Back to topic, I am very glad I did not buy a Mk 3. Although I have never driven one, (this type of car I own not for drive ability but functionality), I wanted the car with bigger windows and more practical boot space and not excessive leg room in the rear. Nor did I want a car with "driving aids" or a touch screen.
I personally think the two are different cars, different interpretations of the same concept, and thus the preference must purely that of the user. If they were both concurrent new cars side by side I would chose the Mk 2. That they are consecutive is only a matter of production practicality.
PS I love the CVT. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to "change gears" for a pastime and a CVT knocks 1000 spots off a conventional automatic .
This is what is, slowly but surely, turning me away from the Mk3. I have just noticed that they've removed the passenger's cup holder - my Mrs will go ape!
The CVT thing is interesting. I've been a passenger in 2 cars with CVT boxes - a Mk2 Jazz and, more recently, a Toyota Auris hybrid. The noise from both cars is/was horrendous. It's like driving a car with a badly slipping clutch. The Jazz CVT was woeful on hills - almost scarily so.
I must admit that, round town, they seemed OK. Now I have mentioned in the past that motoring journalists are almost universal in their condemnation of CVTs and that criticism has been dismissed as laziness and boy racer by CVT advocates.
However I now have the opinion of somebody with a mechanical engineering background who has spent a lifetime in the industry. CVTs, he says, are a particularly nasty bit of cost cutting and he hates them with a passion. He prefers more conventional automatics which spare you the slipping clutch sensation.
Seem to have hijacked my own thread here!