What second hand car would you get?

[TOWGA]

So we need a new car, we need a estate (1 child but pregnant with second and a Labrador) we have a budget of £10,000 we like the look of either a Skoda Octavia, Seat Leon or a Toyota Auris Hybrid. Any suggestions on what's best? Been looking at a 2016/2017 models of all of them.

We had a Leon estate around that vintage. Was a nice car, reliable, well equipped, decent acceleration, felt “car like” to drive (I didn’t want an 4x4 or minivan style car) and fit a decent amount in it if you lifted the boot floor and used the spare wheel space. We could fit a moderately sized pram and enough stuff to go on self catering holiday for a week. We don’t have a dog though, I’m not sure if we’d have had enough space for eg a Labrador and a pram and much else in the boot. Once there’s two car seats in the back there’s not much space left for anything much on the backseat. As estate cars go it’s not huge (it’s Golf estate not Passat estate size - similar to Octavia vs Superb), which was perfect for us, but again, no dog.

Anything hybrid likely to have a smaller boot due to battery space, it’s why we discounted it.

We have an automatic Skoda Fabia Estate which I think is the size down from the Octavia estate. We got it a couple of years ago, at the time it was 1 year old and I think we paid 11k. Been very happy with it - huge boot, nice and roomy car, reliable and had no problems with it whatsoever, nice to drive. I think you get such great value from Skodas! No comments on the others as no experience but I suspect you might get a slightly newer car for your money with a Skoda.

Thank you! Looking at the boot spaces, the Leon has biggest at 587 litres, followed by the Skoda at 580 followed by the Toyota at 530! Just can't decide what's going to be best!

An ever-so-slightly larger option might be the Skoda Yeti? We have one and it can fit an eye-watering amount of stuff in it. Back seat comfortably fits two full car seats and a booster in the middle, and plenty of room to fit buggies and/or dogs in the back!

We had an Octavia for years. Very reliable, big and drove well.

£10k got me an immaculate 35000 mile Mercedes CLS from a private seller which has never had any trouble in 3 years of ownership, and does 40mpg.

Have you looked at them “in the flesh”? Driven any? It’s hard to decide just from specs - twice I’ve come close to buying a car that was on paper perfect and when I drove it I hated it. One didn’t accelerate and had terrible visibility and the other the seat just wasn’t comfortable. You can’t tell that kind of thing from the specs!

The Leon boot capacity probably includes the substantial “under floor” space. I didn’t mind this but it does mean you need to pack very carefully as anything under there is inaccessible unless you empty the boot. It’s also a very odd shape as it’s basically the space that should contain the spare wheel. I suspect in the Auris it’s where the batteries would go.

I’ve had my second-hand Octavia for nearly four years and I love it. Would definitely get another when this one needs replacing.

Thanks everyone, it's so hard atm, to buy a car! Our current car goes back on the 5th April so need one ideally for then! We need to ideally test drive both the Octavia and Leon, but it's hard in lockdown!