The other issue is DMF related. Diesels are harder on DMFs on comparable petrols. The problem occus at low engine speeds. There were a spate of failures with DMFs and manufacturers responded by limiting the low end torque and permitting the engine to stall if the revs drop below idle speed (rather than attempting to increase fuelling).

This is a characteristic, rather than a problem. However, you may find modern diesels a bit more prone to stalling than older ones-or a modern petrol.

I work to the strange & unusal notion that manufacturers do not actually set out to produce duff technology.

As each new technology comes in evolution works to weed out the best designs from the rest.

So I bought a dry DSG/DMF/DPF/ESP equipped car and intend to try and run for for 250,000 miles over 15 years or so.

I will be older, better informed and probably poorer at the end of this experience.

but hey ho ...........................thats life

For lazy people like me, has anyone invented an excel spreadsheet or a website where I could say, input to MPG's (one for petrol and one for diesel) and then play around with the variables?

Thanks ChannelZ, seems like a great tool in principle, but is actually quite useless i'm sorry to say...

My issues with it:

1. It doesn't allow you to adjust the purchase price or even see what it is using as the purchase price (so presumably using list price?)... net result (example) is it lists depreciation of £13,700 on a brand new Focus 1.6 Zetec over 5 years.... well anyone who is reading around the internet today will know you can get a brand new 1.6 Zetec for £12,746..... so the car (after 5 years) would have to be worth MINUS £954....

2. Same as above, it doesn't list how / why it calculates servicing costs. Net result is it claims servicing on a Kia Ceed Diesel is £2500 more over 5 years than the 1.6 Petrol Focus... I know Diesel services are more expensive than Petrol, but that much?!?! Especially since I put my annual mileage as 15,000 - the Ceed Diesel has 20,000 / 1 year intervals so over 5 years = 5 services... whereas the Focus is every 12,500 miles so over 5 years would need 6 services...

Other small issues abound with the finance, fuel and breakdown sections...

So again, thanks for suggesting it ChannelZ, and thanks for creating it HJ, but any chance it could be improved?