Ransom wrote: In reply to Jaynen: Those are pretty good numbers! I wonder how the diesel does in the real world...
My biggest issue with the diesel was it was too new to have depreciated and had a circa 50k new purchase price. Fuelly shows them averaging 35/36
http://www.fuelly.com/car/bmw/328d_xdrive
I wish my new daily had come in a wagon option but I ended up going sedan.
What about the new MINI clubman? It seems like a real wagon now that it has 4 doors, and I love the idea of the split rear doors.
I might have to go test drive one.
In reply to bastomatic:
There's a hole in my research. Somehow I'd missed that the Clubman still exists. I love the look of those split rear doors, too, even if I'm pretty sure the upshot is having to use twice as many handles, not having anything over you head when it's raining, and having a bar in the middle of the rear view. They're still cool... Not sure why it's that much more expensive than the 4-door hardtop, but I haven't done an equipment comparison. I did a quick online "build" I was pretty darned happy with and came out right around $30k... Which is higher than I'd hope, but I could probably live without some of those options.
What about a CX-5? You can get them with manuals..
In reply to 92dxman:
It's totally on the list. I clearly need to make it to a Mazda dealership; I love the 5, but think the old one looked better, and it doesn't really get good enough mileage. The 3 and CX-5 are both still on my "go see" list.
I find the older 5's more comfortable (10 and older). I'm actually pondering a cx-5 myself..
Just checked in on my arrangements to drop the Leaf off tomorrow. Guess I'd better sort this out.
More immediately, guess I'd better replace the leaky feed hose from the brake fluid reservoir to the clutch master on the E28, or we'll be down to the cargo van 
Update: The E28's clutch is excellent. But we still have no idea what to replace the Leaf with.
Further update: Murphy loves old cars. Yesterday at 5:00 we dropped off the Leaf. Drove the E28 to dinner and home. Got in it this morning and the clutch pedal went straight to the floor, zero resistance, and stayed there...
We didn't want to spend time car shopping this weekend, but after driving the van to breakfast, we went and drove a Mini 4-door hardtop, and quite liked it. We went to a Mazda dealership and decided the CX-5 was too big, and the CX-3 isn't even built with a manual, and there are no more manual 3s kicking around, and they're three months from new 2016 3s with manuals arriving.
So from wide, wide open, we're now pretty much down to Impreza vs Mini Hardtop. I'm kinda leaning Mini, but it's nontrivial. The Impreza's roomier. The Mini gets better mileage. The Mini ranks higher on je ne sais quoi, the Impreza on driven wheels. I was impressed by the Mini's eagerness with that 1.5L triple. I have a bit more faith in Subaru's ability to build a solid, reliable car, but I kinda figure modern cars are just rarely junkers.
Okay, now to go try to get the clutch working so we have something besides the van to drive while we make a decision and acquire something.
Crap. Forgot we still need to have a look at a 500L... Don't we?
EDIT: nope. Sightly worse mpg than the Impreza for no features we really care about.
The envelope please:
We've just ordered a 2016 Mini 4-door Hardtop.
It is likely to be less reliable than the Subaru, but it doesn't look to be automatically catastrophic. In any case, not a significantly larger reliability gamble than the TDI we wanted in the first place.
Speaking of that TDI, the Mini gets effectively the same EPA MPG figures, though admittedly it doesn't have forumloads of people beating those figures on a regular basis.
AND I can see out of it pretty well!
AND it's pretty zippy and should be more fun to walk up to and to drive than pretty much anything else we could consider.
So while I'm still disappointed about the whole VW thing, and think the TDI was the perfect car for us, I'm pretty excited about the Mini. Plus I think it'll be more fun as an interim autocrosser 
What made you go HT over the Clubman? Price?
Congrats. I think you made a good choice, but my wife hates Subarus so what do I know.
In reply to bastomatic:
I'd probably have taken a look at one if they were already available, but apparently they're not quite here yet. Moreover, they're apparently even larger than a Countryman (if not as tall), and would doubtless eat into the MPG a bit, and take some of the zip out of that little triple... I haven't spent significant time in the hardtop at freeway speeds, and I expect it to be adequate but not awesome. Adding a few hundred pounds and more frontal area might take the fun out of it. The Clubman sure does look cool, though, and if I weren't as worried about MPG, the four would doubtless move it along nicely.
We decided we were really okay with the size of the hardtop. We'll probably just leave the back seats down most of the time for max dog-and-groceries space, and set them up when we actually have a third or fourth person, which is pretty occasional. The only time I'm really concerned about room is going mountain biking with two or more friends; all my mountain biking friends are also six feet or taller (some considerably taller), and I'm a little concerned about how comfy they'll be in the back... But that's really occasional, and largely so I just stop feeling like the mountain bike ride-mooch I've been during The Leaf Era.
I was impressed by the Mini's eagerness with that 1.5L triple.
BMW feels good enough about it to put it in a $120,000 car.
This definitely has my "Good enough for an $80k Lotus" toyota v6 beat.
Good choice. We ended up picking out a pre-owned C-Max, picking it up tomorrow. I don't know that I would have pulled the trigger on a new one, but the pricing on the used market is stunning.
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