What to replace an E91 330d with?

[phil_983]

Afternoon all, been reading PH for years and now I would like the guidance of the collective for ideas on what to replace my lovely old 330d with.

I bought it brand new back in 2010, and it is now on 150k. It has been faultlessly reliable in that time, I put that down to 10k / annual services and general mechanical sympathy. Original clutch too. I don't need to change it, but after 9 years I fancy something a bit different, but I am having trouble coming up with a suitable replacement.

My criteria is:

• manual
• estate or hatchback - no saloons or coupes
• comfortable, maybe a bit more refined than the 330d
• reliable
• quicker than the 330d
• under £25k

Not too fussed about age, mileage, or fuel economy so long as it is reliable. I tend to keep my cars a while, so if it is reliable I don't mind if it does 20 mpg. My mileage will be around 12k a year now, petrol or diesel is fine. I don't really care about technology in the car, so long as it has a decent sound system that is fine. In built sat navs are almost always worse than google maps on a phone, so I don't care about that either. Ideally it would be a 6cyl.

What has crossed my mind:

• BMW M140i - not sure about the comfort and refinement aspect
• Audi S3 / Golf R - not sure about a 4cyl
• B7 Audi RS4 - Getting on a bit now, so maybe not reliable?
• 335i touring - manual ones seem very rare, and I am not convinced it will be enough of a change from the 330d
• B8 Audi S4 - top of the pile at the moment

And that is as far as I have got. So, what have I missed? What would you get given my situation? Do I really need to compromise?