Thanks Jon.
Right, where are we with the 16v? Well... not all good, but (touch wood) it's all OK now.
It involved going through a ford.... (water, not car).
To cut a long story short, new plugs fitted, plenty of WD40, a clear out and nice new HT leads on order and it'll be running fine. In fact the new spark plugs have made a difference on their own. The old ones were not looking too bad, but one was definitely not happy with a nice hairline crack in it.
Got the reversing lights working after replacing the switch and connector. New air filter (as I think the old one got a bit damp) fitted, and fingers crossed (to add to the touched wood) all seems well.
Lesson learned.
Might be the (proud?) owner of a Synergie TD. Watch this space.
I'm not able to devote much time to the Forum at the moment. Heavy workload and by choice too: it was all getting a bit distracting.
Keep the faith! P