I'm not sold on the Subaru I'm afraid. I did look at them in the first instance when I looked at the Tiguan, ASX Aspire and RAV4 but I have to say the finish and quality of the Euro cars seems to be a fair bit ahead of the Jap cars. The Subaru is still prettier than the Yeti though!

Flat floor for the dogs is a bonus. That is good to know. I've discovered 'flat' seems to be open to interpretation as far as some salespeople are concerned. One thing I dislike about the Astra is that, although the seats do fold flat, the seat part when folded up remains loose and wobbles around in a very annoying way. How hard can it be to have a little locking lug?

As for the amount of driving, yes, I am looking for a bit of comfort I must admit. The Astra seats are ok but not as nice as lumbar support would be.

I've just noticed that the Scout has a 6 stack CD as an option...wha? I'm not a luddite exactly but not into ipods and so forth, is the mp3 thing meant to take the place of cd player now?