Yeah I have seen those - not in love with them really but the warranty is attractive.

I can't remember when Toyota moved to a 5-year warranty. If this RAV-4 is covered for 5 yeats, that will be a strong point in its favour.

Otherwise the Ford Kuga is well worth a look, particularly if you find the RAV-4 a bit pedestrian after the 3-series.

This one is covered Avant so warranty to 2019 and servicing free until 2020. It will undoubtedly be more pedestrian but not many wouldnt I guess. However with that deal on offer it's sounding more like common sense.

One thing that is concerning me is the fuel economy given that it's the 2.2 D-4D Auto. The Real MPG numbers are not great.

Toyota GB introduced the 5 year/100,000 mile new car warranty on cars first registered on 1st June 2010.

Other European markets retained the three year/100,000km new car warranty

Toyota might not fare favourably when compared to some others due to Mr T continuing to have nothing to do with the modern fad for extended service intervals.

If others were to up the servicing to Mr T levels of preventative maintenance then any difference in annual running costs would possibly narrow...major services at Toyota are more than an oil change and peer through the wheels event.

Depends what you think about servicing.

OP, would extending makers warranty for another year or maybe two and keeping the present car be an option?

On reflection, I think if I were you I'd keep the BMW till the warranty expires and then look around. The 2-series Active Tourer hasn't, I'm told, been selling well, and so may lose its value quickly so that there could be a good deal to be had on a newish one next year. This has a higher driving position than your 3-series.

I'm a bit surprised that a RAV-4 would be that much more expensive to run: what happened to the free servicing deal that you mentioned in your original post?

Well so was I but both tax and servicing are more expensive and if you check out the 'Real MPG' numbers then I can probably expect a realistic 35 - 38mpg as opposed to 49 ish out of the 3. That's quite a difference over a year.

The RAV 4 was actually coming up as similar or slightly more expensive to insure also so, only from my crude figures, I reckoned on balance it's an increase of around £800/year to run.

Both of the ones I looked at were offering 'free' servicing when there was a small payment involved in my changing. Once I squeezed them to a straight swap that disappeared and, sadly for them probably meant that the deal became far less attractive because of the costs.

The 308 looks nice though clearly not an SUV as originally intended but you know how it os when you first start looking - that would be a good way to reduce running costs but there are the questions in my mind about reliability and depreciation being much higher.

I 'think' my decision is also to stick with the 3 series for now and change it just before it's 3 years old. That gives me more time to look, consider, save and not make a rash decision I may regret.