SCC I like your attitude to posts - adding my thoughts.

I agree with everything that has been posted. As regulars know I have had big bills resulting from, out of ignorance, buying a diesel. It was unsuitable for my mileage and driving style. I discovered the forum and am significantly more knowledgeable.

Personally, I would accept making a mistake and sacrifice the 5% loss. That, to me, would be far better than having a car you are not happy with and the potential pitfalls of diese.

I empathise with your difficulties in choosing a car - unfortunatell I'm the same. However, bright spot, thanks to the forum I am now much better informed.

Best Wishes.

If it's a soft-top, rather than a folding tin-top, then it was the old E46 generation, so it's 2 full generations of car ago. It is 11 years old.

Whichever engine you went for, you'd get (with a manual box) somewhere around 30mpg. That'd hold pretty true whether it was a 330i or a 318i - the additional torque and power of the bigger 3.0 straight 6 allows you to drive it on a far lighter throttle, whereas you'll be driving the smaller engine variants with a lot more vigour to get any sort of performance, leading to no real fuel advantage.

The 320d would be 43-45 mpg.

That might sound like a huge difference in running costs, but it isn't really. For 10,000 miles per annum, it's about £500 in fuel costs, or about £10 per week. Considering for that £10 per week you could be driving something with a nice petrol straight 6, or a diesel 4 pot, there's no competition. If your annual mileage was 5k, then the difference is £5 per week.

Glidermania - first paragraph is stating the obvious. Of course, it depends on the contract : all contracts do. Most people take that as read.