A very boring what car (sorry) - Family car estate/MPV

[Teddye4687]

Morning all,

A colleague was involved in an accident recently and is now looking for a replacement car.

Criteria:

Budget £5k (no more)
5 Seats (7 preferred)
Estate/MPV
Reliable/Cheap to run

I've made a few suggestions, 3/5 series estates with FSH, VW estates, but hasn't appealed.

There's the more 'run of the mill' examples such as the Peugeot 307 SW (I've found a good example on ebay with FDSH, 1.6 Diesel, but has recently had a new flywheel and clutch (should she run a mile?) and there's known electrical faults (my ex had one). So this is cheap, but not really reliable.

Any help appreicated

[TheTurbonator]

Some of the earlier C4 Grand Picasso's are getting close to the 5 Grand mark now. I'd highly recommend one, as we've had one for over a year now.

[Teddye4687]

Pub talk led me to believe these were unreliable (probably none more-so than any other French car tbh)

Any demons to be made aware of? What're running costs like, 65k cambelt change?

[Rob P]

Mazda 5?

Petrol ones are down to £5k ish.

By all accounts a good steer and sliding rear doors are good for getting little ones in and out.

[TheTurbonator]

Teddye4687 said:

Pub talk led me to believe these were unreliable (probably none more-so than any other French car tbh)

Any demons to be made aware of? What're running costs like, 65k cambelt change?

Had ours for over a year now and is 4 years old from new, it's not given us one bit of bother. Think the cambelts aren't due to be changed until 100,000+ miles but will check my service booklet when home for you.

The early cars had terrible automatic gearbox problems, so like me I'd avoid one, I did my research and got a 1.8 manual. The Diesel's suffer the same DPF problems as they all do, so getting a Diesel depends on the circumstances.

[Bill]

How many miles do they do?

I'd avoid diesel unless it's fairly high because you get more petrol car for your money and (generally) there is less to go wrong. One big bill could wipe out any fuel savings.

We've just bought a petrol Mazda 6 estate on that basis and I'm very impressed with it.

[LuS1fer]

Loved our Mazda 5 1.8 TS2 though this seats 6 rather than 7 as the "seat bridge" in the second row isn't really big enough to qualiofy as a 7th seat. Focus C-Max elongated underneath.

[djfaulkner]

S-Max?

[AmitG]

Toyota Previa 2nd generation. 7 seats, plenty of petrol versions around if you don't fancy diesel, interesting styling, reasonable performance considering what it is, and they have a reputation for high reliability.

[Teddye4687]

Thanks for the responses so far

They'll be doing around 20 miles a day (school run, work, general pottering around) so a petrol is likely to be a better option

[TheTurbonator]

djfaulkner said:

S-Max?

You'd struggle to get one for £5,000 or less. They seem to hold their value a lot better than their rivals.

ETA: Just had a look at the service schedule for the C4 Grand Picasso and the cambelt is recommended to be changed at 100,000 miles for the petrol's and 150,000 for the Diesel's.

Also found you this link and thread from the Frenchbred section. Lots of information from myself and others about the C4 Grand Picasso.

Edited by TheTurbonator on Tuesday 4th September 13:46

[LuS1fer]

MPVs can make less sense than an estate.

We had a Mazda 5 and have 3 children so that meant one sitting at the back, isolating that child to some degree and putting 2 back there eats up luggage space. Even one rear seat takes a chunk out of the load space which is a problem if you have pushchairs or pets.

We changed to a Mk IV Mondeo as we can get 3 kids across the large rear seat and the boot is then huge for pushcahirs and bikes. An estate would be even bigger and possibly easier to reverse and see out of.

So try before you buy or you may regret it.

[RizzoTheRat]

Unless you really need the 7 seats you'll get a lot more choice, and therefore cheaper prices, with 5 seat estates. Should be plenty of Mondeo, Passat, Supurb etc in your price range. Watch out on the Mondeo's though, not sure what year they introduced ISOFIX but it was suprisingly recently for a mainstream manufactuer and I would assume an essential feature for you.