Any suggestions for a sedan or estate that can hold 2 tall adults and 2 kids. Reasonable boot, folding seats so I can get a bike in, reasonably economical, a good motorway mile muncher, not aircraft carrier size on the outside.

So far I am looking at a BM 3 series estate, Mondeo and Insignia. Any real world experiences with these and have I missed any others? I have discounted the a4 estate as I dont own an Orange 5 or a wood burner so Audi wont let me buy one 😆

I know the answer to this is normally Mondeo but I am not a big Ford fan due to 2 previous Fords giving me nothing but issues. I may be convinced to try again if the right one comes up though.

Budget about £10k and needs to be about 4 years old due to work allowances.

Any suggestions for a sedan or estate that can hold 2 tall adults and 2 kids.

Just about any!

Any suggestions for a sedan or estate

Surely the costs of importing a vehicle from the US is going to outweigh any benefits?

he’d have said ‘wagon’ if he was American surely?

Can I be the first to say Octavia?

Can I be the first to suggest this:

Everything you need and 4×4 thrown in as well

Don’t touch the Insignia with a sh**ty stick – Mondeo or BMW better in every respect.

Merc e class estate is a cracking car with loads of space. C class estate pretty good too.

I’ve the hybrid version and fuel consumption is fantastic – averaging 55mph with a bike rack up top.

BMW 3 series is tiny in comparison to a mondeo. Its tiny in comparison to my Focus!

The brief is a bit loose here to say the least!

I have a 12 plate 320 d and it is very good at what it does – 50mpg overall and quick when you want it to be.

I would go for another…………but if you check the leasing companies you can get c class mercedes on really low monthly payments at the moment.

I would prob go for one of them!

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/new-car-2008-ford-mondeo

I have a 07 plate Mondeo estate – love it and have had zero issues, same with my previous 51 plate.

The Mondeo estate is a different order of magnitude in scale to a 3 series tho – better comparison would be with a Focus estate (my dad has one of those and rates it), tho I think the focus is still bigger.

they’re all as good/bad as each other with the badge determining the quality. choose your badge!

Thanks.

Good call on the merc, haven’t looked at those yet. Octavia is a good call too, I was surprised how well they hold their value. Subaru looks good but will blow the budget.

Problem is I don’t like driving really big cars as 90% of the time it is just me going to work and back, its the other 10% that causes the issues.

I think is the only thing I can think of which meets your criteria.

Have you considered a Focus and a roofrack?

Actually,

The Focus estate is pretty sizeable; reckon that might tick your boxes.

volvo V5o is a smaller but capable estate. does what you suggested you want and pretty popular. The 2.0D shuffles along very nicely considering it has only 139bhp and will do 40-50mpg depending on how you drive it.

V50 is worth a look too thanks.

Currently I am between 2 ideas. 1 is the larger estate that will be ideal for weekends and I will just have to live with commuting, the other a smaller car with a tow bar and decent bike rack.

I think I would have gone for option 2 already but I worry about bike security in my work car park when I take the bike in for an after work ride.

Don’t touch the Insignia with a sh**ty stick

This – I’ve had nothing but trouble from mine.

+1 Skoda Octavia.
6’4″ and i don’t need to put the seat all the way back.
Massive boot I think second to E-class estate which is an aircraft carrier.
Well built, we had 5 years trouble free driving.
1.9 diesel was a great motor.
Now in a Mazda 5 MPV which is no bigger inside but the sliding doors and rear seat setup is awesome.

Passat estate. With dsg.

Smaller car + rack will be better. Pointless buying a bigger car for the odd trip away. You can eaisly manage with a smaller one.

For gods sake do not buy an Insignia petrol. Couldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding. The diesels are fairly good but the petrols are rubbish.

The Octavia has already been mentioned but it might be worth looking at the Seat Exeo ST, a friend has one and it is lovely to look at and has been uber reliable.

SEAT Exeo TDI. Comfortable, economical and significantly cheaper than the quivilent A4. The dash is from the old A4 Cabrio so rather pleasant inside.

Get 50+mpg on long runs with 2 lots of bike kit inside and 2 adults. Mines a 2010, but the newer ones have more rear leg room i believe

My old Octavia was very good. Great boot for the size of the car etc. But in comparison to ‘premium’ marques, theres no comparison in build quality etc.

Swapped my 2006 Octavia vRS which was pampered in January for a BMW 330I M-Sport Touring from the same year. The BMW feels like a brand new car with not a single rattle of creak from anywhere when driving it.

Didn’t need a bigger car than a 3-series but when looking, a Mondeo Titanium X with the Sport pack was hugely tempting but couldn’t get one with the auto box in our (similar as yours) budget.

