Found this while checking my email folders for some work stuff:
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I finally got rid of that 500 quid diesel ("likely to be an utterly horrible car" "some sort of mega mileage non-turbo lump") a couple of months ago, having replaced it about 6 years after that thread :-)
It got to 175k, but got a bit too rusty for me. Somebody else now has it. The replacement (Xant HDi) is rather duller to drive :-(
In that time, the biggest bill was a clutch. The suspension didn't present any problems :-)