Car recommendations please - family of 4 & dog

[Walksallday]

Hi all,

Our car is on its last legs (astra estate) and we’re looking around for a replacement. I would much appreciate recommendations for cars as I can’t make up my mind what car to look for.

The estate we have is great for holidays and longer journeys. It’s a 2 L diesel so very heavy on motorways, which is lovely to drive to Scotland, France etc (we have grandparents in both countries so those are yearly trips).
However, we also live in a city and I’ve always found it too heavy to drive and feel guilty for driving a diesel car for smaller distances. We cycle to work, so it only gets driven for activities/groceries in town.

I’ll be glad to see the big beast go, but am not sure what to do next : a small car will not take us comfortably on our journeys, and the dog (sizeable labrador) will not fit. A large car is too big in town..

Recommendations for a medium car with a big boot which would fit 2 adults, 2 young teenagers (but soon to be old teenagers) and a dog. We also have a small trailer for camping trips, so needs to be able to pull something too...

We normally go for 3/4 year old cars below £10.000.....

Recommendations much appreciated !

Golf estate. I don’t have one but it was on my list a couple of years ago - but I have 2 sizeable Labradors and the older one likes his space.

Thanks - I like golf estates too but remember from last time we looked, there weren’t many around. I’ll definitely put it on the list though.

Zafira. Huge boot, we can get much more in than sister's Audi estate, nicer to drive than an estate and I like being higher up.

Not exactly a good looking car but I love it.

Ddog travels in the boot or if we are really packed up in between dts in a seatbelt.

Zafira
Myself and dh have 1 each. There's 6 at weekends and space enough Inc 2 car seats.
but most of time it's just me and 2 youngest. or Inc of us as older ones don't want to come.
Fit loads in boot when rear seats down..
I have 1.6 petrol.
DH has the 1.8 petrol.
Both good on fuel both mainly do town driving tbh

Cmax. Love mine. Smaller than most estates but good sized boot

Zafira sounds good too, I like the space it gives - however the Vauxhall we have now has not been the most reliable car and I’m reluctant to have another Vauxhall because of this. Probably a bit irrational but I’ve had to call the AA breakdown more in the past 4 years than in all my other driving years together so it puts me a bit off..

VW t-cross? It's like a polo suv- not diesel

The Tcross looks good, but a quick google search tells me they’re out of our price range unfortunately