Pleasantly surprised by white goods rental car?!

[Raino144]

So this week I have been tootling around in an 18 plate Astra SRi Nav 1.4 turbo (150). Only because I didn’t want to pay the extortionate upgrade to a ´premium’ (e.g. A class diesel). Rental was £130 for8 days from one of the majors via a broker. upgrade would have been another £144!

It’s been a great car over 400 miles, reasonably comfortable, punchy enough and returned 45mpg mixed. They seem to be going at around £10-11k at a year old or so.

Given that £5k often only stretches to a 9-10 year old car, is this a hidden bargain or will the wheels fall off at the first opportunity?

[Raino144]

Coming from a £40k merc C250d 4matic I did get the feeling that something like this could do 90% of what I do now at a fraction of the cost. Hopefully invisible to the thieves as well as it’s not German?