I’ve just bough a Passat estate (2L TDI 170 Sport) and its ace. So much room inside and drives/handles like a much smaller car. Extremely comfortable too so I’d highly recommend one. Started looking at them as I know 3 people who have them & regularly transport bikes in the back which was a big thing for me.

Wife has a fabia estate, monte carlo special edition (no chrome all black, GPS, bluetooth) was less than 12k new (2 years ago so “old” shape now)

Excellent build quality, nice to drive, massive boot for its size, bit noisy on the motorway, bike goes in without wheel with one seat down.

Can’t really fault it for the money.

Touran. 7 seats, but the same size as a Golf.

pretty much decided to go second hand now. Looking likely to be the touran, im assuming buying through a vw/dosauto dealer is worthwhile as you ‘should’ get it checked out (i put car dealers in the same bracket as solicitors and estate agents – the majority of what they say is BS)

You’ll pay a premium at the VW dealer as any main stealer.
You should get a better warranty though.
I got my Caddy privately BUT it still had VW warranty on it transferable.

im assuming buying through a vw/dosauto dealer is worthwhile as you ‘should’ get it checked out

Personally (and I say this having just bought from a dealer…) I prefer private as you can meet the person who owns it, check history etc. I would rather buy on history and previous owner.

BUT, I went to look at a car recently (to check the model out, rather than that specific car) and it had full history, loads of recipts, one local bike shop owner from new, not a mark on it. I bought it the next day….

As you kids grow, the legroom of the Touran is just brilliant

Touran and legroom are two words that don’t go together. 7 seats in a golf sized car is a bad joke.

Touran and legroom are two words that don’t go together. 7 seats in a golf sized car is a bad joke.

The very reason I walked away from one even though it was cheaper than the Caddy.
I’ve had 6 adults in the Caddy as well as myself – all of them over 5’10” without a single grumble.
The Touran my 11yr old struggled to get comfy in the back of and she’s 4’8″
Seats folding into the floor is all well and good IF you don’t want to have to store them when you need the flat load space BUT it also means the seats are stupidly low the the floor and like sitting on a primary school chair at the kids pantomime….

Just ordered a new shape Skoda Siperb estate. It got my vote!

Best vehicle I ever had, my Touran, 54 plate 150,000 miles, recent 1500 mile jaunt to Germany and back. Issues? A new cam shaft and tappets at 70,000, two dual mass flywheels (and another just about to go), two sets of rear springs and dodgy pre-heater so not without faults. As a vehicle though, its got loads of cubby holes, 5 proper drinks holders and a massive boot. Had it since 2007, every year we say we are going to get rid but it is just so damned practical and it passes the MOT every time, first time. I would have another but Mrs Karlsbug wants a bigger tow car for her *cough*splutter* horse trailer.

Having looked at a couple of approved used GTI’s I’m not sure that I’d pay the privilege of an approved used VW. The salesman said that they’d been prepared by them etc but I thought they looked tatty. The previous 3 series I bought did go through a fair bit if prep work by BMW (refurbed alloys etc).

I quite like buying private (assuming that your not dropping huge amount of cash) because you can get a feel for how a car had been looked after etc.

Bought a Fabia Scout ( Estate version) 1,6 diesel new about two and and half years ago.

Really good car, loads of space, relatively cheap compared to VW.

Would buy another if I was doing highish mileage ( probably have a petrol engine these days).

Regards

Denis