3 hours ago, oldstan said:

If I'm spending nearly £30,000 of my own money on something I'm going to do more in terms of trying to get it right than simply buy it and hope to enjoy it.

Briskoda has, for all the time I've been a member, prided itself on in depth conversation about detail .. sometimes in much detail in order to arrive at a conclusion. My enquiry was reasonably simple and revolved around what type of DSG was fitted to a particular range of cars. It transpires that the answer isn't necessarily that straightforward so forgive me if my enquiries appear unnecessarily pedantic.

Here’s the deal. You do very low mileage (45,000 in 14 years). That in of itself is likely to insulate you from any issue. Dry clutches are used because they have less drag and better fuel economy but the clutches will wear faster and the shifts are not as smooth etc..

If, as it seems, you are the type of person to worry about all this I’d suggest you take your own advice and buy a Japanese car that will almost certainly be more ‘reliable’. VAG and European cars in general are simply not as reliable as Japanese ones. However you are far more likely to suffer from plastic water pump leaks, EGR piping and things like that than a gearbox issue.

I bought a new Octavia RS about a year ago. It has a DQ381 and shifts and operates beautifully far better than my wife’s DQ200 in her 2012 Polo GTI. I plan to change my car shortly after the standard 5 year warranty expires. It’s already been to the dealer twice. Once for a new battery and once for a detached wire on the DCC system. The Polo has been terrible but she loves it. The twin charger engine was plagued with issues but so far the gearbox has been fine. Over the same time period I had a turbocharged Subaru which had a gearbox sensor fail at 60,000 miles but was otherwise faultless.

If you are not choosing a car for an enthusiast reason, you can’t go wrong with a Toyota for mainstream or Lexus for more upmarket.

All received with thanks.

And if I add the gist of what's been said here to the gut feeling I currently have then my conclusion is, yes, I'd be happier with a 1.8 Toyota Corolla Hybrid Touring Sport (posh for an estate) ... in base "Icon" trim - coz it has 16" wheels and none of the stuff I neither need nor want.

A Seat Leon estate (1.5 DSG) has very similar dimensions to the Toyota and probably fits the bill closer than an Octavia as the Octavia is tad wider and my garage door opening is tight.... but the same DSG questions hang in the air.

Since starting this topic the good lady has been told to report for an urgent MRI scan and it's probably prudent to see what her mobility prognosis is before doing anything else.

Further thanks for all the interest and assistance.

Happy new year and best wishes for your wife’s mobility. Something I forgot to mention earlier was whether your wife would find it easier getting into an SUV than a car because they are taller?

Thanks.

No, the problem is she can't lift her leg over the passenger door sill of the Yeti (which is 420mm from the ground). A door sill which is, say, 360mm off the ground is just about OK. Hence the Leon or Corolla. A Jazz is close and my little Hyundai i10 is OK too

I did detail this in the initial post of this thread. But that now seems a long way back.