I'm looking along similar lines at the moment, my current car is a Peugeot 306 DTurbo and it's absolutely fantastic to drive but it's getting a bit long in the tooth now (135K mainly b-road miles and 2 front end smacks) so I've been looking for suitable replacements. Ideally I want something of a similar size with a nice punchy diesel engine and good handling. I've got the list down to:
Focus TDCI Sport
SEAT Leon TDI (old or new shape)
Skoda Fabia VRS
Skoda Octavia TDI
I wouldn't bother with an A3 as you're just paying for the snob factor, Golfs are the standard company car here so I don't really want one of them (although it would mean access to cheap parts
). I've also excluded French cars from my list - whilst I like my 306 I've hated every 206 and 307 I've driven, Citroens are a no go and Renaults are horrible and hugely unreliable.
Next time I have a week off I'm thinking of just going round the dealers and taking a couple off my list for a test drive to see what they go like.