And if you cannot be bothered finding the facts In my opinion I would avoid like the plague run a mile forget you have ever seen it the vehicle has the chance to bankrupt you.

Utterly unhelpful comment, as usual. Any 8-9 year old vehicle can go horribly wrong. A moderately easily-engineered 4-cylinder petrol engined car won't 'bankrupt you' to fix.

Welcome to the forum, Gav. HJ's review of the 1-series, which Rob helpfully refers you to, shows that this car is no worse than many for reliabilty and better than quite a few.

Personally if I were buying a car of that age I'd go for something Japanese and petrol-powered (better chance of getting a good one), but the mileage on this 1-series isn't unreasonable for a car that's coming up for 8 years old. Do make sure that it's got a full service history, and walk away if it hasn't.

As moderator I'm sorry that you received such an unhelpful, useless comment from 'Llos'. He was here as Collos25 up until some time last year and then left us: I have no idea why he's come back, but he seems as unhelpful as before.

Llos, someone has already complained to us by E-mail about your post on this thread. In future if anyone reports a post of yours as offensive, I will simply delete it. You may find some other motoring forum more to your taste.

Hyundais if you look at their specs don't provide massive BHP figures from their engines for a given size,

Don't agree with that comment. The specs below are for cars of the vintage the OP is looking at.

Hyundai i30 1.4 petrol, 109 PS (78 PS/litre)

Hyundai i30 1.6 petrol, 126 PS (79 PS/litre)

BMW 116i 1.6 petrol, 122 PS (76 PS/litre)

In about 2010 the 116i was fitted with a 2.0 engine producing 122 PS (exactly the same as the 2007 1.6) meaning only 61 PS/litre.

Both Hyundais are more highly tuned than similar sized BMW's.

I have driven both 116i's and found a 2008 116i with the 1.6 engine to be complete slug with no torque whatsoever. However, a 2010 116i fitted with the 2.0 was a totally different animal, punchy low down with no need to rev the nuts off it, was very tempted at the time but kept my 118d.

Not driven any Hyundai petrols but have driven 1.6 Kia petrols in Ceeds which are essentially the same. To get any decent performance you need to rev the nuts off it, no low down torque. This is not a critisism of Hyundai/Kia, in my experience it applies to all similar engines from all makes.

That is why my car has a turbo 1.4 and the wifes a supercharged 1.2. Better drivability, better economy and in my 1.4 turbo incredible performance with no need to thrash it.