[Cookeh]

Compression test worries me, sounds like piston rings starting to go (if you see no evidence of overheating). That would be quite a big bill.

PCV is neither too hard or too expensive to do. 6 or so hours and £80 in parts. Has to be kept on top of though, as positive pressure will cause issues with seals. The first ones to go are typically your crankshaft and camshaft seals. Rear main seal only goes when there is a huge amount of positive pressure over a sustained period of time. Unfortunately it typically scraps cars too, as its a subframe and gearbox out job to do - about £500+ if you decide to do clutch at the same time (you really might as well).

Those strut bearings are knackered. Good news is they are replaced in about an hour and the bearing costs £20 for a good quality aftermarket piece.

The oil leak seems rather substantial and is hard to pinpoint as a result. It does seem more turbo side than anything but would require some serious cleaning up to trace properly. Turbo oil drains do clog, and oil feeds fail. This could also mean you have a turbo in need of a refurb - which is about £150 plus labour for removal/refitting.

Control arms are £55 each for good aftermarket stuff (MeyleHD) and require about an hours fitting again. Rear suspension is Sachs OEM assuming it's not nivomat, and if it is nivomat they are very expensive to replace and hard to repair; I'd recommend swapping the nivomat out if they are shot. Good news is rears take all of 20mins a side to swap out. To fully replace all suspension components (front and rear springs/dampers, new bushings, and the front control arms) with OEM spec stuff you're looking at about £6-700 in parts alone.

I think if you get it cheap, and I do mean cheap, then it could be worthwhile. By cheap I mean around £1500 for a manual or £1200 or less for an auto). You'd then need about £1k or so to address the issues you found in your single inspection/MOT and then perhaps another grand for things you find over the first few months of your ownership. At which point you'd be in it for about what you'd expect a reasonable condition UK-spec R to be worth.

If you feel like you want the car and you are somewhat competent as a DIYer (not scared of suspension/brakes/timing belt level stuff) then go for it. If you don't have a good feeling about it then walk.

For reference I bought a nail of a T5 and had a huge amount of work to do on it. Suspension (dampers, springs, bearings, front and rear, control arms and droplinks), brakes (handbrake rebuild, all four calipers, discs and pads all around), major servicing, cambelt + water pump, entire ignition system (sparks, rotor arm, dizzy, plug leads).

The car has cost me on average £130 a month on mechanicals and cosmetic items (I bought lots of missing interior trims, seat repairs etc) to run over the 20 months I've had it. This value is dropping month by month though and after the first year of ownership its actually proved to be an exceptionally reliable and cheap car to run - excluding petrol costs of course!