Refusing to drive on a motorway/long distance in a Fiat 500?

You don't need a big engine to get up hills! You just need to be in the right gear.

I'm sure that for £2K you could get a car bigger than your Fiat. Have you tried looking around?

Also if your kids are now 4 and 17 months, they will be at nursery or school, so you should be able to work a reasonable number of hours if you're using free childcare hours.

You also need to pursue your ex for more money as he's slipped through the net somehow by being dishonest.

I remember going to the Lake District many, many years ago with my then boyfriend. His ancient VW Beetle did fine on both the Hardknott and Wrynose passes. Much to our surprise!

I've done those plenty of times even when I had my old 1.1!! Wrynose is more hairpin (ish) type bends on hills, I'd imagine most cars manage it. Definitely not a road for anxious drivers though 🤣

I've driven all over the Highlands, including up some pretty steep hills, in a small hatchback with a 900cc engine. All modern cars can cope with this stuff.

Penrith to Sleddale? Or Penrith to most places in the south to mid lakes. And with the added bonus of hills that you need a decent sized engine to get up!

Smaller cars can be more resistant to rollovers as they have a lower centre of gravity. They also can be more aerodynamic when there's a crosswind on a highway bridge

I've driven a Suzuki Alto and a Dacia Sandero up and down the country and it's been totally fine. Also driven my mum's Fiat Panda and her old Fiat 500. The Fiat 500 was probably the most reliable of the 4!

We found the Joie 360 fits in our sandero quite nicely. An alternative we looked into is the Graco Extend. Likewise there's some super compact prams out there and your toddler will be walking soon/you can swap to a stroller or a scooter or use a baby carrier instead.

I get that it's anger inducing having to research all of this because your ex left you high and dry, and that's really the crux of the problem here. But there are plenty of people in the UK with similarly small (or smaller) cars who have been able to make their setups work.

Have you read her posts?
she got her kids in a school near him so that’s why she makes the journey so much. It’s not down to him

Given OP is clearly a nervous driver, which car is she more likely to kill a pedestrian in due to the increased body size and weight?

It’s a perfectly suitable car, OP just wants an SUV. Plenty of people drive Fiat 500s on the motorway and rural roads and they have lived to tell the tale.

It's not an unsuitable car.

Exactly - drive sensibly on a UK motorway and your chance of having a hoffific accident is pretty much as close to zero as you'll get on any road in the world. But a few people seem to fixate on that, while being fine with driving on empirically less safe 'normal' roads where the oncoming lorries/vans/SUVs/whatever-it-is-that-has-them-shitting-their-knickers are separated from them by nothing but a white line. It makes no sense at all. Plus somebody upthread said about lorries 'zooming past' on the motorway - just what the hell are you doing for that to be able to happen?

She is safe! The motorway is also statistically safer than the city and rural driving

You don't want to drive to your ex's in your car, (or drive your car at all?), he's not going to buy you a bigger one, you can't buy yourself one, so you need to organise your life around minimal driving. Ditch the 20 min school run. Use a school that's walking distance to you. This will give you more wriggle room for work and finding childcare, if you're not tied to an hour and a half of school run per day. When ex has the kids he can do pick up and drop off in his fancy car.
Your new lifestyle isn't compatible with your views on driving, or being available to work, kids making local friends etc.
It must really sting being ejected from a better standard of living but you're young and can be successful in your own right, you don't need him to buy you a car, sod him.

I've worked in car insurance for many years, believe me, the vast majority of large loss claims involving death and life changing injuries happen on normal roads, not motorways.

But you are far more likely to be involved in an accident on a normal road and that accident is FAR more likely to be with a car travelling in the opposite direction or coming from a side road, making the collision far more dangerous and/or deadly. Motorways are safe.

I understand OP. I had a tiny little Micra when our first DD was born, while DH took the 'big' car for work. I refused to do any motorway driving in the Micra, it felt like driving a tin can, and with huge SUVs and lorries zooming past the car rattled and I felt incredibly unsafe. If someone had rear ended me at 80mph the whole thing would have crumpled like a concertina.

Your ex should be picking them up anyway, so the whole thing is irrelevant.

I'm really sorry but if you don't think that a man who bought a £90k car and left his ex-partner and the mother of his children with an unsuitable car is a worthless waste of oxygen, I assume you're either an incel or have some other kind of serious psychological issue.

I'm not a nervous driver but I think OP is NBU and if her ex had any decency (which he clearly does not) he would have bought a slightly less expensive fuck off twat tank and bought her a sensible car (i.e. a proper hatchback, an estate, basic SUV) so that she and HIS CHILDREN can be safe. Motorway driving is generally fine but unfortunately thick people who are bad drivers make it dangerous because bad drivers "feel safer" in great big cars (because they can't fucking drive). That makes it dangerous for the rest of us.

30 minutes is local from my perspective and a fiat 500 is a perfectly good car on motorways. I’ve done over 1000 miles this week on a motorbike on motorways so honestly a fiat500 is huge in comparison.

Absolutely.

Given a choice, there's no way I'd drive a Fiat 500, but that's simply because I think they look horrible, not because I have any qualms about their performance or safety. If I owned one, I'd happily drive it anywhere I needed to, because if it had tax, MOT and insurance, it would be perfectly safe to do so.

I certainly wouldn't chuck my toys out the pram and attempt to blackmail my ex.

OP has the car she has. The way her car seats fit doesn’t magically change because she’s driving up hills or the motorway.

I was taking about the hilly part.
Was in the Lake District with my foster parents and the daughter for 14 months while foster dad was working on a restoration project. 10 minutes out of town was practically wilderness and no phone signal covered between hills!
Both step dad and step mum had to use 4×4s to get around. There was even suggestion of getting walkie talkies as 3G signal wasn't reliable and weather could change in minutes. We were twenty or so minutes from a small town on a good weather day. That became 50 minutes in snow.
Obviously I don't know area OPs going to, but I can see her trepidation. If kids grandmother won't drive there, it sounds like it's steep up and downs.

Plenty of people use the motorway in very small cars (and motorbikes) so I don't think that's a good reason not to go. But he's moved further away so can't he pick kids up for contact?

He should meet you halfway at the very least as he was the one to move further away. Rationally, your car is safe if it's roadworthy, but if you aren't comfortable driving it on motorways, he shouldn't force you for his own convenience.