Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

I really like the A2
For petrol get the 1.4, the 1.6 fsi is a pain unless you like taking the head off just to clean the gunk out of the inlet manifold.
The diesel is very good*, just watch for camshaft wear (manifests itself in high oil consumption, just ask the seller how often they put oil in it in a matter of fact way, will get you the answer your looking for bluntly).

*though if a small super economical diesel is what you want, you need the fiat group 1.3 16v JTDm, prob in a panda or an alfa mito (Corsa)

I bought a 1.4tdi about 6 months ago as I was doing a lot of miles for work and didn't want to put thousands of miles on my other car.

Small - tick, efficient - big tick, quiet on motorways - X, comfortable on long drives - tick.

The diesel unit is a rumbling grumbling old thing. Its very efficient but not the most refined unit. The suspension on them is pretty harsh but it is fine tackling big motorway miles. Even at faster than most traffic levels of speeds its fine.

Ive done about 7k miles and its been faultless bar one rather large hiccup. An engine mounting/stabilising (?) bolt went for a wander and as a result the engine got a bit 'mobile' in the engine bay and severed the oil filler pipe and a power steering pipe. It wasn't ruinously expensive to fix in the end.

They go forever if well looked after. Mine has done 167k