As per Rob's suggestion, I've started a ride thread in the correct location. Considering I have a P1, now that I know what a P1 is (thanks Rob!).
So my fiancée and I were in the market for a safe and reliable small to medium wagon. Our list of potential cars included:
* Skoda Octavia vRS
* Audi A4 Avant
* Alfa Romeo 159
* Volvo V50
The Skoda was nice with lots of features and had a capable engine but I wasn't sold on the DSG and compared to the Audi and Volvo had more NVH. All of the Audi's in our price range were either high kilometre, older turbo quattro or the 2.0 FWD which was gutless. Nice solid car otherwise though. I never got to drive an Alfa as I couldn't find a suitable one, so I can't comment on it. I took a few V50's for a test drive and each one simply felt solid and I thought had the best interior layout and ergonomics compared to the others. The T5 certainly had good power. The 2.4 doesn't have the same push but enough urgency for our purposes.
I was very close to purchasing a V50 T5 AWD in Adelaide but the buyer and seller couldn't agree to terms. For that story, check out this thread:
https://ozvolvo.org/discussion/2652/yuris-v50-purchase-formerly-another-new-member-v50-t5
As nice as a T5 would have been, I already have a turbo toy for the weekends and the track:
https://ozvolvo.org/discussion/2654/renault-megane-225
So we finally found and decided on a black V50 with 62,000kms on the clock. Why this particular one? It was in the best condition of ALL the cars we test drove. Following a clean bill of health from the MTA inspection and a car history check, the deal was done. Traded in a 2003 Golf 1.6 which really needed a bit of work to bring it back to a decent condition.
Here are a few pics taken by the MTA inspector...
