Both cars together.

So 30 years of not paying Kasko has saved me 75k if not more. Out of interest how much is kasko on a Porsche 911 for a 21 year old central London, no garage & works in the film business. If you could get a quote it would be over £10,000.

Problem with diesels are HUGE bills when anything goes wrong, don't be surprised to get bills of 2-3k every couple of years, if not more often.

After how many years so far my most expensive services is 500CHF for a 2year service which how much I used to pay on petrol car every 6 months in Oz at least 10 years ago

Car servicing costs here as dirt cheap by comparison

What is the car? Wait to the high pressure fuel pump goes.

Whoa. Let's not get carried away here, shall we?

I had a new rental Octavia 4x4 some two months ago and the driving experience was one the most detached I ever had in any car. Steering gives very little or no feedback to the driver and the gas reacts with a delay of 1s in any condition (no, it was not the turbo-lag ... the car just gives you time to make up your mind if you really want to accelerate).

On the other hand, the 1000km trip resulted in an average consumption of 5.7L/100kmh, with plenty of 200kmh+ autobahn fun during the trip. This was awesome.

If you are unsure you can stay here, avoid leasing. If you buy a car you can always sell it here or take it with you,
if you lease you pay the penalty when leaving before the contract ends.

The Migros bank offers online credit at 5.9% but I think you need a permit and some months living here to qualify.
http://www.migrosbank.ch/de/Private/Privatkredit/

Tax relief on the interest is the same on both.

A B permit holder, earning less than 120k (500k Geneva) will not get any tax relief on either, so yes the tax relief is identical

Thanks for all the advice so far.

I have to say I'm not sure by which criteria an Octavia is fun to drive but other than that everything (especially the bits about diesel cars being able to throw massive bills at you) is sound

I have no issue picking the car I want, it's more around taxation and what restrictions there might be, for example tax on diesels is punative in NL, and in France the difference in fuel price means you'd be mad to buy petrol. Reading between the lines CH is a bit like the UK, where there isn't a huge difference between the two for tax, and petrol is cheaper to buy but not by enough to offset the economy of the diesel car.

In spite of my aspirations to be a gentleman I think diesel is probably the way to go, unless I'm buying something cheaper/older. Having said that a gentleman would also never drive a brash and vulgur German SUV, even if it was petrol powered...

Both my wife and I have Diesel BMW cars here and I still find it economically worthwhile over the course of a tank of fuel. Yes Diesel cars Can cost more if things go wrong, but my 330d has over 250k km on the clock and hasn't really cost me much at all to keep on the road. Just my opinion tho.

Fun to drive comes in two forms: handles speed very well for the class of car it is....but the more significant fun is to drive this car in the snow. I've had and XC70 and a Legacy and the Skoda performs remarkable better than both. It must be the new generation Haldex gearbox. I swear this car is part mountain goat.