will you be affected by the London congestion charges, it could knock diesel out of the park.

Take the train - book well in advance - a lot cheaper than any car.

I'm sure you already know which makes many here would suggest avoiding.

Decent sized tyres, no silly wheels with elastic bands, you want comfort and cheap tyre costs cos you'll be getting through a few.

Largish car for comfort safety and stability.

Depreciation with your mileage will be savage, 35/40k probably incl some private use when on holiday and weekends, so ironically i'd be inclined to buy cheaply a car thats already high mileage in a short time (motorway miles are the easiest) but has been serviced correctly so far, and i'd make sure never to go above 10k miles, prferably less, between oil changes, so that'll be 3/4 oil changes per year, suggest to buy oil in bulk together with filters to help with costs and DIY your oil servicing if you do nothing else yourself, whatever you buy get the gearbox oil changed when you buy the car and once a year thereafter.

My suggestions Avensis 2.0 Diesel or Accord 2.2, gearboxes on either manual or auto should be trouble free, the Avensis is possibly cambelt so costs should be factored in, but once a cambelt is done its done and Toyota's servicing costs are reasonable, a timing chain problem is a hell of a lot more involved, hence I would not suggest German for this venture (for many other reasons too) unless you are going to try a bit of bangernomics with a 1.9PD unit.

Something left field like a 2/3 year old Hyundai i40 could be worth considering for its unlimited mileage 5 year warranty, but it must have a rock solid service history to start with which you must maintain to keep that warranty intact, worth investigating service costs because over say 100k miles, which you could easily cover in 2.5 years, main dealer servicing could be expensive, on the other hand maybe main dealers might be living in the real world in Cumbria where people will not pay £100+ an hour labour.

FB might have it right, take the train and if necessary keep a cheap banger for your local use at work..

Edited by gordonbennet on 21/03/2017 at 11:16

I would think this type of motoring is perfect for diesel. I had similar types of journeys and it kept my Skoda Superb diesel in excellent condition up to 206K miles before selling it. At 70 on the motorway for hours at a time it returned 55-60mpg. On the high mileage service regime with fully synthetic oil it was serviced about every 19k miles, which was about every 7-8 months. Also very little stress on the engine, gearbox, clutch etc because very little town work. Depends also if you want to keep the car for some time. The choice is miriad, but Skoda gets my vote.

Cheers Concrete

about 6-700 miles per week round trip, mostly motorway driving. I'm therefore looking for some recommendations on cars to look at.

Up to 20 hrs a week unproductively stuck behind the wheel? You have my utmost sympathy. With ICE taken for granted, low CD/wind noise, quiet tyres, soft suspension and a comprehensively adjustable seat with armrests would be top of my list.