Suggested suitable family car for those in the know

eeinke

Wondering about replacing our 5 door 7 seater VW Touran Diesel?

Thinking of going up North to purchase.

I drive 75KM twice daily (to and from work) on the M50.

What would you suggest as a family car - that is used daily?

Thank you!

colm_mcm

Do you want something bigger?

eeinke

Not really - same size of 7 seats (could possibly reduce to 5 seats)

ourheritage

What is your price range?

eeinke

10K-15K roughly

evolving_doors

Renault grand scenic ... deprecation is high but they come cheap enough compared to ford max and vw's.
Picasso are also plenty.
Honda 5008 are rare and a bit pricier.

With that budget you could swing a 2014 ...
But i think you'd be heading into maintainance time in a year or so... timing belt, shocks,breaks, discs, tyres so get a mechanic to look at these. If it had stop start city driving there might be dpf issues.

Might be better off with a big saloon!

ourheritage

eeinke wrote: »

10K-15K roughly

Okay there are two very important things to consider here.

A. This car is going to be for family use.

B. You are going to be using it regularly on the M50.

With that I would choose a car that is known for reliability & is big solid and safe. The cars I would recommend would be a an Audi A4. An Audi A6. A Toyota Avensis. A Volkswagen Passat or a Volkswagen CC. All those cars can be found with a 2 litre diesel engine. You also may get a 2011/2013 Mercedes C class or a Mercedes E class for the 15000 mark but it would be a 2.2 litre diesel however the fact that it's also a safe car would sell to me.

kerten

I would go for citroen grand picasso with eat6 automatic gearbox for sake of dealing with m50 everyday and having a reliable automatic gearbox long term.

I guess 2.0 hdis got this gearbox earlier than 1.6 hdis so don't restrict engine size as 1.6s may not fall into your budget. They are both low emission/tax/vrt cars for what they are.

cros13

The new 40kWh Nissan eNV200 Evalia is due in Ireland in April. The old one was too limited in range (110-120km real world) but the new battery in April has double the usable capacity.
150km/day would have meant a 10 minutes rapid charge in the middle of the day or if the eNV200 was home for a few hours it could charge there.

The electric powertrain from the Leaf is used which makes it probably the best/easiest driving van-style 7-seater out there. As usual seats flip up for a big flat load area.

And of course electricity is 12 times cheaper than diesel and maintenance is practically non-existent.
About 5k above your budget but well worth the stretch as you'd make your money back on the running costs in ~2 years.

I've got a deposit down on the eNV200 panel van.

Comhrá

I drove a Seat Alhambra recently for two days and I was impressed with it's comfort and quietness. It was the 2.O TDI engine with the DSG transmission.

I didn't have a chance to test the economy but my first impressions were very good. Might be worth checking it out?

James Bond Junior

I'll give my standard response to these threads, the ford S max is a brilliant family car.

colm_mcm

For someone with a small 7 seater that’s 50:50 on needing the 2 extra seats though?

grogi

kerten wrote: »

I would go for citroen grand picasso with eat6 automatic gearbox for sake of dealing with m50 everyday and having a reliable automatic gearbox long term.

That is difficult. The EAT6 (AWF6F25 to be precise) was installed with the popular 1.6 HDI only from late 2015. One would need to find a much rarer 2.0 HDI with AWF6F45, which was installed from the beginning of second generation.

kerten wrote: »

I guess 2.0 hdis got this gearbox earlier than 1.6 hdis so don't restrict engine size as 1.6s may not fall into your budget. They are both low emission/tax/vrt cars for what they are.

As said - similar box, but not the same. Both sold under EAT6 umbrella.

kerten

grogi wrote: »

That is difficult. The EAT6 (AWF6F25 to be precise) was installed with the popular 1.6 HDI only from late 2015. One would need to find a much rarer 2.0 HDI with AWF6F45, which was installed from the beginning of second generation.



As said - similar box, but not the same. Both sold under EAT6 umbrella.

Didn't know they were different Aisin boxes. Good to know that. OP said he would go UK and 2.0 hdis are sold there more with low CO2 emissions.

Looking at autotrader listing below though, they look expensive for OP's budget with VRT etc.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-search?sort=price-asc&radius=1500&postcode=bt412ar&onesearchad=Used&onesearchad=Nearly%20New&onesearchad=New&make=CITROEN&model=GRAND%20C4%20PICASSO&year-from=2014&minimum-badge-engine-size=1.6&transmission=Automatic&keywords=eat6

eeinke

Thank you all for your opinions/advice