Magnus, i assume you mean 7000 rather than 700 miles per year ?.
I know the cars are totally different but let me tell you what happened to us, my wife had a 2003 renault clio diesel which after 3 years had done only 9000 miles but we where completely happy with it it drove fantastic had enough power and returned an average of 58 mpg and 76 mpg on a run.
When we called in to renault to look at the new clio 3 in january 2006 the sales man adviced us that a diesel was the wrong car to have as our mileage was not high enough, i explained that my wife uses the car for her job as a care worker and the engine very rarely gets up to operating temp so the diesel was ideal as they use no extra fuel when cold, he advised that the diesel was still the wrong car for us and said the 1.4 petrol was more than adequate and not far off as efficient.
The car we ended up buying was a 1.4 petrol and almost immediately it was returned to the dealer as it was only returning 28 mpg, it went back a total of 8 times as the fuel consumption never got above 30 mpg and the car had to reved hard to get any kind of performance out of it, it turns out from advice that 28 mpg is about right for the car being used as it was.
fortunately for us we have been able to prove that we received bad advice from the sales man and as we are good customers the car was bought back for the original price and we now have a clio 1.5 diesel again, its only a week old and has just 260 miles on the clock but it is already showing 46 mpg round town and went up to 68 on a twenty mile motorway run plus the engine has all the power right where you want it, not right at the top of the rev band like most modern petrols.
In my honest opinion if you are happy with your diesel and im sure you are as my alhambra is powered by the same engine then you will be making a big mistake going over to petrol. dont let your dealer try to kid you its a myth that diesels cost more just threaten to buy another marque and they soon drop the cost.
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