity. The redline is your friend, acquaint yourself therewith and kiss it at every gearchange.

Oh and if you wanted economy you should have bought something else - but good choice...

All well and good, but doesn't that *completely* go against your idea of wanting something reasonably good on fuel. Granted, I doubt it'll be absolutely horrific, but aren't they an inline 6, and by all accounts really not all that economical, especially in rush hour motorway traffic?

Not sure it's a good choice for crawling around the M60 in the rush hour.

Certainly not a good choice from a fuel economy or tax perspective.

So it ticks the post-2000 box, but completely failed on the cheap tax and good fuel economy boxes. And the "interesting" one. And the "won't get bored of it" one.....

Not catastrophic though - not too heavy, six speed gearbox. Harsh ride (mate of mine got one and described it as having the ride of an M3, the power of a

Sounds great.....

Yeah it's completely s*it on fuel, I had one for a while back in 2003. Good arse out fun though.

One of my mates recently chopped his 2.0 Focus Ghia for one of these, but on a 53 plate. He likes it, it's mad comfy - well all our mates who've been in it tell me it is heh - and it;s got loads of toys and stuff, with the leather and the like. It was like, £6.5k plus the Focus which they gave him £1,500 iirc, so compared to all the others on the AutoTrader it was like, £1,500 cheaper than anything close. He tends to drive reasonably briskly, not flat out all the time, but likes to make progress, and apparently it's not very good on fuel, but neither was the Focus so it's made no difference to him heh.

Hmm, so that's pretty much none of the boxes ticked apart from reliable and modern. Anyway, it sounds like just your sort of thing, and if you're happy with it then well done, hope you enjoy it!!

Mike P

That's yet another car which is on my list of "cars I'm really curious about and sort of half reckon I might like to buy some day but realise I never will."

All the best, I really do hope you enjoy it.

I've sort of now promised myself that I won't get something new until the Sylva is 'on the road' so to speak.

paying that sort of tax i would have looked at a lot of other cars before an IS200. i like the look of them just lacked any kind of fun, noise or torque for me. the IS300 aint bad but a bit rare and not really any quicker than the IS200 and i don't think they did a IS300 in manual.

Elder should have at least got an import altezza (think that spelt right) the RS200 beams one, that's not a bad engine.