Justifying changing from Turbo-Diesel

[C.A.R.]

In my youth I drove petrol cars, what with being a car nut and having no other commitments.

Nowadays I work 18 miles down the road - and like many I have been driving a Diesel for the last 3 years. I hate it.

Diesel has become the norm, I know, but I just don't enjoy it. With the miles I'm doing I thought I could never justify ever getting a petrol again (13-15,000 miles a year) but my current trusty old diesel is getting a bit old and creaky, the speakers are cutting out and things are generally in need of some TLC, which I don't have time for with a young family to look after.

I was looking at the Civic 2.2d for the next family car; safe, economical, gadget-laden and modern. These start north of £4k for what I would class as a 'good' one. I've test driven one and I liked it and my mind was pretty much made up.

With the recent advent of cheaper fuel I thought it would be worth seeing what the potential savings would be on the outright purchase cost of a car. The 1.8i Civic has a poor rating, but it's the direct equivalent to compare to - a saving of between £500-£1000 on the diesel (which would typically have higher mileage).

Thing is, can I justify / afford going back to an interesting n/a petrol? Do they still exist on the market?

Has anyone recently moved away from diesel, picked up a higher monthly running cost in favour of a cheaper car in the first place?

Playing silly b*ggers for a minute, I could pick up a Corrolla T190 for £2,000 and it would cost me around £500 more a year to run. I'd need to keep the diesel Civic over 2 years before I even saw a saving on that, because it's more expensive in the first place (like I said, silly comparison, but definitely food for thought).

I miss N/A petrol simplicity. I miss a heater which doesn't take 5 miles to warm up. I miss that quiet, smooth humming noise and the occasional rev-limiter thrashing.

Just keen to hear from people who have done it.

[C.A.R.]

I've run spreadsheet after spreadsheet and I reckon my current Peugeot D-Turbo is costing me less than £200 a month to run (fuel, tax & insurance). I own it outright however (it is, afterall, only worth peanuts).

I want to get a new car as we are expecting our second child in June and the old Peugeot just feels a bit ratty. There's plenty of Focus ST170 5-doors out there which would be a laugh, but they don't use the fuel as efficiently as the 190 engine in the slightly mundane Corolla. I don't particularly want a petrol turbo, as these seem just as complicated as a modern diesel which it seems are always more expensive to service and problems cost more to repair. There are plenty of 1.8T VAG cars out there for not a lot of money too.

I think part of it is optimism given the latest fuel cost drop. I think I just wish I still had my Eunos Roadster so I could fill up and go for a drive

[C.A.R.]

My diesel can be entertaining, but not as much fun as I could have in an admitedly slower petrol.

My colleague suggested we flog the Mrs' Kia Picanto (worth ~£3.5k) and get her something bigger, so I can get something smaller and petrol-powered. Annoyingly he may have a very good point.

Doing 36 miles a day I need something which will return 35+ mpg, so no 6-cylinder beasts unfortunately. My Autotrader-browsing led me to a Polo GTI 1.6 16v, which claims to get 39mpg on average. Even taking 10% off that's still very decent for what could be a fun car to live with? Or were these similar to the Golf of the same era in the handling department?

I'm not bothered about flat-out speed, just something entertaining and simple. The Civic is quite big which is why the reviewers often favoured the torquey diesel engine.

[C.A.R.]

What about an Audi A2? Sure, it's no GTI, but it looks much more modern than it actually is, has cheap tax and is seemingly very simple?

I really like the looks, I think I will have to check one out.