The new Vauxhall Astra estate is one of the cheapest competitors to run in its class according to research by Carcost.

The car recorded the most impressive wholelife costs in both diesel and petrol formats of all the vehicles they tested. Carcost state that an Astra estate diesel could save £690 over the cost of running a Ford Focus estate diesel over three years.

The statistics, from the Carcost whole life cost software programme, show that the Astra Estate Club diesel, featuring the new 100bhp 1.7CDTi engine, costs 26.10ppm to run over three years/60,000 miles compared to 26.30ppm for the Peugeot 307 S HDi and 27.25ppm for the Ford Focus 1.8 LX TDCi.

There is a similar cost difference with the petrol engines, with the Astra 1.6 16v Club Estate costing 26.53ppm over three years/60,000 miles, compared to 26.89ppm for the equivalent Ford Focus 1.6 LX, 26.72ppm for the Toyota Corolla T3 and 27.28ppm for the Peugeot 307 Estate S.