The decision was made on right criteria. Usually, it is economy. Diesel cars are more expensive than petrol cars. That means, you must make math, how much are

The decision was made on right criteria. Usually, it is economy. Diesel cars are more expensive than petrol cars. That means, you must make math, how much are you going to drive, in order to break even on the savings on diesel. Usually, the break even point is about 20 000 km/year. You aren't going to make 20k km every year by doing school runs. About the DPF filter burning: it does not burn all the time. Yes, it needs warm engine, but it needs it once for every few hundred kilometers (in my car, cca every 750 km). That is doable, even when living in the city. Combine that with the break even point mentioned above - it means, you are going to have some longer trip every week or two anyway, so it will burn out the DPF. There are many other, more probable ways to damage your car by neglect or ignorance, resulting in expensive repairs, not only DPF ;).