My mate nick's dad has a f30 335d x drive.
The launch control in it is mental. Never been faster from 0-30 it literally pins you. It's very very rapid to 60 of course and feels like a tour-de-force all the way up.
The average person buys a diesel power car because they automatically think it'll be cheaper to run than a petrol. If you don't do massive mileage it's pointless IMHO. Most modern diesels are just crap to advanced for there own good, diesel injectors for example just break for fun, £800 for 4 mondeo injectors 
IMHO if you do average mileage your no better off running a diesel if anything your out of pocket.
I've had 2 diesels and done over 60k in them and never had an injector fail.
PD injectors are pence as they're all so common.. around £200 for a set of 4
Regarding MPG the truth is yes you do save more money the more you drive but people who say short journeys don't save you money i disagree with.
My commute is 2 miles door to door
Displayed consumption on my GTI for this drive would be 25 if I was lucky with the traffic lights.
I've get to get below 38 on my Scirocco.
No matter how hard I try I could never get more than about 42mpg from my Golf and that was on a boring ass-drive where as I can actually enjoy the drive in the Scirocco and get 52-53mpg without even trying, rising to about 60 if I make an effort.. the extra 300 or so miles of range I can get (700ish vs about 400) makes up for the small increase in fuel price itself.
Buying new then yes the difference is more readily noticable but buying a used vehicle the price gaps between petrol and diesel are much smaller and therefore you cannot use the "diesels are more expensive" argument. A new car may have a 1800 price difference between equivalent petrol and diesel models but in the second hand car market with prices far more negotiable and cars priced down to condition etc there is nothing in it in my opinion.
Yes DPF's " can " be problematic but so can many other things in life or on other vehicles. DPF's are fine by and large so long as a) you have them on a CR engine not a PD engine as they are not designed to work with PD engines and b) you actually understand the warning lights and drive the car as intended.
80% of issues with DPF's are the pressure sensors rather than the DPF itself and if you do have a blocked up DPF then you get a good, fair warning well in advance of any permanent issues. failure to act upon these warnings is what causes problems... Before my DPF was removed I could see the soot loading on my Fiscon Advanced, which, contrary to popular belief, would slowly increase even at 70mph on the motorway on cruise control, to around 15, at which point the EGT's would shoot up to around 650-700 and stay there, within about 5 minutes the soot loading was back down at 2.5 or so...the cycle would continue. I never once witnessed a passive regeneration which despite all of the information that's thrown around would explain a lot.
I don't know if it's true personally but I read somewhere a story of a guy who was a taxi driver in a CR engined Passat and did 118k all around London and apparently didn't ever have the DPF light on..
