The indisputable greatest family & bike lugging car for £5k-£8k ?

If you can live with the looks of the Accord Estate, I’d say go with that (i dont mind it but it is a bit marmite). I’ve had my Honda (FRV) for 6 yrs now and it is without doubt the best car I’ve ever had (previously had mercs and BMW’s). The build quality is outstanding and, as above, the previous model is much bigger than the current one (which will be my next motor). My boss and 2 colleagues have the last model and they swear by them.

Double post 😳

Search for Mondeo Titanium Sport X estate. I hate Mondeos, but would have one of these.

All the toys, looks good, 2.2 tdci, 175bhp and £9-10k will get you a 58 plate with less than 70k on the clock.

you forget, piss awful electrics, touch screen systems that fail and cost around 2k to replace and the amazing ability to have a random fault (which supposedly has been fixed 5 times and ford have now given up) where the engine switches off on overrun, usually approaching corners and roundabouts taking the power steering and abs with it (which is fun coming off a motorway onto a service road 8O), hence my post earlier about dangerous fords, it’s being returned to ford and the rest of ours have been so bad the contact hire on all vehicles is being terminated early and cars returned.

if you absolutely have to have one go for a lower spec with less gadgets!

Mine was great until about 40-50k then all hell broke loose and it’s been a nightmare since.

The Mk4 Mondeo ‘Edge’ and ‘Zetec’ models have enough features without the gimmicks (who needs a touch-screen in a car?) and humongous wheels/rock hard ride of the higher spec models.

As always, faults are disproportionately represented on internet forums.

-People who are happy don’t generally comment about cars.

eg. I had a Mk3 TDCI Ghia X that was fine for the 4 years (50k-100k miles) I had it as a used car. Internet forums told me that it should have destroyed its flywheel, blown its turbo, had leaky injectors, a knackered fuel pump, dodgy electrics and done 35mpg on a good day costing me £1000s.

It did none of those things and did 46-55mpg depending upon the journey….

Of course, somebody else may have suffered all of those things.

Likewise, most people probably have no problems with their Passat.

M
X
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Are you mental?

Ok, I’ve test driven an Octavia vRS and despite a short 1st gear it was a lovely car, superbly built too. Finance permitting I think ill be going for it, or if I feel tight, ill go for the Mk4 Golf estate TDi 130 (and have it remapped possibly!) and aim to get 4 or 5 years out of it and drive it into the ground.

Hopefully in a couple of months, one of these will be mine…

Has anyone suggested the Audi A6 Avant yet?
Plenty around at the price point you’re looking at.
http://www.autotrader.co.uk
I’m looking at either an A6 for work/biking duties or an A5 quattro plus Landover for weekend playtime stuff. I had a play in an A4 last week and felt it was a bit too small for living with bikes. Nice car mind.

I had an 55 X-Trail as a company car for just over a year. It was fantastic and really versatile – no problem in the 30k I had it for. To get a flat load area you have to fold the rear seat bases forward before putting the backs down but no real chore.

It was also pretty capable off road. I was a bit wary about getting a “soft roader” until I saw one being driven down a rocky incline in Morroco.

When I changed jobs I lost my company car 🙁 and so bought a new S-Max. It is good to drive but the build quality is not great (handbrake broken, trim getting tatty) and appalling blindspot as mentioned before. Very practical for family holidays but I would not have another one.