INFINITI M 3.0d S 4dr Auto (2010)

The Infiniti - More fun than Audi BMW etc, give it a try

Some people complain that this isn't really as much fun to drive as rival cars in its class, but all I can say is that it must be a personal thing cos I really love the M, and not only cos of the James Bond sounding name. It's just bags and bags of fun to drive, loads of power, zero to sixty in less than 7 seconds! That's with the diesel I got (cos of the fuel costs), but the petrol is even quicker.

The paddle gearbox certainly takes a bit of getting your head around. I only ever had regular manual cars before this and I kept grabbing for a stick that wasn't there, but once you're familiar with the setup it's actually much quicker for changing up and down. The gearbox is very smooth too, always knows which is the right gear to be in - and seven gears! Always more power available. The sport button is only to be pressed if you want to have enormous amounts of fun!

It's really comfy too, even on very long drives. It does get a bit shaky on dodgy roads compared to other cars in this class, but I don't do much driving other than motorways so doesn't bother me. My diesel gives a little bit of noise now and then, but I'd hardly call it noisy as such. I was saying about Audis and that sort of thing, well I think it's definitely got more overall space inside than those, especially leg room and head room. One annoying thing is for the middle passenger in the back, where there isn't much leg room cos of the central dividing bit.

There's lots of other handy gadgets and gizmos, as well as clever technical stuff, like the hill start helper mechanism. My iPhone easy connects up by bluetooth to the car, and it's all voice activated too. The wipers know when it's raining and the lights know when it's dark. Even the steering wheel is heated! There's also a camera out the back of the car with parking helper cleverness, very handy.

The boot is alright, might be a bit smaller than its rivals but has always done me fine. It's a bit annoying that there's no button or handle to open the boot actually on the boot, so that only the driver can open it with the key. That's good in some ways but really annoying if you're with someone and only got one key.

One other word of warning: the insurance is about as high as it gets, so it's not the cheapest in terms of ongoing costs, but the fuel usage is pretty good, I average about 40mpg on motorways. Actually that's really good for a car like this I think.