Questions before I buy

[DavidT]

Hi all,

I'm after a Passat estate to do c40k miles a year in. It needs to be a diesel and I guess 2 years old, good on fuel, automatic preferred. The questions I have are:

1) Do the DSG or other automatics give the same fuel economy as the manual?
2) I've been told that VW switched to PD from TDI recently, is this true? and if so, are the PD cars better? and how can I identify them in ad's?
3) Are the bluemotion diesels better or worse than than the mainstream models?
4) Is there anything I need to consider in terms of spec?
5) Are there any reliability issues I need to consider?
6) What else have I missed?


Any help appreciated, thanks.

David