I had one car with air-con and I hated it, only turned it on once a week to maintain the system. Air con and me don't get on, seems to give me cold-like symthoms.

Most of my last umpteen cars have had a sun roof and the only time I ever opened any of them was when I first got the car and was fiddling round.

Sat Nav I would love. I often have to visit people in remote areas with unpronouncable names. You try asking for directions to Cnwc-Y-Dinter or Bwlchgroes.

Alloys, magnet for thieves and easy to damage.

Electric windows, yes to the nearside front but I don't mind winding my own up.

Plastic bumpers can be repaired. Try a local bodyshop. Bit of heat might help. If it needs paint then you're looking at £100 or so, I guess.

It sounds to me like an air leak as previously mentioned, upsetting the idle mixture, in effect the engine is struggling to run at idle speeds. These injection systems are critical to all the pipes and hoses being properly fitted and no air leaks.
That includes the large main air intake where it joins the engine, and the small diameter pipes that join to the engine (the plastic t-piece mentioned previously).
I would check everything for disconnected or loose pipes.
This assumes that the car is in reasonable standard of service, i.e. spark plugs and air filter in good condition. You may have similar symtoms due to neglect, for example worn out spark plugs or a chocked up air filter.
It all comes down to a case of eliminating faults, starting with a decent standard of service, checking the obvious and inexpensive things such as air hoses and pipes that have fallen off, then moving on to more complex and 'invisible' items that make up the fuel and ignition system. Hopefully you will find something obvious and quick to solve this annoying problem.

Ah, darn it -- typos: "if I can find some" and "three years"

Well the wife's car is now back home.

Total cost to us was £120 excess plus £160+ that I spent having a deep scratch repaired on and around the filler cap.

A job that should have taken 1 week took over 3!

The reasons are as follows.

1) Damage to the slam panel was missed by the estimator but picked up when the car was being repaired, so the car waited 3 to 4 days whilst insurance authority was granted and the panel arrived.

2) The car was due to be delivered back to us last week when the bodyshop casually mentioned that the bonnet needed a quick polish, and then it would be dropped back. When I asked why they were not repairing the paint chips on the leading edge from where she hit the wall, they said they did not include these in the estimate as they weren't part of the damage caused by the accident. My head couldn't get around that logic.

I told them in no uncertain words that those paint chips were part of the accident and could easily be explained by virtue of the fact that the grill was knackered and both headlights had been pushed back about an inch and a half. they said they had to contact the insurance company for authorisation, which would take 24 hours as the insurance engineer was not in that day.

The insurers duly gave their authority. I stated to the insurers that I had asked for some unrelated damage to be repaired at our own expense and therefore was not in the habit of trying to pull fast ones on the policy. The insurance company were excellent that's Norwich Union for you.

Today I went to pick it up from the bodyshop, who I must say appear to have done a very good job. The nissan garage where I bought my van was on the way home so I popped in there to see if they could give it a quick look over to check it is how it should be but the expertees were at lunch. Oh well, another time, and I don't think there are any probs.

So the car now has a good front bumper, perfect rear NS quarter, no scratches on the wings, as they replaced the NS wing and had to blend in the offside wing. The only remaining issues are the OSR passenger door, where some panel deformation has taken place then been repaired badly in the past, and a couple of scratches on the OSR wing behind it.

We are so pleased to have it back. That Kia Rio we had as a courtesy car was a real lump to drive. Every time it changed gear it felt like someone was rear ending it. SWMBO thought that it was 'nippier' that the Almera. It was not, it just made much more noise and you really felt the road. When you shut the door it sounded worse than the one in my K reg discovery. It seemed that several bits of metal had been put in there at the factory and forgotten about.

So now wifey MUST be careful with it! We'll see shal we?

Just need to sort out the judder when braking hard. ABS seems to work OK. Over to technical with that one....

Hugo