For the lowest Vauxhall Agila running costs go for the 1.0-litre petrol as road tax is kept reasonably low and the official average fuel consumption is 60.1mpg.

Buyers of the 1.2-litre will pay more in terms of road tax (it’s road tax band D rather than C for the 1.0-litre) it lags behind a little in terms of fuel consumption with 55.4mpg as a manual and 49.6mpg as an auto. Both versions are also reasonably cheap to insure and Vauxhall servicing is good value for money.

Vauxhall Agila emissions are disappointing for a city car. The 1.0-litre petrol has an acceptable 109g/km of CO2 (although this isn’t as good as similar cars), but the 1.2-litre is 118g/km as a manual and 131g/km as an automatic and therefore less efficient and more expensive to tax.

Like the previous Agila, this model is heavily based upon a Suzuki – in this case the Splash (the previous Agila was based on the Suzuki Wagon R+).

Suzuki’s strong reputation for durability bodes well and so Vauxhall Agila reliability should prove just as good. Only minor problems were reported from the previous generation Agila.