I'm coming under increasing pressure from the Mrs to change the car. Never mind that I'm currently driving the nicest, most comfortable car I've ever owned and that it's only done a handful of miles and has been very well looked after, but I've had it nearly 6 years now and the wife thinks we need to change, she's mentioned getting a new car and now I've started thinking about it so that's the start of a slippery slope
. The only thing I will say is that I've been considering a diesel since I'm using it for work and doing alot more miles these days. I've always had to have the "main" family car, but it struck me the other day that SWMBO's Fucus is more than capable of draging the tribe around fairly economically and in relative comfort, and when we need it to go on hols we could just get a roof box 
So the dilema is a huge one! There are essentially 4 options.
1, Forget it!
2, Buy a diesel that's a few years old, of course it would have to meet my exacting standards of trim and spec, but possibly a smaller car or maybe even a 406 HDi coop
3, Sell my car and my Zook and get a more civilised 4X4 that could be used for work and fun.... maybe a mid - late 90s SWB pajero
(Yes I know the economy is poor but for a couple of grand I wouldn't think twice about running it on 50% veggie oil).4, Sell some more body parts and get another nearly new family car
(I really don't want to be spending much more than 10K plus my car, which Parkers tells me is worth about 2.5K 
)I'm favouring option 2, well that's not strictly true, I'm really favouring option 1
but never mind that now, let's discuss option 2. Fairly flexible budget here but let's say an absolute maximum of my car plus 5K. The problem with that is I'd be selling my car and getting someting a couple of years newer, but almost certainly with lots more miles and someone else's problems, I'd find it hard to part with my hard-earned under those circumstances 
.Option 3 is really a non starter, the economy would piss me off even if it is running veggie, plus I'd be forever scared of breaking it on a Sunday knowing I need it for work on the Monday.
The wife's favorite is option 4, the problem there being that there is absolutely nothing that I want out there. The only car at the moment that even remotely tickles my fancy is the New Mondeo, but with the spec I want we're looking at £23K+
... and they aren't old enough or plentiful enough just yet to be picking up the 1 year old / less than 10Kmiles nearly new bargains. However my searches on the internet have turned up a variety of previous shaped mondeos with cracking spec for pretty sensible money. I never liked the styling of that model but I just keep remembering Clarkson's quote of "Every time I drive one of these things I wonder why we ever buy anything else" . How about this one for example? That's the 155PS version 
, full leather, climate, cruise, 9K miles, low emissions so cheap tax, claimed combined mpg of 48... More than 10 grand off the new price 
I'd be interested in your opinions guys, what would you do.