I’ll throw a curve ball into the mix anyway. We narrowed our choice down to two cars – the 3-series and a Saab 93 Aero estate with the twin turbo diesel. Unfortunately there weren’t many for sale in the UK at the time with the options we wanted but if there had been, I reckon we’d have got one over the BMW. Lovely, lovely cars. If you’re less fussy about spec/options/gearbox there should be a pretty wide range of sub 4 year old 93s knocking about.

Just looked at the Saab 93 estate on Autotrader, seems a lot of car for the money but 😯 😯 is it ugly!

3 series estate looking likely at the moment, I am surprised what you can get for the money. I am also going to go and test drive a Mondeo this weekend with the Volvo V50/60 and Exeo as an outside chance.

Not keen on the Octavia, my aunt has 1 and has quite a few issues with it.

Thanks for all the feedback.

😯 Ugly?

IMHO one of the best looking ‘normal’ cars on the roads!

That one doesn’t look too bad, looks to have a body kit and some bigger bumpers. The one I looked at at chrome surrounds around the headlights and was not pretty!

4 years old, £10K and BMW, Audi, or Merc E class or C class – I don’t think so unless the mileage was stratospheric.

Octavia, Mondeo or petrol Mazda would be my thoughts as best options.

Oh yeh. I’d have to have an Aero…

If you want a small, great performing, brilliant handling, and fast estate, then BMW have got it absolutely licked with the current 3 series (or any of the last 2 models tbh).

However, if you want more room (and really, that’s any significant space, as the 3er touring is small inside) then you’re either going to have to move up to a 5er (same range of excellent engines, and pretty similar good handling) or branch out into an Skoda, A6, C class, Mondy or similar.

£10k is actually a slightly difficult amount of money to spend, because in that region sit well spec’d but higher mileage older model cars AND lower spec’d but a lot newer/lower mileage versions of them……

IMO, only the BMW & Merc handle really well (being rwd) so once you’ve compromised on that point, and gone for a fwd estate, then you may as well get the most space / best spec for you money, at which point, a mondeo or Octavia are leading the race!

IMO, only the BMW & Merc handle really well

They may be the best, but in the normal everyday world most cars handle pretty well, and unless you are trying to drive fast you really won’t notice.

None of the cars mentioned here will be a problem handling-wise.

What about a slightly smaller estate?
Golf estate? Or if you don’t mid the looks a lancer or a focus

3 series estate is quite nice to drive, but imo isn’t that great in the real world. V small inside for its footprint, poor slow speed manouvering visibilty, rwd is a pain on the occasional snowy day. I wouldn’t buy one, but would happily drive one. Depends what your priorities are. If they are at all based on practicallities, go for one of the other mentioned cars.

molgrips
IMO, only the BMW & Merc handle really well
They may be the best, but in the normal everyday world most cars handle pretty well, and unless you are trying to drive fast you really won’t notice.

Funnily enough, i most notice the 50:50 mass distribution and rwd layout when just pootling along. Because of these you get the ability to accelerate in a low gear, like pulling out of junction, without any wheelspin, you get nicely weighted, and uncorrupted steering, you get nice even tyre wear, and a lovely, not nose heavy, feeling when braking etc.

Sure, if you turn off the dsc you can drift it till the tyres pop, but that isn’t really that important to me 😉

Have 3 series & C class cars on our pool car fleet, but the nicest by a mile is an Octavia. BMW ride too hard for me. Ok if you like cornering fast but too hard for me, day to day. Merc was very nice, but just didn’t like it. Had over 100k on it & you’d never tell.
Octavia was a lovely car though.

I’ve been in three Octavias, each time I thought they were plasticy, spartan and ugly outside and in.

Because of these you get the ability to accelerate in a low gear, like pulling out of junction, without any wheelspin

Now I’ve never driven a BMW but all of these are perfectly possible without any special effort in any diesel car I’ve been in! By definition if you’re wheelspinning you’re driving fast (or attempting to).

I bet i can get a fwd tdi (like a golf or octaiva etc) to wheelspin without any significant application of throttle.

(try this, 1st gear junction, road with some gravel on it, or on a slope where you also need to turn sharply with lock on. FWD nightmare!)

You should drive a well set up RWD car, and then you can see what you think! 😉

maxtorque – Member

Funnily enough, i most notice the 50:50 mass distribution and rwd layout when just pootling along. Because of these you get the ability to accelerate in a low gear, like pulling out of junction, without any wheelspin,

My scabrous mondeo can do the same, god knows what the weight distribution is but luckily it comes with an accelerator pedal rather than a big on off switch 😉