I fear you may be right Glos Guy, our E class is the E350 version with 265bhp and its an absolute peach of an engine and so smooth to drive. Sadly mostly of my driving is now pottering around town with school drop offs and shopping and with the upcoming ULEZ being extended to the north circular, it will have to go. Values of these big engined diesels have also fallen off a cliffas no one in London is touching them and the dealers are not really interested either.
I have had 3 BMW 5 series in past, an E36 and 2 E39’s which I drove for nearly 12 years and they were brilliant, and I hear the F10’s and later models are even better so I can fully understand where you are coming from. The motability scheme makes a lot of sense now and my wife would like an SUV as we have had saloons all our lives. Its a shame the Q3 was such a dissapointment as we had high hopes for that. The salesman tried to talk us into the sport version, which frankly looked awful.
I will keep you posted on the XC40 and tiguan test drives, theres not really much else on the scheme that appeals to us, so fingers crossed one of those ticks most of the boxes.