I found out today that our car needs ££££ repairs. The car is 14 years old, has started to have issues recently and I don't think it makes financial sense to pour more money into it.
DH was made redundant in September - he did get a decent payout but we can't put all of that into the new car as a) we need it to live off as my salary alone isn't enough and b) even if he finds another suitable job soon we'd like to use the leftover money on sexy stuff like fixing our leaking roof and refurbishing our single glazed painted shut windows.
Realistically we can afford to pay £15k. It won't be on finance; with only my salary and our existing mortgage/costs we'd never be approved for it anyway.
We currently have a Mercedes M-Class (the GLE predecessor) - big SUV basically. We take it abroad regularly, take it camping etc so we really need the big boot. DH doesn't drive and I have back problems + am tall so also need enough leg room (DD is also tall at 160cm and she isn't even 10 yet). Would like this car to last the next 5 years or so.
So - requirements:
MUST HAVES
automatic
good leg room (driver & passengers)
big boot
reliable
around 40mpg or better
PREFERABLE
ideally ULEZ compliant - whilst we don't live in London cities near here are starting to implement these schemes and as we want the car to last 5 years I need to future-proof the emissions requirements
cruise control
perks would be the snazzy stuff like leather seats, heated front windscreen
max about 7-8 years old
cd player (yes we still use CDs in the car in particular when abroad)
not fussed about built in sat nav (we have a very good tomtom, and realistically 7year old sat navs will be massively out of date)
Have been looking at Volvo XC60s but I'd like to hear people's recommendations! We had a Ford CMax before our current car and that had quite a bit go wrong with it so DH is very opposed to a Ford (otherwise I quite fancied a Galaxy for the amount of space that's on offer)