I thought most modern diesels had DPF's tbh, they're certainly starting to cause expensive problems for people, many owners don't even know they have one (or told about them upon purchasing from new) until if goes wrong/needs cleaning/replacing. We've just bought an '06 Focus 1.6 petrol Ghia for my wife, we were going to get a TDCI but the 1.6 & 2.0 diesels have PDF's, only the 1.8 doesn't, we gave up looking for a descent one so settled for the petrol. Seems very difficult to find out which cars/models have them fitted & which don't !
I'm not keen on Type R's, they have the same problem as my Clio, not enough torque to pull the skin off a rice pudding, & all the power somewhere over 5k, i'm always underwhelmed by my Clio's low end grunt & i can never be bothered to rev the knackers off it, lol.
I chose to initially consider the Golf mk5 GTI & the Focus ST as they're meant to have a very linear power delivery & lots of low end grunt, which i like, i get the impression the leon's power delivery isn't quite as linear with the older 1.8 20v lump.
having said that i may well take a closer look at the leon Cupra R 225
