We had a bit of a bombshell dropped on us. Jackie does a lot of miles as part of her job (she works for the government), and they now put limits on the amount of miles you can claim for if you drive a car which produces over 150g/km. Previously you could claim 40p/mile for the first 10,000 then 25p/mile above, now if you have a car which is over 150 its 40p/mile for the first 6,000 then 8p above this. You don't have to be a maths genius to work out that that won't even cover your fuel.

I was wondering if this is just a government thing, or has it been pushed through into private industry as well?

Anyway, we're looking at our options as we are going to be out of pocket as a result, one option is to change the car, but there's not that many cars we'd consider which are in VED band C or below. The list below covers all the cars we are looking at: -

MINI Clubman, Cooper, D and S. Trouble is the difficulty in getting a decent spec on a nearly new as we're in a bit of a hurry.

Fiat 500 1.4 sport (fully loaded)

Civic 2.2 CDTI EX or S-Type GT spec

Audi A3 2.0TDI

Focus 2.0 TDCI Titanium

Accord 2.2 Estate (Dog Taxi)

Roomster Scout 1.9TDI (weird dog taxi)

We looked at the Golf and BMW 1 series and I didn't like them, even though the BMW is pretty damn quick. Is there anything else I should consider?