They are apples and oranges. The 240D is a very capable "around town" car, but it's not a good choice for long highway trips due to it's power/gearing limitations. The 300D is capable of highway travel at sustained speeds of 75-80 without much hassle, but the turbo lag and higher gears make it feel a little "heavy" around town. Personally, I prefer the automatic climate control; it's not that complex to fix and it's pretty hard to spend more than about $1000 on it. The obvious solution is to have one of each.