A Nissan Primera, they were never very popular and the last model had questionable styling. Which means the few that are on sale are very cheap.

Any car around that budget could give a few years of cheap reliable service or have repair bills costing more than its purchase in the first six months.

It can be difficult deciding when to cut your losses with an old car, but you’re saying your current car is uneconomical to repair. You haven’t given details of the age and what’s wrong with your Golf but you have said that you’re mechanically sympathetic to it. So it may be a better option to spend the money keeping your current car on road since you know that it has been treated well.

maybe i'll look at a petrol version for less long term agro with things going wrong, im not too keen on the looks of the nissan to be honest. our golf needed a new ecu, it was made in 2000, and it was quoted at around 4-500 to repair and we need to get an estate anyway so the time seems right for a change!

It's about dampening the very sudden "pushes" that each cylinder gives to the crank, and hence to the rest of the drive chain, in a diesel engine (which is typically running slower than a petrol would be).

Quite right - DMFs not exclusive to diesel engines, but due to greater torque and lower engine speeds, diesel DMFs can have a harder time of it and are potentially more vulnerable to failure than those in petrol engined cars as a result (especially since the greater torque of a diesel makes the car more likely to experience unsympathetic practices such as repeatedly moving off without any throttle eg in a queue of traffic).